Title: Crowd Surf Off A Cliff (1/13)

Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany, side Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray

Rating: R/NC-17ish
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: Santana Lopez hates school, Lima, and those damn Cheerios--for the most part.
A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

Santana Lopez hates McKinley High.

She hates everything about it, from its pristine hallways to its wholly-unnecessary steel drum
band. She hates the purple curtains in the auditorium, the blistering green turf of the football field,
the glare reflecting off of rows and rows of metal lockers. She hates its teachers, from Will
Schuester and his dismally-optimistic dreams of a better world to Sue Sylvester and her glorified
god-like ego. She hates the way their football team never wins, and their basketball team never
cuts anyone, and their racquetball team exists.

More than anything, she hates those goddamn cheerleaders.

Boiled down, Santana Lopez really, really hates school.

Waking up on her first day of junior year, then, is not her favorite moment. She can hear the flurry
of activity outside her room, her brothers racing each other down the hall, her mother bellowing
after them, and to listen to it, one would think one or all three are on the verge of breaking their
necks. It’s not the world’s loveliest wake-up call. Groaning, she drags the blankets tighter around
her head.

“Santana!” Her mother is in the doorway, eyebrows drawn in annoyance. “Get out of bed, lazy
girl.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Santana calls back, muffled by the comforter, “maybe I’ll just skip this year.
Take a load off, maybe backpack across Europe. Never too early for some quality life
experiences.”

Her mother snorts and thumps the door with one hand; Santana hears her shoes clicking across
the floorboards as she moves down the hall. She sighs.

Told Fabray she wouldn’t buy that shit.

Thankfully, as the only girl in a family of four, she’s got her own bathroom. Within twenty minutes,
she has showered and thrown on a mostly-clean pair of jeans and an acid-wash Styx t-shirt. She
is lacing up a battered pair of Converse high tops when her mother reappears, frowning.

“That is your first-impression outfit?”

First-impression outfits. Her mother has this crazy-ass idea that, somehow, putting on a button-up
blouse and a nice skirt might do Santana a world of personality-altering good. It’s almost cute,
when she tunes out the sheerly inane elements of such a philosophy.

“I’ve been dealing with the same freaks for ten years,” Santana drawls, scowling when one lace
twists the wrong direction. “Pardon my not giving a singular shit about changing their opinions of
me.”

“Language, mija,” the woman reminds her wearily, rubbing her forehead. “Fine. Do what you
want. Just…try to avoid detention on the first day, all right? For old time’s sake?”
Santana wants to ask which “old time” her mother is recalling, since her memories are chock-full
of mischief galore, but she’s pretty sure the poor woman is edging on a migraine as it is. She
settles for smiling winningly, amused when her mother throws her hands into the air and shakes
her head.

“You’ll be my death, dear,” the older woman mumbles. Santana chuckles.

“I’d put money on Tonio for that. At least I don’t have an ‘artist’s appreciation’ for fire.”

She half-expects a cuff over the head for that one, but all her mother shouts back is, “Quinn’s
here. Get out of my house and learn something.”

Rolling her eyes, Santana straightens up, grabs the woebegone satchel on her desk, and bounds
down the stairs. Sure enough, Quinn Fabray is waiting in her driveway, piece-of-shit blue Chevy
and all. Santana slips into the passenger seat, punching her best friend’s shoulder
companionably.

“Mornin’, Blondie.”

Quinn’s mouth pulls into an annoyed grimace. “Quit hitting me. Mom’s been wondering about the
bruises.”

“Wimp,” Santana responds, almost affectionately, thumping the girl again with a gentle fist.
Glowering, Quinn swipes blindly back, eyes locked on the road.

“I’m driving, you ass. Would you like this to be your last day on earth?”

“Depends,” Santana muses. “Would that mean skipping first-period Geometry? I fuckin’ hate
triangles.”

“At least you don’t have Spanish this year,” Quinn grumbles. “Schuester won’t get off my ass
about tutoring. He seems to think I’m going to be able to somehow get through his Golden Boy’s
potato head. Which is completely impossible, Hudson’s got all the intellectual finesse of a croquet
mallet. He still thinks Taco Bell is the pinnacle of Spanish culture.”

Santana makes a sound of acknowledgement, as if she actually cares, hauling her knees up to
her chest and planting both sneakers on the marred dashboard. Out the window, Lima rifles by
with all the pizazz of roadkill. It’s days like these—this one and every other she can remember—
that make her want to hop a bus with twenty bucks in one pocket and her iPod in the other, never
to look back.

“I want out,” she says, leaning her head against the cracked window. Quinn slides an easy glance
her way, knowing her exactly too well to question the non-sequitor.

“We’ll get there,” she replies confidently, drumming long fingers on the steering wheel and just
missing a suicidal squirrel. Santana frowns.

“I want out today.”

“Well,” Quinn says calmly, “you’ll just have to be patient, won’t you? Punch Puckerman a few
times in the gnads, it’ll make you feel better.”

Despite herself, Santana brightens. “Always does.”

They turn into the furthest parking space from the door, because Quinn refuses to park outside of
BFE—she claims it gives her a sense of mystique, but Santana knows it’s secretly because
Quinn failed the parking portion of her exam three times and is anxious about hitting other cars on
the way in—and clamber ungracefully out. It takes Santana thirty seconds to fumble out of her
seatbelt and escape.

“Your car is a goddamn death trap,” Santana observes, as she always does, and like always,
Quinn rolls her eyes.

“You wanna pick up a job and buy something that’ll run on more than two wheels and a chain,
you can say whatever you like. Until then, shut the fuck up about my car. Betty is perfection.”

“Betty hates me,” Santana retorts. Quinn’s pretty face splits into a grin.

“Like I said. Perfection.”

She dodges Santana’s dive for her throat, laughing and adjusting the white t-shirt under her black
zip-up, and looks towards the looming building with obvious disinterest. “Two more years.”

Sobering, Santana runs uneasy fingers through her hair. “Yeah.”

Quinn claps a hand on her shoulder. “Piece of cake. Come on. I want to see if I can find Rachel
before class.”

“Stalking is so an attractive quality,” Santana snips. Quinn shrugs.

“She wants me. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Mmkay, that’s called creeping, Fabray. You should check that book out from the library, give it a
good read. I think you’ll find yourself a heavily featured character.”

Quinn shoves her, then stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans and sets off for the school.
“Look, just because you have a heart of stone doesn’t mean we all have. Some of us are looking
for a relationship.”

“Read: sex,” Santana snarks. Quinn’s shoulder collides heavily with her own.

“Relationship. Look into it. It’s that thing that happens when two people actually give a shit about
each other.”

“And then hump like bunnies,” Santana fills in brightly, because it is too much fun watching
Quinn’s face turn that shade of purple. The blonde girl growls until Santana extends both hands in
a peaceful gesture. “Sorry, sorry. Right. Just because you want to throw Berry’s midget frame
over your only-slightly-less midgety shoulder and take her off to fuck in the Batcave doesn’t mean
you don’t care. Deeply. And disgustingly. For her annoying-ass personality.”

This really is the best part of her day, aside from kicking Puck in his man-bits, because as much
as she loves Quinn—the girl’s a lunatic and listens to way too much indie bullshit, but she is her
best friend—someone has to step in and tone down her sick love of all things Berry. Rachel’s nice
and all, and not awful-looking, in a big-mouthed, someone-call-an-exorcist sort of way, but she’s
not anyone to moon over. Which is what Quinn has been doing for the better part of six years. It
kind of makes Santana feel ill, because Quinn is too smart for lame crushes. This should have
died out when they were eleven and Rachel discovered the wonders of argyle, but unfortunately,
Quinn’s kryptonite—mini-skirts—came into the picture at the exact same time, and well…

Downhill explosion from there.

So here they are—and have been for several years longer than Santana believes is entirely
necessary: Quinn, lapping at the heels of some straight-ass, tight-ass chick who would rather sing
a Celine Dion medley than get down and dirty, and Santana, racing alongside her, just close
enough to grab her by her hood every now and again and yank her bodily backwards into sanity.
Like a dog with a leash.

Sometimes, Santana really doesn’t want to know how she got to this place.

They reach the main hallway, and sure enough, Quinn’s head rotates immediately. She arches up
on the toes of her sneakers, angling to see over throngs of melancholy teenagers, and Santana
has to remind herself that it is still too early in the day for extreme bodily violence. Which doesn’t
mean she can’t glare like her life depends upon it.

“Q,” she growls, reaching out to snag the back of the blonde’s hoodie. “Q. Seriously, cut this shit
out. God, how have you gone this long without starting your day with an icebath?”

“Think it has something to do with every rational person in this school being petrified of my best
friend,” the girl replies absently, swinging around. “Do you think she’s got the same locker?”

“What, you mean the one three down from yours? The one she’s been assigned for two years?”
Santana’s getting annoyed now. “Gee, I think that might be a distinct possibility.”

Catching on, Quinn stops vulturing for a second, places her hands on her hips, and narrows her
eyes. “Don’t be a bitch,” she snaps, which sounds pretty rich coming from a girl who tends to hate
on just about everyone she meets. “I’m allowed to have this thing, okay? Just one thing. It makes
me happy.”

“It makes you crazy,” Santana corrects. “Crazy, and sometimes emo and obnoxious, and
seriously, Fabray. It’s Rachel fucking Berry. Move on already. She’s not interested.”

Quinn’s expression goes soft around the edges in a way that makes Santana solidly
uncomfortable. “You don’t know that.”

Santana shifts, gripping the strap of her bag unconsciously. “No,” she admits after a second. “But
you don’t know either. You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Quinn. It makes you fucking
miserable, and it’s pathetic, because then I get miserable. So let’s make a pact or something,
okay? This year? How about you stop staring and moping and masturbating—“ (Quinn winces)
“—and actually do something about it? For the sake of all of us.”

“All of us” only really entails Santana, Quinn, and sometimes Puck, who joins up with them in
between sexual conquests, but the point still stands. It’s time, and if Fabray isn’t going to man up,
Santana will just have to do it for her the only way she knows how: with brute force.

Quinn’s jaw has gone rigid. In a rare moment of snark-less affection, Santana touches her
shoulder.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” she asks softly, giving the girl a small shake. Quinn licks
her lips.

“She could sic the full force of the American Civil Liberties Union on me. Or punch me in the
face.”

Santana laughs. “Give me a break, Fabray. If she so much as pokes you the wrong way, I’ll drop
kick her down the stairs. She’s all of the size of a football anyway.”

Quinn cracks a smile. “Fair enough.”

Smirking, Santana tosses an arm over her friend’s shoulder as they pick up their slow trek down
the hall once more. “So it’s settled. You’re going to stop being an enormous pussy and hopefully
get the girl, and I’m going to stop hearing about it. Maybe this year won’t suck so much after all.”

One perfectly-groomed eyebrow arches. “You do realize, if this all works out and Rachel and I
start dating, you’re going to be stuck hearing even more about it, right? And seeing it? You do
know that’s how this works.”

The blood slowly drains from Santana’s face. “Fuck.”

It’s enough to make Quinn laugh, jostling the Latina happily. “Great! Okay, your turn.”

“Sorry?” Santana fires back, mentally churning over the image of Quinn and Rachel becoming
Quinn-and-Rachel, forever in her line of vision. Ew.

“I’ve got a goal for the year,” Quinn replies impatiently. “Your turn to pick something. Oh come on,
Santana,” she adds when the girl pulls a vile face. “You need one. More than me, even. You’re
like, ten seconds from dropping out, and I can’t pay for a Manhattan apartment on my own on a
college student’s salary. You have to stick with me here.”

“I don’t need a goal,” Santana grouses, kicking out at an empty Gatorade bottle and sending it
sailing down the hall. “I’m peachy keen. No worries.”

“Fuck that,” Quinn says primly. “Find something. It’s only fair; we’re making a pact here, and your
side can’t just be ‘watching Quinn work’. That’s some over-easy bullshit.”

“I don’t think—,” Santana begins, mind working furiously for a legitimate argument, just before she
collides heavily with something tall and soft.

It’s strange, partially because Santana’s usually too graceful to go plowing into people at random,
but more so because she can’t remember the last time an indescriminate student had the gall to
come within twelve feet of her at school. People know her just well enough to brand her a deadly
mystery; they couldn’t tell her favorite color from her favorite brand of shoes, but they all know
what happens to bitches who step to Santana Lopez. She’s heard the rumors and even
laughingly spread a few herself (that she carries a small blade in her left high-top is a personal
favorite), because school sucks a little less with everyone living in a blind state of fear.

So this? Having some chick run smack into her on the first fucking day? Weird.

So weird, in fact, that Santana can’t seem to find the words to describe it. She stares at the
individual in question, a young woman with golden hair standing a couple of inches taller than
Santana herself, baffled. The girl is new, obviously—you’d have to be, to play chicken with
Santana—and wildly pretty. Stunningly so.

She is also clad in one of those goddamned Cheerio uniforms.

Santana feels her lip curl. “Watch it.”

Quinn’s hand settles on her shoulder, restraining a fight Santana’s not sure she even feels like
starting. She’s a Cheerio, clearly, but the girl doesn’t look like she’s interested in duking it out. Her
eyes are huge and blue and horrified, and even though she’s dressed to the nines like every
other cheer-based drone, there is something missing in her attractive face.

Arrogance, Santana decides. She lacks that self-important vibe Sylvester seems to hand-pick her
girls for. Instead, she looks apologetic and nervous, like she honestly believes she has hurt
Santana and could not be more regretful about it. It’s almost intriguing, that someone as sweet-
looking as this could end up on that squad of airheaded terrorists.

“Sorry,” the girl says, reaching out a hand, and Santana realizes with a start that this ridiculously
lovely thing is actually intending to touch her. She steps away instinctively, just out of range, and
tucks her thumbs into her back pockets.

“It’s fine,” she replies, unsure as she said it if she’s even speaking the truth. “Just…watch it.
There are worse people to ram into.”

“Not true,” she hears Quinn murmur behind her. She opts to ignore it.

The blonde nods almost frantically, clasping her hands across the front of her skirt. “I’m sorry,”
she says again, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. “It’s just, I’m new, and I don’t know where
I’m going, and I’m really bad with directions, so—“

“Hey.” A Cheerio—Santana thinks her name might be Mallory, though she couldn’t care less,
because all Cheerios have looked the same to her since the first day at McKinley—grinds to a
halt at the new girl’s side and grasps her by the elbow. “What are you doing?”

Confused, the girl tilts her head in Santana’s direction. “I walked into her, so I was saying sorry,
because—“

“Whatever.” Mallory-or-whatever performs an eyeroll almost epic enough to invoke Santana’s

envy. “I’ll cut you some slack just this once, but for the record? It’s crucial to know your riffraff.
These delinquents are below us. Steer clear.”

“Bite me, cheer-bitch,” Santana sneers. The new girl’s eyes expand even wider. Mallory-or-
whatever sniffs.

“I’d watch my step if I were you, Lopez. You may be a psychopath and everything, but we own
this school. Never forget that.”

The Cheerio’s smirk is just haughty enough for Santana to rationalize smacking it right off her
face; Quinn’s hand tightens on her shoulder.

She sucks in a breath, counts to twenty, pictures exactly what Sue Sylvester would do to her
body if she actually attacked one of those damnable red skirts.

It’s enough to take her rage down a few notches. By the time she can see straight again, the new
girl is being led away by the arm, glancing worriedly over her shoulder as she does and mouthing,
“Sorry” again.

Santana grits her teeth, waiting until both girls are out of sight, then slams an open palm as hard
as she can into a locker. A freshman boy jolts in surprise and darts away. Wise instincts.

“Well,” Quinn drawls behind her, “that was bracing.”

“I fucking hate those bitches,” Santana snarls, teeth clenching around each word.

“New girl seems okay,” Quinn notes with a shrug, shifting her backpack higher onto one shoulder.
“Sweet, even.”

“She’s just pretty,” Santana grumbles. “Pretty bitches are the worst.”

It doesn’t take a moment for her to decide she does not like the arch way Quinn is looking at her.
“What?”

“I think we’ve found your side of the bargain,” Quinn says brazenly, taking hold of Santana’s
crooked elbow and dragging her towards the mathematics wing. The Latina jerks free, irritated.

“Come again?”

“The girl. The ‘pretty bitch’. I saw the way you were gawking.” Quinn grins. “You like her.”

“Okay, A: not true. I only just met the chick, and she ran her ass right into me.” Santana flicks up
a second finger to join the first. “And B: she’s a goddamn Cheerio. Spawn of Satan, minons of…
well, Satan. Even if I did think she was smokin’ hot—which, yeah, okay, I’ve got eyes—I wouldn’t
touch that with a ten-foot fuckin’ pole.”

Quinn shakes her hair back with a maddening air of superiority, and Santana wonders fleetingly
why she keeps the girl around in the first place. “Whatever. You like her.”

“What’s your fucking proof?” Santana demands, rushing to catch up. Quinn wiggles her
eyebrows.

“You didn’t punch her when she plowed into you.”

“So I’m practicing a little self-restraint. It’s called growing up, Fabray. You should try it sometime.”

“Didn’t look so much like you wanted to restrain yourself with Mallory,” Quinn points out.
Santana’s fists tighten.

“I’m gonna quit restraining myself with you if you don’t cut this shit out,” she threatens half-
heartedly. The blonde laughs.

“A deal’s a deal, Lopez. I go after Rachel. You go after New Hottie. Neither of us go dropping out
of school or committing pathetic emo suicide. Sounds like a plan to me.”

“You’re insane,” Santana proclaims, gaping at the other girl. “You know that.”

“And you can’t resist a challenge,” Quinn jibes back. “Come on. Tell me with a straight face you
don’t want in that tiny red skirt.”

“It’s a skirt from Hell,” Santana growls, but she lowers her eyes all the same, annoyed with how
easily the blonde can read her after so many years. She doesn’t like New Hottie—she doesn’t
even know her fucking name, how can she like her? There’s nothing to like. But attraction? Sure,
there’s something there. Santana’s always been a sucker for a pair of baby blues.

“Whatever,” she says at last, grudgingly. “I’ll bite. But only because this town is too fucking boring
not to. And Fabray, I swear to your God, when she turns out to be a vapid, tempestuous little
bitch like the rest of them, it’ll be your pretty little white ass I come after.”

Quinn is too busy letting out a triumphant whoop as she bolts towards the Spanish room to
respond. Gritting her teeth, Santana drags her feet all the way to her own class.

This year is going to fucking blow.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

Three days go by without seeing New Hottie again (she really does have to figure out the chick’s
name, if she’s going to play Fabray’s mindless little game; Santana’s kind of a traditionalist that
way, when it comes to stalking beautiful women without their knowledge or consent). She tries
not to think too much about it, reminding herself time and time again that she isn’t actually
interested.

In the meantime, she’s pretty well distracted by Quinn’s side of the fence, which lately seems to
be peppered even more with blathering about stupid little Rachel Berry than usual.

It’s been three days, and already Santana is mentally stocking up on duct tape.

“Fabray, shut up,” she groans, throwing back her head and staring mournfully into a never-ending
blue sky. They’re sitting outside the school, Santana with the backs of her arms resting on a
picnic table, Quinn cross-legged on the table’s top, soaking up the sunshine. It should be a place
of peace and tranquility, but all Quinn can talk about is the skirt Rachel wore today and exactly
how many inches of “perfect, God-verifying leg” blessed her field of vision. Santana wants to
vomit.

“Like you didn’t notice,” Quinn scoffs, making it even worse because, for some reason, the blonde
cannot fathom a world in which not everyone wants in Berry’s likely-grandmotherly panties.
Santana reaches back, blindly, and smacks the girl’s calf with as much force as she can muster.

“I didn’t. Because, frankly, I would rather roll that girl in bubble wrap and ship her to Timbuktu in
the world’s largest cardboard box than check out her stubby-ass legs.” That last part is not
entirely accurate; Rachel actually does have freakishly attractive legs, but the moment Santana
admits such a travesty out loud, she’s confident the ground will gnash open and swallow her
whole. Best to stay safe and avoid that nonsense.

Luckily, Quinn is ignoring her, probably lost in daydreams of all kinds of perverse RuPaul-related
activities. Santana doesn’t care so much, as long as she doesn’t have to listen to any of it; it
affords her the chance to nudge her aviators up her nose and enjoy the sun toasting her skin.

Three days isn’t all that long, but it certainly has been enough time to remind Santana exactly
why she dreams nightly of fleeing this town on a midnight-running transit. Between Sue Sylvester
performing her hourly dinosaur stomp down the halls, Principal Figgins’ masterfully-pathetic bids
for authority over the PA system, and that look Ms. Pillsbury gets every time she spots Santana—
like she wants to save her soul and give her an acid bath at the same time to cleanse her of all
possible traumas—Santana is already just about done.

She hates to admit it, but the only thing keeping her from faking the flu is the idea that Quinn
might actually fling whatever potential shot at lesbo-joy with Berry she’s got out a window without
the Latina around to stop the train wreck. It’s not that Santana believes Quinn is stupid—she just
knows the girl gets a little too over-zealous sometimes.

Especially where Berry is concerned.

Santana sighs.

“So how’s your thing going?” Quinn asks, doing a pretty impressive job of feigning interest. If not
for the way she’s reclining on her hands, head tilted back and eyes closed, Santana might
actually think the other girl is up for a conversation.

“I have nothing to go,” Santana reminds her anyway, doubtful though she is of Quinn’s attention.

“Sure you do,” the girl responds absently, twisting her fingers through the blue mesh of the
tabletop. “Whatshernuts. Cheery Blue Eyes. You talk to her yet?”

It’s a stupid question—which, knowing Quinn, only means it isn’t a question at all. Rather, it’s
supposed to serve as a manipulatory reminder, letting Santana know that, despite having been
left alone for a few days, she isn’t off the hook.

It annoys Santana exactly as much as it’s meant to.

“If I had talked to her,” she grumbles, “I wouldn’t be talking to your ass about it.”

This seems to get Quinn’s attention, at least. “Why not?” she demands, straightening up and
shifting her own sunglasses down until hazel eyes are able to bore relentlessly into the side of
Santana’s head. “I tell you everything about Rachel.”

“Yeah,” Santana deadpans, barely glancing over. “Everything. It’s fucking gross, Q. The day I
start heaving glitter all over your shoes, feel free to smack me with a hammer.”

“Oh, I’m not that awful,” Quinn gripes back, thwapping Santana over the head.

“Trust me, Fabray, you are that awful and beyond.” Grinning, Santana nudges back into Quinn’s
open hand. “You’ve practically been Pucking me lately.”

It’s exactly the worst comparison she could have made. Puck spends the majority of his time with
them leering over every lewd and vile detail of his latest conquests, until both girls can do nothing
more than subtly slip headphones into their ears and nod often. It’s not the only reason Santana
beats on him, but she thinks it's a valid enough cause for the well-deserved swift kicks he
recieves to the ass (and other locations) on a weekly basis.

Sometimes, she wonders why he even hangs out with them. Santana’s abusive and Quinn’s just
a bitch; she knows the guy prides himself on having two “lesbros”, but really, even mohawked
jackasses should have more self-respect than that.

At any rate, she can tell without looking that Quinn is insulted. Feeling more than a little proud of
herself, she slouches down further and gazes carelessly across the quad.

Fifty feet away, doing a mad impression of an ant colony, Sylvester’s horde of cheer-bitches are
running drills on the football field. From this far off, Santana can’t discern one uniform from
another, which is by far the way she likes it. Unceasingly aggravated by her inability to touch even
one member of the hive, she finds it’s easier to take them in as a singular entity. It makes her feel
less hopeless, less like a failure, because when they band together into a giant Terminator of
school spirit, she thinks no one could hope to take them down. Not even the most badass chick in
Ohio. Not alone, anyway, and it’s not like she can depend upon Quinn and her puppy-love or
Puck and his reality-retardant libido to help her out. They’re sort of badasses too—in a lame,
apathetic kind of way—but they actually accept the status quo as it currently stands, shrugging it
off and moving on the way Santana intellectually understands she should do, and that makes
them completely useless.

So she prefers to look at it this way: even superheroes can’t destroy gods, and as sick as it might
make her, the Cheerios construct McKinley’s entire pantheon. Sue Sylvester is their Zeus,
thunderbolts and raging inability to jot down consequences and all. There is no defeating them,
not until the moon turns purple and the earth begins to rotate steadily backwards.

Santana’s biding her time for that day. Pending that occurrence, she’ll have to settle for nuclear-
caliber scowls and flipping the bird until premature arthritis sets in.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Quinn sing-songs, apparently already over the Puck comment. Santana
rolls her eyes.

“Plotting Sylvester’s demise. What do you think would have a better chance, silver bullets or a
bazooka?”

Quinn’s legs thunk down beside her seconds before the blonde slips off the table and onto the
bench. “Bazooka, definitely. The woman made a deal with the devil; might not mean she’s
indestructible. Bitty bits are still bitty bits, soul or no.”

“I respect your eloquence,” Santana replies soberly, smirking when Quinn’s shoulder rams into
her own.

“But seriously,” the fairer girl presses after a moment. “You really haven’t talked to the hottie with
the legs yet?”

“What is it with you and legs?” Santana demands. “I’d see somebody about that if I were you.”

“No, you’d just load up on thigh-and-calf porn,” Quinn says cheerfully. “Quit playing me off.
What’s the deal?”

Exhaling noisily, Santana plucks the sunglasses off the other girl’s face and tosses them
obnoxiously into the grass. “There is no deal. Just because you’ve got some fucked-up idea of a
pact doesn’t mean I actually need your coping mechanisms. The girl’s got some junk in her trunk.
Good for her. I still don’t know her name, and I still don’t care. I’m not you, Fabray. I don’t need
some chick to validate my existence at this school.”

Quinn goes quiet for a moment, then asks in a strangely soft tone, “Then what do you need?”

Leaning back again, Santana shrugs. “An early diploma? Full ride out of Nowheresville, USA? A
fucking break from the assholes and jerkoffs who constantly stare at me like I’m some kind of
bisexual miscreant?”

“You are a bisexual miscreant,” Quinn reminds her, as only a best friend can. “Except mostly for
the bisexual part. Having a crush on Alex Hoffman in the third grade doesn’t count, you know.”

Santana rolls her eyes. “Fine, I’m a miscreant. I’m just saying, it takes one to know one, bitch.”

“You’re the one who eggs the cars and swipes the janitor’s keys,” Quinn points out. “I just tag
along to keep your Spanish ass out of jail. Don’t go sticking me with your delinquent brand,
Lopez.”

Santana would smack her, she really, really would, except she is distracted at the last moment
(literally; her hand is in the air, fingers spread for optimum aerodynamic what-the-fuck-ever, it’s
not like Santana pays attention in Physics) by the shadow rolling slowly over them both. She
looks away at the least opportune moment, just in time for Quinn to dodge the slap and wrap an
arm around the darker girl’s throat. Santana squirms indignantly, equal parts displeased and
stuck.

“No fair headlocking,” she complains, trying ineffectually to punch at Quinn. “Get off, you ass.”

Quinn, however, seems to have gone temporarily stupid. Her forearm remains rigid, clenched
tight around Santana’s neck, but the rest of her is completely disengaged, distracted by the girl
standing before them both with her hands on her hips.

“Why do you have Santana in a headlock?” Rachel Berry asks curiously, brown hair falling into
dark eyes, and shit, Quinn has been petrified. Fucking great. Santana wriggles, lashing out with
an elbow until she collides with Quinn’s kneecap.

“Because she’s a whore,” the Latina explains, wrenching free the second Quinn goes slack.
Rachel’s nose wrinkles.

“She’s the president of the Celibacy Club,” she points out, as if it makes a difference. Santana
knows all too well that Quinn’s only in that group because it’s a solid excuse not to play with boys.
Clearly, Berry hasn’t gotten the memo.

“Still a whore,” Santana settles for grumbling. “Of the bitchtastic variety.”

Stupefied, Quinn says nothing. Rachel, naturally, takes it upon herself to berate Santana’s
vernacular, stiffly mumbling something about disproportionate, hostile behavior doing damage to
otherwise glowing relationships. Santana isn’t really listening; her mind is better occupied plotting
ways to burn Berry’s unicorn-stamped sweatshirt.

She tunes back in only when Quinn manages to jerk free of her lust-induced stupor long enough
to breathe, “Hi, Rachel.”

The tiny brunette arches an eyebrow, probably because she’s been standing there yapping for all
of five minutes now and Quinn has only just acknowledged her presence.

“Hello, Quinn,” she replies pointedly. “Has your rough-housing cut off access to your manners?”

It’s such a Berry thing to say, overflowing with smug self-importance, and Santana kind of wants
to jab the girl with a stick for it. Quinn, of course, grins.

“Have you ever put someone in a headlock before? It can be a very distracting kind of fun.”

Santana whips around to stare at the blonde, because, ew, way to make it sound dirtier than it
was. Rachel smiles her obnoxious “I know everything” smile.

“I’m a pacifist, Quinn. I don’t do—“

“Fun?” Santana pipes up brightly, shutting up when Quinn’s hand discreetly connects with the
back of her head. Rachel sniffs.

“Violence, Santana. Something you are all too appreciative of, I understand.”

Santana’s fingers clutch against her own jeans, torn between the temptation to smack down any
bitch with the stones to challenge her and the understanding that Quinn will not tolerate her
marring Berry’s massive nasal structure.

“So, Rachel!” Quinn cuts in, warningly yanking on a few stray locks of black hair when Santana
leans ominously forward. “What keeps you around so long after school?”

It’s a question that would be better directed at the two of them, Santana thinks, since Berry is
involved in just about every after-school activity in Figgins’ playbook (barring, of course, the
athletics; Rachel Berry is a teacher’s pet and a hell of an overachiever, but Mia Hamm, she ain’t).
It’s actually kind of dangerous; now that the inquiry is on the air, they’ll probably have to sit
through a long-winded diatribe on the importance of the Equality For Inter-sexed German
Students Club or some shit. Santana bites her tongue.

Shockingly, Rachel does little more than shrug and calmly say, “Glee practice. I meet with Mr.
Schuester for one-on-one time once a week, so he can better assess which songs would suit my
vocal stylings.”

Santana’s eyes widen. She can practically hear the rusty little gears pistoning away in Quinn’s
head, and no, no, no, that is not okay. It isn’t that she has anything against music—Christ knows,
she’s assembled a mental playlist for every occasion—but Gleeks fall even lower on the shoddily-
carved McKinley totem pole than burnouts and psychopaths. Santana might not give a singular
shit about her reputation, but even she isn’t disconnected enough for Will Schuester’s merry band
of underdogs.

Her ability to telepathically control Quinn’s body seems to be short-circuiting today, however. No
sooner than Santana realizes what is about to happen, the blonde girl’s mouth unhinges and out
pours their damnation.

“Sounds like a lot of fun. Are you guys still looking for members?”

Sharp teeth click down again on a tender tongue. She’s going to start bleeding soon if she keeps
this method up.

Rachel, for her part, lights up like a fucking beacon. “Yes! We need twelve members to compete,
and we’re short a small handful. I don’t suppose you’d like to…”

She trails off, nudging the toe of one hideous flat into the grass hopefully, and Quinn practically
leaps off the table in excitement.

“Absolutely. It’s just, like, singing and stuff, right? I can sing. Totally.”

Rachel looks like she’s ready to burst off this mortal coil and do laps around the stars. The force
of Quinn’s smile might actually make her face explode.

Santana wants to kill them both.

“Santana’s got a pretty good voice too,” she hears Quinn add, and oh Jesus, now she’s really
going to jail, because she’s pretty sure justifiable homicide does not extend to the murder of thy
best friend in times of rep-crushing crisis.

“Nope,” the Latina says firmly. “Can’t carry a tune in the slightest. Sorry.”

Quinn’s glare threatens to dismember every inch of their friendship, starting with the spread of
Santana’s secrets and culminating in a horrendously brutal mutilation of her body during fifth
period gym class. Despite herself, Santana swallows hard.

“I mean…public vocalization isn’t really my vibe.”

“She’ll do it,” Quinn interrupts rudely, fingers clenching around the back of Santana’s neck as
discreetly as possible. Rachel seems unconvinced.

“You sure?” she asks nervously, giant brown puppy eyes locked with a death grip on Santana’s. “I
would hate to pressure you into something you’re uncomfortable with…”

“She’s sure,” Quinn replies firmly, smiling with every square inch of gleaming white tooth in her
mouth. Santana would respond, if not for the misfortune of Quinn having found a pressure point
beneath her skin and bearing down upon it. The most she can do is squeak in reply. Rachel
seems to take this as an affirmative.

“Wonderful!” the little diva chirps happily, clapping her hands together and staring up at Quinn like
the blonde is her own personal Jesus Christ: Superstar. Santana can’t decide if it would be more
satisfying to puke first and kill later, or reverse.

Quinn waits until the object of her hideously-irrational affections has flounced away, having
instructed them both to show up on Thursday at three-thirty. Finally, just as Santana is beginning
to wonder if a person can be paralyzed from Vulcan Death Grip alone, the blonde’s hand
unlatches and returns to its holster in Quinn’s pocket.

“Look, I know what you’re going to say—“

“Does it involve the words ‘no’, ‘fucking’, and ‘way’?” Santana asks sweetly, rubbing the
tenderized skin under her hair. “Because, seriously, Romeo, this is just fucking unacceptable.
You are whoring me out to nerds.”

“Okay, I get where you’re coming from,” Quinn shoots back helplessly, rushing to sit again beside
her friend. “But you told me this was the year I had to go for it. I’m going for it. Music is Rachel’s
life, and once she sees I’ve got some talent in that area, she’ll totally fall.” She pauses, worrying
her lower lip with her teeth. “I’m only doing what you told me to.”

“I told you to get the girl,” Santana corrects. “Not drag my ass into it. In fact, I think I expressly
mentioned the part about leaving me out of your shit. Didn’t I?”

“Yeah, okay, fair point.” Quinn looks desperate. It would almost be kind of heart-breaking, if not
for Santana’s mind-numbing rage. “But come on, Lopez. I can’t do this alone. You know me, you
know what I’ll be like if it’s just me and her. I’ll, like, lose my shit and start shaking, or forget all my
guitar chords in the middle of a romantic ballad or something—“

Santana flings up a hand, disgusted. “Back up. Romantic ballad? Guitar? You won’t even play
that fucking train wreck you call an instrument for me, you conniving bitch.”

Clearly anxious, Quinn wrings both hands under her chin. “Please. I swear, I’ll never ask you for
another favor. Just do this for me.”

Santana sucks in a breath, wincing a little when her neck zings. “Dammit, I think you crushed
something back there.” Quinn raises an apologetic eyebrow. Santana sighs. “Fuck it. Fine. But
goddammit, Fabray, this is it. I’m not joining, like, Rainbow Streisand Lovers of America or
anything. I don’t care how bad you want under that atrocious little skirt.”

For a second, she’s afraid Quinn is actually going to hug her; to be safe, she crosses her index
fingers and holds them out to ward off potential fluffy evil. The blonde settles for beaming her face
off.

They sit for a second, contemplating the rather sudden (and, Santana thinks, happiness-
destroying) turn their lives have taken.

“Fuck, Q,” she says abruptly, nosing her sunglasses back into place and leaning into the sun
once more. “Who in their right freakin' mind is going to be afraid of us now?”

Quinn throws back her head and roars with laughter.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

“Why the hell would I join Homo Explosion?” Puck’s mouth is curled into a baffled sneer. Santana
nudges his ankle with the toe of her sneaker.

“Maybe because I told you to?”

“And I’m, what, your little monkey boy now?” He cocks an eyebrow, thicker and darker, but almost
as impressive as Quinn’s in terms of sheer height. “Fuck you, Lopez. I’m not game.”

Her hands clench in the pockets of her navy blue hoodie as she reminds herself that violence,
while the primary language between herself and Noah Puckerman, is not the permanent best
course of action. It’s a difficult battle, but eventually the slightly less destructive side wins out. She
breathes.

“Look,” she says quietly, glancing over her shoulder to ensure no one overhears, “Fabray is
losing it.”

“I could’ve told you that,” he replies agreeably, tucking a book into his locker and running a hand
over his newly-trimmed mohawk. “She’s got it so bad for Berry, it’s gone past being hot and
straight around to scary.”

“Exactly,” Santana confirms, leaning against the wall. “That’s why you have to do this with me. I
can’t protect her from herself on my own, I’ve got, like…a life.”

“Doing what?” Puck snarks, immediately shielding his face with both hands. “All right! Jesus.
Fine. But there had better be some hot chicks.”

“It’s Glee Club,” Santana replies dryly. “The hottest thing there will be the three of us.”

“And Berry,” he adds, shrugging when she pins him with a glare. “What? Just ‘cause she’s got
Fabray’s panties in a twist, I can’t appreciate her hot Jew nature?”

“Not near Quinn, you can’t. She’ll kick your ass all the way to Detroit.”

He pales. “I would not do well in the ghetto.”

“They would shave your head and call you Sally,” Santana agrees, grinning. He shakes his head,
swinging the locker shut and giving the lock a disinterested twirl.

“Whatever. I’ll do it. I’m enough of a rock star to get away with it, and I’m pretty sure Hudson will
kiss my fucking feet for easing up off his back about the whole thing.”

“Since when do you give a crap about Hudson?” Santana wonders, less bitter and more
genuinely curious. She has never particularly enjoyed Finn Hudson’s company, what with all his
video game obsessions and knee-jerk reactions to pretty girls ending in fresh changes of pants,
but lately, Puck seems weirdly drawn to the guy. She thinks it probably ties back to their shared
absent-daddy issues or something equally predictable. It's the kind of thing she is blissfully too
smart to fall into, regardless of her own mountain of family drama. Her only hope is that Puck
never takes the road Finn’s been bearing down, using Will Schuester as an acceptable father
substitute.

Schue’s a nice guy and all, but he’s married to a psychologically-abusive wretch and is otherwise
hopelessly devoted to a woman who can’t go ten minutes without a Handi-Wipe party. He’s kind
of a pitiful mess.

She tunes back in just in time for Puck’s go-figure bored response. “He’s a decent dude. Got a
solid Xbox system, and his mom’s got some pretty nice cans. We hang.”

Disgusted, Santana stares up at him. “Please tell me you haven’t banged his mother.”

“Not yet.” He waggles his eyebrows saucily before dropping the act with another shrug. “Nah, I
wouldn’t do that. Carole’s a nice lady. Has coffee with my mom sometimes, always brings an
extra donut to share with the Puckster. She’s like an aunt or something.”

“An aunt you check out,” Santana fills in, still half-grossed out. He grins.
“I’m a dude. We operate on a system. There’s no cheat code out of it.”

“Of course,” she grumbles, shaking her head. “I really don’t need to know. So you’re in?”

For the first time, Puck almost looks apprehensive. “I guess,” he says at last, ruffling his dark strip
of a haircut again. “The band isn’t gonna be too psyched.”

“The band” consists of a few metalheads and an REO Speedwagon enthusiast, all of whom are
well into their twenties. Somehow, Santana doesn’t see that organism working out.

“It’ll be fine,” she settles for assuring him, punching his shoulder lightly enough to suggest
friendship instead of the usual mistreatment. “Thursday, okay? Three-thirty.”

He waves her off, already striding towards the science wing as if he’s actually going to stay
awake during Chemistry this year. Rolling her eyes almost fondly, Santana turns on her heel and
makes a beeline for the gym.

It’s the one class a day she actually enjoys, mostly because Ken Tanaka doesn’t give a shit what
the girls do as long as they break some kind of a sweat in the process. He’s kind of a sexist pig
that way, but it leaves Santana free to swim laps one day, lift weights the next, and pelt lesser
mortals with heavy rubber dodgeballs whenever she likes. She figures it’s a win-win situation—for
her, at least.

The only downside is Quinn not being in her class anymore, thanks to a last-minute switcheroo
pulled by Figgins’ utterly-inept secretaries. AP kids—such as the multi-talented Ms. Fabray,
whose acceptance of college-level U.S. History is in Santana’s mind a total crock intended to
pacify her otherwise routinely disappointed parental units—have been swapped around with
abandon, leaving slackers like Santana and Puck to their blow-off classes and third-year-running
re-enrollments.

She’s a little bummed out, since even gratuitous violence loses a measure of its shine without
Quinn snarking up a storm by her side, but still—it’s gym class. It takes next to no effort, keeps
her in sexy shape, and allows her to obliterate fools like that creepy Jacob kid when they attempt
to slyly catch a look up her shorts.

Really. Win-win.

The locker room is nearly empty when she clatters down the stairs, mentally weighing the pros
and cons between a hearty tennis volley with some unsuspecting loser or an hour spent in the
pool. She isn’t particularly concerned by the lack of other students getting changed; being late
means almost nothing when half the teachers are afraid of you and the other half—like Tanaka—
couldn’t care less.

The only thing she notices is how the singular other occupant of the room has her shirt twisted
uncomfortably around her head, knotted in such a way that she clearly is struggling to pull it down
(or up? Santana can’t really say for certain, mostly because the girl has the best body she has
ever seen outside of televised beach volleyball matches, and she’s unabashedly gaping at the
thin line running straight up the girl’s flat stomach).

She looks away only when the girl gives a frustrated squeak and stumbles, crashing into the row
of lockers and emitting a muffled curse into her shirt.

It’s sad, and lame, and she’s hot, so Santana sets aside the instinct to whip out her phone and
post this little mess all over Facebook and moves to lend aid instead. Her good deed for the day,
to appease her mother’s worries that her daughter is a secret felon.
The girl shrieks when Santana’s hands fall on her shoulders (at least, Santana thinks that
explains the jarring noise, muffled though it is), but before she can swat the Latina away, the shirt
is settling properly around the girl’s torso. Santana steps back, thumbs curling through her belt
loops, and tilts her head.

“Pretty sure that’s what God intended when the shirt came into being,” she comments roughly,
her smirk lasting exactly until the moment the girl turns.

Of course.

Why wouldn’t it be New Hottie, fresh off the clumsiest, most ridiculous display Santana has ever
borne witness to in public? Why wouldn’t it be this girl—of all the possibilities in the school, in
Lima, in the Midwest—displaying a hearty mixture of adorable behavior and the sexiest abs
Santana can handle seeing in person?

Naturally, it’d be this chick.

Santana makes a mental note to clock Quinn on principle after class.

“Oh, hi,” the girl says, clearly surprised to see Santana staring her down in a deserted locker
room. “I didn’t know you had this class.”

She wonders why the Cheerio would care in the first place. It seems fruitless to ask outright, so
she shrugs and mutters, “Same. Hi.”

The blonde turns on a beaming smile, like she couldn’t be happier about their little meeting, and
Santana has to admit Quinn is right about one thing. The girl is kind of ungodly beautiful, in a
model-esque way, exactly the kind of woman Santana goes weak in the knees for. When she’s
just standing there, looking nervous or lost, it isn’t so hard to bear, but in this moment, wearing
that expression of sheer simple joy, the girl has managed to render Santana Lopez more or less
speechless.

She shakes her head, discreetly pinching her own thigh through denim. “Anyway. Might want to
be more careful next time. With…shirts…”

The cheerleader has the grace to look mildly embarrassed—although not, as Santana expects,
so utterly mortified that the only reasonable course of action would be to fling herself off the
school’s roof immediately. “It’s too tight,” she explains. “I keep trying to ask Coach if I can wear
non-cheer-related stuff to school, but she gets this look on her face like she’s going to punch me
in the mouth, and…she’s just very scary. Have you met her?”

Santana’s teeth click together as Sue Sylvester’s snarling visage worms its way into her mind’s
eye. “Once or twice,” she replies gruffly. The blonde nods knowingly.

“So you know. Totally freaky. But the woman’s kind of a genius. I mean, the dance program here
is incredible.”

As deeply and utterly as she loathes the Cheerios, Santana can’t argue with six consecutive
national titles and a standing invitation to appear on Fox Sports Net. She nods grudgingly,
accidentally eliciting another blinding smile in the process.

“I’m not very good at school stuff,” the girl confesses in a conspiratory whisper. Against her will,
Santana’s head inclines in an effort to hear better, even as she wonders why on earth this girl is
still talking to her.

“School’s rough,” she hears herself say, even though she doesn’t believe it’s exactly true. Well, it
is, but not for academic reasons; the only reason Santana appears on a surface level to be
struggling is because she just doesn’t give a shit. She can’t be bothered to try. The rest of it—the
memorization and routine bullshitting required for just about every course McKinley offers—is a
cake walk.

It’s the getting through each long, suicidally-monotonous day part that makes her head spin.

She realizes the girl has stepped close, well into Santana’s unusually vast personal bubble, and
is standing with one hand extended. Her eyebrows are raised expectantly, her lips pursed, and
Santana can’t help but think it’s somewhat adorable—in a totally annoying, driven straight from
Hell kind of way.

“What?” she asks dully, eyeing the proffered hand suspiciously. The girl’s mouth twists into
another smile.

“This is the part where you put your palm like this,” she says cheerfully, reaching out with her
other hand and dragging Santana’s into her grasp. The Latina resists the urge to snap her wrist
back to her chest, biting her cheek. “And then you move your arm up and down, like this.” Still
holding firm, she induces a handshake Santana feels wholly awkward about experiencing.

The blonde does not seem to agree, if her easy grin is any indication. “And then we do this.” She
sucks in a breath, eyes pinning the smaller girl where she stands. It strikes Santana that they are
so late for class just as the girl announces in a strangely formal tone, “I’m Brittany.”

Brittany. It’s just a name, not a spell or a curse. Santana has known no fewer than seven
Brittanys in her life. The disappointment the name invokes is more concerning than the two-
syllable structure itself.

Brittany’s eyebrows raise again, her head rolling forward on her neck impatiently. Swallowing her
confusion, Santana mutters her own name in return, all too relieved when her hand is released.
Brittany claps.

“Now we’re friends,” the girl says simply, giggling when Santana bestows upon her a decidedly
dumbfounded stare.

“We’re what?”

“Friends,” Brittany repeats, breaking eye contact at last as she turns back to her locker. Santana
finds herself jerking her own eyes to the ceiling when the blonde retrieves a pair of crimson shorts
to match her Cheerio-emblazoned t-shirt and immediately drops her skirt to change. She isn’t
quick enough to miss the way the girl’s legs go on for miles (maybe Quinn’s on to something with
that whole leg fetish after all), and she somehow feels guilty for looking.

Maybe she’s coming down with something.

“Why do you think we’re friends?” Santana asks helplessly, shoving her hands into her pockets to
keep from accidentally reaching for smooth skin. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Brittany
shrug.

“I dunno. I could use one. And you always look pretty lonely when I see you around. I figure we
make a good match that way.”

She’s taken aback by the notion that this girl watches her—and, moreover, has admitted to doing
so. Nearly four days since their initial meeting have gone by without Santana glimpsing even a
daring flash of gold and pale, yet somehow Brittany thinks she’s seen enough to peg her? It’s
absurd, and Santana wonders if she should feel insulted. It’s as if this girl thinks she’s an open
fucking book or something.

“We’re not friends,” she blurts, wincing when Brittany turns slowly to pin her with another long,
searching look. “Anyway,” she hurries on, for some reason feeling desperate not to be caught too
long in this severely unsettling conversation, “you’ve got friends. Or, y’know, the likelihood for
them. You’re a Cheerio.”

The word feels scratchy and coarse in her mouth, overwhelming her with the need to spit. Brittany
shakes her head slowly.

“I really don’t like the other girls on the squad much,” she admits, with all the intricacy of a
comment on the weather. “They’re bitchy.”

“And you think I’m any better?” Santana has not felt quite so incredulous in nearly seventeen
years of living. “You’ve barely even spoken to me.”

“It doesn’t take much to make a friend, Santana,” the girl says quietly. Something like a shiver
cascades down the Latina’s spine.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replies shortly, turning away and yanking the hem of her shirt up over her
head. She can feel the heady weight of blue eyes on her back, sucking her in, and does her best
to ignore it.

Disturbingly, she hears Brittany take a cautious step closer. “Well. If we’re not friends now, maybe
we could be. Later. Or something.”

It’s bothersome, how certain she sounds, especially considering this is a girl who has been in the
McKinley district for less than a week, a girl who is already under the thumb of the most evil
woman to traverse boring Midwestern streets, a girl who, not ten minutes ago, was fighting her
own shirt. Santana grimaces, rummaging for a clean black wife beater and squirming into it.

She steps into a pair of baggy gray sweats and swivels to find Brittany lacing up her tennis shoes,
ears still perked in Santana’s direction. A sigh slips from her lips as she rakes dark hair into a
messy ponytail.

“Listen, you seem like a nice girl.”

Unexpectedly, Brittany bristles a little around the edges. “Do I.”

“Yes,” Santana says firmly. “Very nice. Too nice for Sylvester and her militia of cheer-bitches, and
way, way too nice to be loitering around someone like me.”

Blue eyes flame high and strong. “I think I can judge for myself, thanks,” the blonde replies icily,
resting her hands upon bent knees. Santana shakes her head, licks her lips.

“I don’t usually waste time talking shit out like this, but I'm feeling kind of charitable today, so
listen up. I don’t do people. I don’t do nice, or friendly, or whatever it is you’re looking for. I don’t
care. The friends I’ve got are only around because that’s the way it’s been since we were kids,
and they are just as miserable and apathetic as I am. I’m here because we’ve got an annoyingly
perky truancy officer in this town, and because my mother would have a fucking stroke if I
dropped out now. That’s it. The end. I’m not looking for friends.”

“You’re lonely,” Brittany observes stubbornly. Santana smiles wanly.

“I am,” she agrees, softer than intended. Brittany’s expression levels out as she shrugs. “That
doesn’t mean I need someone to step in. I’m not a charity case. I don’t know what it is you think
you know about me, but whatever it is? Drop it. As a favor to us both.”

She can’t explain why she’s saying it—it certainly isn’t doing much other than to trample all over
any notion Quinn’s got of this girl being the perfect antidote to Santana’s relative misanthropy.
She only knows what she feels—and what she feels is that this girl, this lovely little angel of a
thing, deserves much better than a bitter, aggressive bitch who cares about all of three people in
this world. Half-ass pacts be damned; this is more important than proving to Fabray she can get
into the pants of just about anyone.

(Which she can. For the record. But this matters more.)

She can’t explain why she cares any better than Brittany seems able to articulate that pitiful
desire to save Santana from her self-imposed solitude, but she does. Care. And that’s really all
the counts.

This all has gotten too deep too fast for a second conversation, and Santana has had enough.
She shakes her head, tightens the loops of her laces, and moves for the door.

“I’m not, you know,” she hears Brittany call after her. “So nice. Or innocent. Or whatever you’ve
got in your head after speaking to me twice.”

“You’re better than me,” Santana mutters. The blonde snorts.

“All that high-and-mighty talk. You’re better at doing that than I am—talking. But you seem to be
forgetting something.”

Santana glances back, hand on the door. Brittany’s eyes are hard, her mouth determined.

“You don’t know me either,” the girl says with aching calm.

Santana swallows the mad urge to retort and leaves.

For the next hour, she pounds volley after back-handed volley into a shrieking wimp of a brunette
while, from the other side of the field, blue eyes dig in deep.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

“So let me get this straight,” Quinn says slowly, tapping her pencil against the underside of her
desk. “You have gym class with New Hottie—Brittany. You are in the perfect position to watch her
undress every single day. You think she is undeniably sexy. She wants to be your friend. And the
very first thing you do is shoot her hot ass down?”

She doesn’t even wait for Santana to reply before her hands are flying everywhere, smacking
against the back of the darker girl’s head with brutal abandon. Cringing, Santana shifts into the
wall in an effort to escape.

“Ow! Fuck, Fabray, cut it out!”

Ignoring her, Quinn digs her nails into Santana’s scalp and gives an angry yank. The dark-haired
girl yelps.

“What the fucking hell is wrong with you, you crazy fucking bitch? You’re a hair-puller now? Jesus
Christ, are we seven?”

“Ms. Lopez!” Their wizened Literature teacher has materialized, mouth stretched unattractively in
a disapproving scowl. “Watch your language, or I will send you straight to Principal Figgins.”
It’s an empty threat, not because she won’t do it, but because they both know Figgins is too
weak-willed to do more than wag a finger in her face and boot her back off to class. All the same,
Santana slouches in her seat wordlessly until the woman teeters back to her desk again.

“You fucking idiot,” Quinn hisses the second the teacher sits back down. “You’re decimating the
damn pact!”

“It has nothing to do with whatever fucked-up agreement you think we have,” Santana defends,
annoyed. “Which, for the thousandth time, I feel inclined to remind you: I never really agreed to in
the first place.”

“You need a rock!” Quinn snarls. “She’s got the body of a fucking goddess! What the hell is your
problem?”

It’s a question Santana wishes with all her might she could answer, but unfortunately, she’s just
as stumped as the seething blonde beside her on that front. Drawing her shoulders up as far as
she can force them, she sinks her nose into a battered copy of Hamlet. “Drop it, Fabray.”

“You’re an idiot,” Quinn grouses, slamming her pencil into her notebook so hard, the lead snaps
off and ricochets across the room.

Normally, Santana would be all over an insult like that one, shoving Quinn’s head against the
desk and holding her there until the blonde begged for mercy. Today, she miserably thinks she
agrees with the sentiment.

It’s uncomfortable, feeling like this—like a loser—because Santana Lopez is a motherfucking

champ. She takes shit from no one, and though people in this school aren’t particularly fond of
her, most of the spineless fools she shares space with would bend over backwards to stay on her
good side. Disregarding those freakish pep-zombies of Sylvester’s, she is the fucking boss
around here, no matter what Mallory what’s-her-face has to say about it.

But ever since telling Brittany to back the fuck off in the locker room, she’s been unable to tap into
her inner badass. She kicked the shit out of Dave Karofsky yesterday just to get a little of it back
(the four-day detention is so worth the way he sniveled around the blood pouring from between
his fattened lips), and it still took two days just to ‘fess up the whole state of affairs to Quinn. Now
that she’s said it out loud, Santana’s not entirely sure she did the right thing.

More worrying, she still can’t explain why she did it to begin with.

Who does she think she is, anyway? Telling some chick what’s best for her, throwing hypocritical
character assessments into the girl’s face when very similar judgments have been grating on her
own nerves—she can’t imagine why she did it. Worse, she can’t shake the memory of Brittany’s
face, the determined look in her haunting blue eyes. It’s like Brittany thinks she knows her, even
though no one knows her; even Quinn can’t wrap her obnoxiously-brilliant mind around Santana
most the time. She just accepts that she’s friends with a fucking mystery cloaked in a candy-
coated enigma and moves on.

Brittany, on the other hand, looked as though she was fully prepared to wait Santana out.

She doesn’t even know what that means, but it scares the living hell out of her.

It’s stupid because this should have been so easy: do a little light flirting, trail her fingertips across
some skin, fuck the girl into next week the minute she saw an opening, and race ahead before
the blonde even knew what hit her. Instead, it’s been a week, they’ve met twice, and already
she’s more afraid of what Brittany might want from her than she’s been in years concerning
anything—and that includes tornadoes.

A week into school, and Santana is stuck.

To make matters exponentially more aggravating, today happens to be Thursday. Which means,
come three-thirty, Santana and her irrationally-anxious state of mind will be huddled in an orange
plastic chair at the back of the choir room, watching Rachel Berry prance merrily about on her
makeshift stage.

Rachel will belt. Quinn will drool. Santana will impale herself upon a ruler out of sheer
desperation.

She should have stayed home today.

When that last bell rings and Quinn drags her things into her arms, Santana sluggishly follows
suit. She doesn’t feel much like going through the motions just so Fabray can finally get the girl
(or fail spectacularly trying), but she doesn’t have anywhere else to go; home is where her
mother’s disappointed eyes follow from every corner, where homework lies mockingly upon a
cluttered desk, where Santana feels mostly like sleeping the second she steps through the door.
She never gets anything done at home. At least here, held captive in the choir room, she won’t be
alone.

“I can’t believe we’re about to pussy out and join Glee,” she mutters anyway, displeased with the
notion that Quinn might actually think they’re doing something wise. The blonde shoots her a
tense glance.

“It’s just singing,” she says sharply. “How hard can it be?”

Santana wants to explain how it isn’t the singing she’s so worried about as much as that god-
awful cherubic expression on Will Schuester’s face, but it wouldn’t do any good. She settles for
throwing her belongings unceremoniously into her locker and slinging her satchel over her head.

“We’d better do songs not featured on Broadway,” she grumbles instead. Quinn’s mouth droops,
like she hasn’t even thought of that.

“Shit,” she mutters. Santana punches her arm reassuringly (and, yeah, sort of harder than
necessary as revenge for the slapping thing earlier).

“Just don’t jump Berry’s bones while I can see it, all right? Paying for therapy out of pocket would
end my credit rating before it even got good.”

“I don’t think you really get how that works,” Quinn comments mildly, still looking like she’s going
to throw up at any moment as they wind through the doorway into the choir room. Santana
shrugs.

She shouldn’t be surprised to find they’re the last to show. The room is sparse, containing a
handful of chairs, a drum set (behind which Finn Hudson is reclining in all his giant glory), a piano
(the man behind the instrument looks at Santana with plaintive eyes, silently begging to be set
free; she wrinkles her nose uneasily), and nine other students. Most of them are what Santana
would deem ‘the usual suspects—that wheelchair kid from History, his unironically-goth girlfriend,
the gayest kid ever to flame, a sturdy black chick with whom Santana once exchanged blows in
the cafeteria over a blueberry muffin (what? PMS really fucks with her head sometimes).

There are also, surprisingly, a few football players (Mike Chang and Matt Rutherford, both of
whom look more than a little anxious to see her; she can’t resist waggling a few mocking fingers
and watching them squirm) in the mix. Of course, there’s also Puck, arms clenched across his
broad chest, booted feet up on the back of Asian Goth’s chair. He fixes her with a murderous look
as she leads Quinn over to sit beside him.

“Not fucking impressed,” he hisses from between clenched teeth. She rolls her eyes
unapologetically.

Hudson and Berry round them out, making certain they are exactly the most rag-tag, hopeless
bunch of geeks ever to indulge in show choir. In this moment, as much as it pains her, Santana
agrees with Puck’s evaluation of things.

“Last chance,” she murmurs against Quinn’s ear. “We can make a break for it.”

Except they can’t, because suddenly there’s Schuester, face cracking in half due to his over-
excited smile. Defeated, Santana sinks back in her seat and discreetly punches Puck in the thigh
just for the adrenaline pick-me-up. He winces.

“Fuck you, Lopez.”

“Guys,” Schuester begins, and Santana gets the sick feeling she’ll be listening to him talk all the
time now. “As you can see, we’ve picked up three new members. Say hello to Quinn Fabray,
Noah Puckerman, and Santana Lopez! They’ve put us that much closer to the twelve-member
required minimum, so please make them feel at home in our little family.”

Gag. Santana briefly imagines lunging off the risers and battering Schuester’s curly head with her
satchel until he loses consciousness. Quinn’s hand settles on her knee, a gentle restraint. She
closes her eyes.

“Now, I’ve been thinking about the best way to take on Sectionals,” Schuester continues, drawing
a disturbingly thick sheaf of papers from his leather man-bag. “I think it’s best if we combine a
healthy variety of genres—a little musical theater, a little rock, maybe a jazz number. I want you
all to choose three songs each, three songs that fit together in some unique way, each of a
different musical genre. We’ll share them next week, and at the end, we’ll vote on which set will
be performed at Sectionals.”

His face shines as though he’s just told them the world is coming to an end, but it’s all going to be
okay because he built an ark meant for twelve.

Santana wonders if she could slit an artery with the tape dispenser in her bag if she tries hard
enough.

Predictably, Rachel looks like Hanukkah has come early, totally missing the longing gaze Quinn
is sending her way. “I think this is a wonderful way to showcase my exquisite range, Mr. Schue. I
want you to know I’m very excited about this assignment.”

Assignment. Well, fuck, if Santana had known there would be homework, she would have
clubbed Quinn over the head the second the blonde even thought of volunteering them for this
little shindig.

“What happens if we don’t do it?” she asks bluntly, voice carrying from the back of the room.
Schuester’s blissful smile fades.

“I beg your pardon?”

“If we don’t do the assignment,” she clarifies, rotating her shoulders uncomfortably. “Do we get,
like, kicked out?”
Quinn’s glaring at her; Puck seems to be silently naming her his personal god. Rachel has gone
dead-pale.

“Why wouldn’t you complete the task?” the tiny diva demands. “It’s homework.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t mean so much to some of us,” Santana sneers back, unperturbed when
Quinn’s elbow finds its way between two of her ribs. Leaning against the piano, Schuester’s face
is quickly taking on a pretty stellar kicked-puppy frown.

“I can’t kick you out, Santana,” he says slowly. She arches an eyebrow, and he rushes to amend,
“I mean, I could. But I won’t. Glee Club needs you in order to compete.”

Well, gee, if that doesn’t make her feel wanted.

Seemingly realizing how that sounded, Schuester shakes his head. “What I mean is, I don’t kick
people out of this club. I firmly believe every student—every person—has the right to express him
or herself through music, no matter what. You have a right to be here, Santana, and I honestly
believe it could be good for you.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” she derides, because even though she doesn’t exactly want to get into
her personal issues in public for the second time in as many days, the notion that first Brittany,
and now Will fucking Schuester think they can save her is just too much. She’s sick of this ‘reform
the delinquent’ act everyone seems so thrilled to be putting on; no one’s targeting Puck or Quinn
this way.

Because Schuester basically lacks the corner of his brain meant for observation skills, he
completely misses the threat lurking behind her mocking tone. Gently, he says, “I’ve seen your
record, Santana. Fights, failing grades, that fire last year in the chem lab.”

That was so not my fault, she wants to growl, but it’s pointless; somehow, the second you take to
snapping a Zippo lighter in class out of relentless boredom, everyone brands you an arsonist.
She leans back, looking down her nose at the earnest man wordlessly.

“You need something,” he is saying with that same stupidly-tender expression on his handsome
face, and God, Santana is getting sick of hearing that from people. “I think Glee could be that
thing.”

Glee, friendship, Brittany—why does everyone think it will take nothing more intricate than one
tiny life shift to make everything better again? To make the dreams of escape less suffocating, to
make the bleak depression shuffle aside until there’s room for sunlight? Does she really look that
easy, that lacking in layers?

She shrugs. “Look, I’m going to do the damn assignment. Whatever. I just wanted to know how
you’re running this thing. If I’m gonna waste my time here every Thursday, I’d like to know it’s
going to get me somewhere.”

She’s lying through her teeth, but the thing about Will Schuester is, he is so willing to see the
good in people—good that, oftentimes, isn’t even there—that he will believe anything. He
believes his wife every time she lays a fumbling fabrication in his lap, believes Emma Pillsbury
each time she vehemently denies her obvious wanting for him, believes Rachel Berry when she
says she’s happy. Why wouldn’t he believe this too?

Schuester’s a pretty good guy, but hot damn, is he dense.

All she has to do is drop that line about wanting this all to matter, and he’s grinning his face off
again. To her right, Puck cocks an eyebrow as if to ask what the fuck that was all about. Santana
smirks, shakes her head, the picture of jeering control.

A row below them, Rachel bites her lip pensively.

The rest of the meeting goes slowly, with Santana checking out, eyes on the words her nails are
tracing into her jeans. This club is kind of stupid, honestly: it mostly consists of Schuester
lecturing like he’s pulling every word off a pre-written notecard, Rachel flinging out advice no one
is interested in, and then some kumbyaing at the end. Santana can’t figure out how this system
works. Why is it Kurt and Mercedes can blather on in the corner for minutes at a time and never
get told to shut up? How does Tina manage to get up on stage and sing her lungs into oblivion
when she can’t give a two-minute speech without stuttering unintelligibly? What the hell is Artie
doing in a club that revolves half around dancing if it’s true that his paralysis is so absolute he will
never do so much as wiggle a toe again?

And for God’s sake, why is Schuester so twitchy about this twelve-member minimum bullshit?
He’s got an entire six-piece band over there in the corner; what, they aren’t musically talented
enough to qualify for this kareoke parade?

It’s stupid, and she doesn’t see it lasting for more than a year, not when they’re relying on Finn’s
classic-rock voice to carry them through complex notes. Not when they’re expecting Rachel’s ego
to miraculously shrink three sizes and allow other girls to sing once in a while. Not when they’re
so fucking pathetic.

If there’s one thing Santana hates more than Cheerios, it’s losing, and she gets the nasty feeling
that will be rather unavoidable.

By the time Schuester lets them go with another shining hippie smile and a wave, Santana has
come to the conclusion that she will have to murder Quinn for dragging her into this whole mess.
It can only end in Fiddler on the Roof medleys and an ultimately crushing defeat at the hands of
just about any other school. It’s miserable.

“I hate you,” she grumbles, dragging her feet as they slump down the hall. Puck nods his assent.

“That was seriously fucking painful, Q. What the hell, man?”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Quinn argues dimly, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. “I’ll admit, I don’t
understand why Schue had to go for the whole rapping thing, but…”

“But nothing,” Santana interrupts. “That club is a goddamn train wreck. I can’t be seen with them.
It’ll tank my—our—entire reputation.”

“We’re already in,” Quinn says, her voice firm and unyielding. "We're staying." Santana narrows
her eyes.

“And who exactly appointed you master of our little universe, Fabray? Last I checked, you being
on a hormonal power trip is not a legit enough excuse to run my life.”

The blonde stops in the middle of the hall, nonplussed when Hummel accidentally runs into her
and darts off again, muttering apologies. She takes Santana by the shoulders and looks her in the
eye, more serious than Santana has ever seen her.

“I’m not the boss of you,” she says slowly, gripping until the skin beneath Santana’s frayed t-shirt
begins to burn. “But Schue has a point. You need to get a grip. This could help.”

“Like you’re doing this for me,” Santana sneers, not trying very hard to pull free. Quinn bows her
head.
“I’m not. You know I’m not. I’ve got my reasons, and I’ve made them perfectly clear from the
beginning. But I’m serious when I say you are in serious need of a grounding, and if you’re going
to expend so much energy pushing away the hottest girl who has ever looked your way, we’ll
move on to something else. To this. You think I don't know you broke Karofsky's nose the other
day? You think no one heard about that? You need to figure your shit out, Lopez, and you need
to do it fast. Before you punch the wrong kid or deface the wrong building and find yourself in the
middle of a friggin' lawsuit.”

It’s almost too much for Santana to take. “So, what? This is a fucking intervention?”

Quinn smiles, predatory and oh-so classic Fabray. “Something like that. Stick with it, San.”

Behind them, Puck rubs his head. “Are you two, like, gonna make out or something now? Or are
we gonna bail? I’ve got practice in a half hour.”

Kicking him in the balls has never felt so satisfying. When he hits his knees, a high-pitched whine
leaking from his lips, and Quinn dutifully high fives her, Santana smiles.

“Fuck it. Whatever. We’ll do this shit. But I am not dancing with Hudson. That’s a goddamn
promise.”

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

“This is the worst song I have ever heard,” Santana mumbles into the forest-green blanket. She’s
on her belly on Quinn’s bed, trying her hardest not to fall asleep while the blonde girl positively
inundates her with boring indie music. It is not the way she’d prefer to spend her Saturday.

“Fuck off,” Quinn snaps from the desk chair she’s straddling. “Animal Collective is fucking
awesome.”

“They’re whiny bitches,” Santana corrects, thumping her crossed ankles against her friend’s
pillow. “Anyway, I don’t think it counts if you’re doing three different versions of obscure rock
music. Isn’t the point to, y’know, mix it up a little?”

“Death Cab and Animal Collective are nothing like Metric,” Quinn whines. Santana rolls her eyes.

“Fine, yes, you’re the master of combining whiny bitches. Are we really doing this right now? It’s
the goddamn weekend. I’m not down with this homework bullshit.”

“You’re never down with homework,” Quinn notes absently, scrolling through her iTunes and
clicking another song. “How about this one? Andrew Bird is classic.”

Santana listens for all of four seconds before burrowing deeper into the mattress. “Is he seriously
whistling? People still do that?”

She hears Quinn huff noisily and click the spacebar. The music dies instantly, and Santana sits
up.

“We done? We leaving? Come on, Fabray, I’m getting caged here.”

The blonde crosses the room and flops down beside her, hugging a pillow to her chest. “I don’t
suppose you’ve got an idea of fun that doesn’t involve beating up a freshman or spray-painting
runes into the side of Figgins’ house.”

“You have to admit, that one was good,” Santana recalls wistfully. “I heard him tell Tanaka last
week about the coven plotting to turn him into a ferret. Totally brilliant.”

“Yeah, well.” Quinn prods the dark-haired girl in the forehead. “Summer’s over, Lopez. Time to
start focusing your energy on non-crime-related concepts.”

“It wasn’t crime,” Santana counters defensively. “Just…a prank. Well, okay, the beating kids up
thing might be decidedly crime-like. What with the money swiping part. But the rest of it is
harmless delight taken from creativity and…uh…art.”

Quinn snorts. “Whatever, Picasso. I’m not indulging in any art with you tonight.”

“How about some rowdy tequila shots?” Santana suggests, teasingly grasping the blonde by the
hips and pulling her in close. “We could get wasted, play a little tonsil hockey, give Puckerman a
sweet case of blue balls.”

“Oh my God, that was one time,” Quinn wails, pounding her over the head with the pillow. “You
have to let it go someday, bitch.”

“I’m just saying, you want to make Berry jealous, I’m so very here for you.” Santana laughs.
“You’re a tight-ass, Fabray, but you also have a tight ass. Sure, I need to be drunk off my gourd
to be interested, but who likes the sober life anyway?”

“Fucking. Bitch,” Quinn repeats primly, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. “Just
because you’ve got a thing for hot blondes…”

“Off-limits, Fabray,” Santana reminds her coolly, adjusting her belt restlessly. “We’re not going
there tonight.”

“But we are going over to Puck’s?” Quinn asks, looking wary. “Even though the last time that boy
threw a party, it ended in shattered windows and police lights?”

“Man knows how to jam,” Santana shrugs. She bounces off the bed and rummages under the
skirt for her sneakers. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears, but I have to warn you: if it’s
anything less wicked than starting a fight club, I’m going to ditch you anyway for booze and
beating Puck’s ass at Quarters.”

“You’ve never won Quarters in your life,” Quinn retaliates, locating the missing shoe and chucking
it at Santana’s head. “He better have something other than beer and wine coolers. I don’t know
who told him I like that shit, but it’s all he ever fucking hands me, and I wind up with the most
pitiful little buzz to go off of.”

“I’ve got your back.” Santana reaches into the blonde’s closet, fumbling until she produces a
brown leather jacket. “Fucker, I knew you still had this.”

Quinn doesn’t even pretend to look abashed. “You’ll get it back for good when you return my Dark
Knight DVD. Tit for tat and all that.”

“I’ll tat your tit,” Santana quips, shrugging into the jacket and adjusting the lapels. “You ready?”

Quinn drives, because it is classier to show up in a four-door than on the handles of Santana’s
brother’s bicycle (not by much, given the battered nature of Betty, but it’s extra difficult to balance
with a hundred-and-fifteen pound blonde on the handlebars). In less than ten minutes, they are in
Puck’s living room, staring with unsurprised wonder at the mohawked young man standing on his
coffee table with two large bottle of rum clamped in his broad hands.

“Gentlemen!” he roars. “Sexy babes! Tonight, we drink in Hell! This! Is! Sparta!”
“I fucking hate 300,” Santana remarks casually. Quinn shrugs.

“The queen was hot.”

True enough, but so not the point. “Puckerman! Off the fucking furniture, you animal!”

He grins and leaps back onto the carpet, swaying a little. “Babes! You came, you’re here, you’re
in. Want some tequila?”

Quinn lowers her head like she’s going to ram it straight into his chest; Santana’s hands close
over the girl’s arms. She raises an eyebrow.

“You’re misquoting shitty action flicks, Puckerone. You really didn’t wait for us before getting
toasted beyond reason?”

“Not very gentlemanly,” Quinn adds, breathing deep around her obvious urge to bodyslam their
host. He shrugs, unbalancing himself and tipping sideways onto the couch.

“It’s been three hours, bitches. Not my fault you can’t be on time for shit.” He nuzzles sideways
into the unlucky girl beside him. “I’m too comfy to move, so you can serve yourselves. If you see
any jerkoffs heading into my room, stab ‘em for me, will you?”

“Always,” Santana promises, patting him patronizingly on the head. She spends plenty of time
ripping Puck’s manhood a new one (mostly proverbially, although she can’t imagine all the kicks
to the junk have done wonders for his sperm count), but when the chips are down and he’s too
tanked to move, she’s got his back. Quinn’s on the same page, although the girl’s Christian
background still acts as a manacle around her ankle when it comes to the really fun violence.
She’s a hundred times more likely to insult one of the aforementioned jerkoff types rather than hit
him, but Santana figures that’s okay; it makes for a healthy balance.

They head for the kitchen, Santana happily belting some rocker kid in the stomach when he gets
a little too close, and before long, there’s a bottle sweating in her hand. Quinn’s downing some
fruity-ass drink (not a wine cooler, Santana notes with a a smirk, but pretty amusingly near),
bobbing her head to the truly appalling song blaring from Puck’s iHome. It’s not paradise, but it’s
as good as a Saturday night in Lima ever gets. She’s content.

Half an hour later, she’s sitting cross-legged on Puck’s kitchen table, watching Quinn bound her
drunk ass around with two rocker chicks and Puck himself, all four of them whooping like children.
Amused, Santana watches Puck give an exaggerated bounce and plow his head directly into an
open cupboard.

It’s kind of a wonder he’s never been concussed.

She shakes her head, watching Puck clap a hand over the injury as Quinn points and laughs, and
thinks that this is just about the only thing she likes about high school. There won’t be many years
of her life dedicated to drinking, partying, and having a mindless good time—not unless she’s
willing to be branded an alcoholic and start carrying around little plastic chips on her keychain.

“Lopez!” Puck roars, already over his insta-migraine. “More ale, wench!”

“You’re not a fucking pirate,” she reminds him, lips brushing the mouth of her bottle. “And I’m not
your goddamn bartender. Figure it out yourself, or start in on the water.”

He deflates for a second, then brightens back up, pointing a wooden spoon like a sword. “If I were
a pirate, I’d have you walkin’ the scurvy plank, you scrap of whorish mutton!”
It’s actually a pretty good insult, for him being so far gone. Impressed, Santana good-naturedly
flips him the bird and swings her head back with the bottle, practically pouring beer down her
throat.

When she looks again, Quinn has picked up a spatula and is dueling with Puck in the center of
the small kitchen, her back up against the refrigerator. He spins on black-and-white tile, swiping
the air with his sad little weapon and laughing when her socks slip and she nearly goes down.

“You fuckers are going to kill yourselves one day,” Santana comments blithely, thunking the bottle
down between her legs and grinning. “And I’m not gonna do a thing to stop it.”

“Well, that’s not very nice,” a husky voice drawls behind her. The grin dying on full lips, Santana’s
entire body goes rigid.

Fuck, who invited her?

Reading her mind, Quinn ducks under Puck’s arm and scampers over. “Hey! New Hottie!”

Brittany arches a quizzical eyebrow, and Santana thinks this must look very strange to her: Quinn
Fabray, drunk off her ass and wielding a faded blue spatula, Noah Puckerman and the bump
under his mohawk shouting in a poorly-rendered pirate accent, and Santana Lopez, half-sober
and mocking them both. This is the crock team of misfits responsible for terrorizing McKinley
High; it must look pretty damn sad.

“Her name is Brittany,” she mumbles in Quinn’s ear. Her best friend grins.

“Right, yeah, I knew it was a pop star name. How do you know Puck, Brittany?”

The blonde Cheerio shrugs. “I don’t. Mallory wanted to come, so…”

“Mallory’s here?” Puck cuts in, stumbling over and grabbing Brittany by the shoulders. “Mallory
Wills? Did she say anything about me?”

Frowning, Brittany glances first at one hand, then the other, clearly uncomfortable. “You’re
touching me.”

He doesn’t move. Santana reaches over and belts him across the back with the butt of her bottle.

“Hands off, Puckerman, or I’ll aim lower.”

Releasing the blonde, but stepping closer, he bounces on the balls of his feet. “What did she say?
Did she tell you anything? What does she want?”

“Something about riding you until you black out and orgasm your way into an early grave?” No
voice has ever been so uncertain. Puck’s eyes about bug out of his head.

“I knew it! I knew she wanted me! Hot fuckin’ damn, Lopez, I’m getting’ laid tonight!”

He rushes from the room, smoothing his mohawk as he goes. Leaning forward on the table,
Santana shouts after him, “You pick up any diseases, they are your goddamn problem, Puckzilla.
Fuck a dog, deal with the consequences!”

Brittany peers at her with wounded eyes, and something twitches in Santana’s stomach. “Sorry,”
she adds in a mumble. Quinn, completely oblivious, rests an arm on her shoulder and continues
to stare at the Cheerio.
“You really are pretty hot,” she says conversationally, like this is something she points out to
arbitrary girls every night. “I mean, you’re not my type. Not really. Blonde chicks, tall chicks, I
don’t really…I mean, even if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because I have someone. Well, sort of. Not
in the official, technical, ‘she knows about it’ kind of way, but still. She’s there. And she is smokin’.
Like a bomb. That has gone off already. A sexbomb. Although, truthfully, I don’t think she’s ever
had sex.” Hazel eyes widen. “God, I hope she hasn’t had sex. Who would she have sex with?
Finn? Fuck, I’m gonna kill that overgrown manchild. I’m gonna scalp the spike right out of his
hair.” She turns to Santana, mouth set in a grim line. “Is he here?”

“Fabray,” Santana cuts in gently. “Go sit. Somewhere. Somewhere not here.”

The blonde brightens. “Can I think about Rachel?”

“To your disgusting little heart’s content,” Santana drawls. “But if I hear you’ve got your hand
down your pants out there, I am cutting it off, got me?”

Ever the over-cheerful drunk, Quinn prances away, leaving Santana with the one girl she just
cannot handle. The Latina fidgets, plunking her feet down on the nearest chair and leaning back.

“So. You’re here.”

“Seems that way,” Brittany agrees. Santana is surprised—and a little aroused—to see the girl in
something other than cheerleading-speckled attire. Her jeans are dark and her halter is purple
under a nice jacket. It’s nothing Santana hasn’t seen on a million other girls, but it’s making her
head feel fuzzy all the same. She swallows another mouthful of beer.

“Why are you here?” she asks when her throat clears again. Brittany steps closer, resting her hip
against the table, and runs a hand through her hair. This is the first time, Santana realizes, she’s
seen that hair loose, flowing around the girl’s shoulders in thick waves. She’s never
comprehended the sheer travesty of the ponytail before this moment; another reason to destroy
the soulless automaton that is Sue Sylvester.

“Why?” she presses again, because Brittany still hasn’t replied, choosing instead to meet
Santana’s gaze defiantly.

“You hang out with Puck,” the blonde comments at last, neither a question nor an explanation—
not really. Because there is just no sense in believing this girl came to a party just because
Santana is known to kick the guy throwing it in the gnads from time to time.

Right?

“Yeah, I hang out with Puck,” she says, calm as she can manage with her nails digging into the
soft skin of her forearm. “What’s your point?”

Brittany shrugs, inching even closer and shifting until each hand is pressed against the table,
brushing Santana’s upper thighs in the process. She leans forward, smiling.

“He’s your friend. Him and the drunk girl, the one who called me hot. They’re your friends.”
Santana’s beginning to wonder if this girl is truly as sober as she seems, because she’s going in
the same crazy circles Quinn was rambling over a few minutes ago. Plus, if she keeps leaning
forward like this, Santana’s not going to be able to keep her hands where they need to be short of
actually sitting on them.

“You are beginning to sincerely damage my calm,” she opts to remark instead of grabbing the
blonde by the back of the neck and hauling her in. “Get to the fucking point.”
“You have friends,” the girl whispers, like it's a secret, nudging Santana’s ear with her nose, lips
grazing skin. The Latina is simultaneously struck with the urge to laugh and scream.

“Like I said the other day,” she grinds out, teeth gritted around the desire to clamp down on the
blonde’s pouting bottom lip. “The friends I’ve got are kind of bitches. Or did you miss the way
Puck bolted out of here to shove his dick into your Satan-squadmate? Believe me, he won’t be
calling her bruised ass in the morning.”

Brittany arches her head back, baring her neck dangerously close to Santana’s lips, and smiles
triumphantly. “Doesn’t matter. You have friends, and you hang out with them in school, and get
drunk with them on Saturday nights. You’re not so special, you know that? You’re not so
different.”

Something cold drops into Santana’s stomach, something strangely akin to nausea. She shakes
her head. “Fine, I hang out, I get drunk, I laugh at those nearest and dearest to me when they
make massively poor life choices. I also punched a kid until he spat two bloody teeth out from the
roots on Wednesday. I also keyed the shit out of my Biology teacher’s car in retaliation for looking
down my shirt in class. I also tagged ‘Die Cheerio slutbags’ across the cafeteria window. You can
pick and choose the things I do with my time all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I do
them all. And I’m still not interested in wasting your time.”

Brittany watches her almost sadly, unmoving. “Who says it’s time wasted?”

“Ask your little friends,” Santana snipes, too bitterly. She can’t figure out when she started caring
this much—or why—but that isn’t the part that bothers her. It’s more the fact that she can’t stop
showing this girl exactly how easily she’s gotten under the Latina’s skin that makes irrational rage
well up in pulsing waves. People don’t do this, not to Santana, not since she learned to shut off
impulsive interests like this in the sixth grade. Feeling it all again now, on top of all the people
telling her exactly what she (apparently) needs to get by, is just too fucking much. She can’t take
it. Sooner or later, she’s going to explode.

But for now, she is just drunk enough to be mouthy, not enough to be sloppy, and she knows the
explosion can wait.

“They aren’t my friends,” Brittany reminds her, thumbs skimming the seams of her jeans. “You
are.”

“I’m not your fucking friend!” Santana growls. “How many goddamn times do we have to go
through this? Watching me in gym class like a stalker does not make you my friend. Keeping tabs
on who I talk to instead of beat the crap out of does not make you my friend. Following me to my
friend’s party just to egg me on into something I cannot handle doing does not make you—“

“What can’t you handle doing?” Brittany interrupts curiously, tilting her head like an errant puppy
seeking absolution for a chewed slipper. Santana’s teeth clutch her tongue in a sudden death
grip.

Okay, maybe a little drunker than I thought.

“Nothing,” she mumbles. “Forget it.”

She moves to slide off the table, which turns out to be just about the worst move in the history of
life’s giant chessboard, because her feet aren’t even on the ground by the time she realizes she
is completely within Brittany’s personal bubble. Or Brittany is in hers. Either way, they are eye to
eye (or, as Brittany’s pretty tall, eye to chin), an inch from touching, Brittany’s arms pinning her
against the soft wood. The blonde lowers her chin, sets her mouth.
If Santana doesn’t move now, she will kiss her.

Check-fucking-mate.

Clutching the last remaining vestige of reason she’s got left, she bumps one arm out of the way
and slips under, reversing their positions.

“Stop following me,” she snaps, sucking in a heavy breath. “Stop doing whatever the hell you
think you’re doing. It’s not worth it, I swear to you, and I do not have the energy for it.”

“I don’t take that much energy,” Brittany tries, doing her best to step back into Santana’s bubble.
The Latina backs off, hands raised.

“Whatever you take, I don’t have to give,” she says softly. “I don’t know what the hell you want
from me, girly, but there are far better people to ask. I’m really not up for breaking you, not now,
not ever.”

“You care,” Brittany observes softly, moving forward carefully, as if zeroing in on a wounded bird.

“I don’t,” Santana denies, all too aware of the miniature size of the Puckerman kitchen. Three
more steps, and Brittany will have backed her into yet another corner.

“You wouldn’t tell me to keep away if you didn’t,” the blonde observes in a murmur. Santana
aches to reach out, to grasp her by the lapels of that jacket and shake her until whatever this
thing is between them shudders and burns out.

“It’s my good fuckin’ deed for the year,” she snaps, pivoting towards the door. “You’re sweet,
Brittany. You’re different. It didn't take me ten seconds to see it. You are the opposite of
everything I hate in Sylvester’s minions, and that instills a sort of…obligation to keep you safe. I
don’t know why, I don’t really care what the reason is. I just know that you need to back the hell
off. For real. For good. I’m serious.”

“It’s not your job to protect me,” Brittany says resolutely.

“It’s not your job to save me,” Santana counters. “But here you fucking are.”

“You want me here,” Brittany claims, lifting her chin regally. “You do. No one pushes this hard
unless they want to pull instead.”

She can’t see the logic behind it—suspects, in fact, that there is no logic—and shakes her head.

“I have to go,” she mutters helplessly. “I’m drunk, and you’re pretty, and I…”

Blue eyes light up for the first time in long, stunning minutes. “You think I’m pretty?” Brittany asks,
wonder painting her voice. Santana feels like smacking herself.

“I have to go,” she says again, turning on her heel and fairly running for the door.

She’s three blocks away before she realizes she has forgotten Quinn.

The bitch will have to deal.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

“My head is exploding.”

Quinn’s voice, dull and gray, echoes tinnily in Santana’s ear. She winces into the cell phone,
bumping her shoulder up to press it harder into the side of her head as she scrubs a particularly
horrid dish.

“Should’ve had some water.”

“My head,” Quinn repeats dangerously, “is exploding. I have the fucking hangover from Hell. And
do you know why I have this hangover?”

“Because you chugged too many fractions worth of a fifth after that fruity piece of shit you started
off on?” Santana guesses, chipping at a sudsy patch of crusted chicken grease. Dish duty is a
pain in the ass, but at least it shuts her mother up when Santana refuses to attend church on
Sunday mornings with the rest of the family.

“Maybe it’s because,” Quinn growls, edgy and pissed off, “some bitch left my ass to pass out on
Noah Puckerman’s goddamn piece of shit futon last night. Can you imagine who that bitch might
be and where I might find her so that I can kick her sorry Latin ass, Lopez?”

Cringing, Santana sets the dish aside as a temporary lost cause and starts in on a plate instead.
Quinn must be seriously angry, if she’s flying in the face of her religion with the whole breaking a
Commandment thing over it.

“Look, Fabray, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t deal with—“

“You can’t deal with anything,” Quinn explodes, hissing into the phone a second later. Santana
hears her swallow, and when she speaks again, it’s in a low rumble. “That’s the point lately,
Lopez. Ever since we picked up our fucking schedules for this year, you’ve been a bigger
miserable wreck than usual. Two weeks in, and you’re falling apart at the feet of some girl. It’s
pathetic. Jewfro is cooler than you when it comes to emotion management.”

That’s a little cold, Santana thinks with an instinctual stab of irritation.

Quinn, ignoring the stony silence from the other end of the line, barrels on. “I know you hate
school, Santana, okay? I know you think it’s a waste of time, I know you think it’s a big box of
injustice and stereotypical profiling and all that bullshit. I know, because I know you, all right,
better than you’ve been giving me credit for lately. I’m your best fucking friend. And I am telling
you, as your best friend, that you have got to stop this. Ever since you mentally signed away the
end of your summer, ever since you stepped back into that school—fuck, ever since you met that
Brittany chick, you’ve been a spacecase and a half. It’s a mess, you are a mess, and sweetheart,
when you’re making me look like the sane one in this relationship, we have a problem. Figure it
out. Stop running away. Talk to the hottie with the legs, or push her down the stairs, or whatever it
is you need to do, but do it. Like, now.”

She pauses, sucking in a breath. Santana waits.

“You done?”

“No,” Quinn snaps. “You also need to find your fucking songs for Glee, because if you show up in
that choir room empty-handed, I am going to march down to Sylvester’s office and tell her you’re
secretly dying to be her right-hand towel bitch. And so help me God, if you think I’m lying, just
fucking try it.”

Santana almost laughs. Quinn exhales noisily into the receiver.

“Now I am done. Your turn. Asshole.”

She drops the plate back into the soapy sink and rubs her hands on a dishtowel. “Gross, I’m all
pruney.”

“You’re fucking doing dishes while I yell at you again, aren’t you?”

“Never,” Santana teases, sobering when Quinn doesn’t reply. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of
an asshole.”

“Kind of. Asshole.”

“Thought it was my turn,” she sniffs. Obediently, Quinn goes quiet. She sighs. “I’m sorry. Really. I
don’t know what’s got me so crazy lately.”

“It’s the girl,” Quinn cuts in again. Santana scoffs.

“It’s not the girl.”

“It’s the girl,” Quinn repeats stubbornly. Santana flings her hands into the air, nearly dislodging
the phone in the process and sending it to a sudsy, soggy death.

“Fine, it’s the fucking girl.” Defeated, she sags against the counter. “Fuck me, I don’t even know
what it is about her.”

“New Hottie is extremely hot,” Quinn observes helpfully. “And it would explain why you’ve been
such a spaz lately. I mean, Santana, nothing’s even happened this year. Aside from your valiant
efforts to break your knuckles, anyway, but how is that news?”

She’s got a point; the Cheerios, though big on the sneering and throwing confectionery treats
from around corners, haven’t been especially creative in their labors as of yet. The jocks are all
too damn terrified of what Santana could do to their precious testicles to even come near her, and
it’s too early to worry about flunking grades finding their way to her mother’s email inbox. The only
thing that’s getting on her nerves is this obnoxiously gorgeous girl.

Santana isn’t one to be thrown off-kilter by a pair of killer legs and the abs of God. It’s the least
comfortable sensation ever, after a Slushee down the bra.

“There is the Glee thing,” Santana points out weakly. Quinn coughs out a chuckle.

“If one of us should be so concerned with ‘the Glee thing’, it oughta be me. Santana, Rachel is
going to hear me sing on Thursday. What if she doesn’t like it? What if she thinks I sound like a
screech owl being shoved into a blender or, or a…Disney Channel twerp?”

“Yes, Q, your lesbian-ass self is clearly meant for the Wizards of Not-Hogwarts, or whatever,”
Santana replies dryly, secretly pleased that their little spat is over so instantaneously. This is the
best part about being friends with Quinn: even when she’s being crazy, even when she’s been
flipping out for no reason whatsoever and acting like a tool in the process, Quinn will call her out
on it once—and only once—and they will move on until the next time Santana fucks up. There’s
an easy rapport here that she’s never found with anyone else, and expects never to find again.

Except, something dark and surreptitious mutters from behind her sanity, she’s already kind of at
that bare-it-all place with a certain other blonde.

She’s trying not to think about it when Quinn calmly asks, “So, what did she say to you, anyway?”

“Who?” Santana stalls, leaning heavily against the counter. Water seeps into the back of her tank
top, frigid on her lower back.

“The girl who sent you running out of Puck’s place,” Quinn says, and Santana can actually hear
the smirk.

“She…wants to be friends,” she says uneasily. “Still.”

An exaggerated gasp stings her ear. She scowls as Quinn pitches her voice an octave higher that
usual and wails, “Well, bless my stars, Santana Lopez. She wants to be friends? How
unreasonable and wayward of her!”

“Shut the fuck up,” the dark-haired girl snaps, rubbing her forehead. “You know the deal there, Q.
You know my feelings on the subject.”

“Fuck and run, yeah, I got it,” Quinn says in her normal voice. “And, uh, how’s that working out for
you?”

“Screw off, Fabray.”

“No, I’m serious,” Quinn insists. Santana hears some shuffling in the background, followed by a
grunt that likely means the blonde has thrown herself into a mountain of pillows. “You’ve never
had a serious relationship—“

“Honey, I’m hurt,” Santana cuts in mockingly. “You mean what we have isn’t serious?”

“Shut the hell up and listen, douchebag. You’ve never had a serious relationship, you act like a
spaz on the rare occasion you actually find yourself interested in a girl for more than how loudly
she can moan, you’ve got daddy issues coming out your pores…”

Good humor evaporating, Santana scowls. “Low blow, Fabray. You’re treading a thin line here.”

Quinn knows as well as anyone that her parents’ divorce--and the man whose fists and adultery
set it off--is strictly out of bounds as a conversation topic. She has only broken this law twice,
doing so solely when she’s had damn good reasons. Which, given how fucking absurd she’s
been acting, Santana supposes this qualifies as.

“Santana, the thing is, I think you really like this girl. No, really,” the blonde adds when Santana
opens her mouth with a mortifying little squeak of protest. “I really, really do.”

“I’ve spoken to her three times,” Santana objects.

“You’ve never heard of love at first sight?” Quinn counters prissily. Santana coughs. “Don’t need
a whole lot of talkin’ for that.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

She hears a rustle and takes it mean Quinn has shrugged. “A little, but that doesn’t change
anything. I saw it the second she ran into you that day, San. You looked at her the way I know I
look at Rachel: kind of loony, sort of creepy, entirely stupid. Like you could keep looking forever
without getting bored or needing to blink.”

“I’m not you, Q,” Santana says quietly, meaning a hundred little things at once. Quinn makes a
small sound of assent.

“No, you’re not. But you’re not totally different either. And San, you know how I really knew you
wanted her? In a way you haven’t wanted anyone since I’ve known you?”
Santana says nothing. She hears Quinn smile, hears the way her eyes crinkle at the corners, and
grips the counter tightly.

“You didn’t hit her when she used you as a human crash cart,” Quinn says fondly. “You didn’t look
like you even wanted to try. Santana, since we were eleven years old, since your father walked
out, you have met every person on this earth with fists or fuck yous, but with this girl…you just
stared. And you told her it was okay.”

Santana swallows against an orange-sized lump, frustrated with herself. “You’re such a sap,
Fabray.”

“And you’re opening up to being human for the first time since puberty,” the other girl replies
simply. “Ease into it, Lopez. Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Fuck off,” she tries to say again, but it comes out more as a breath than anything. Quinn’s laugh
rasps against her eardrum.

“Whatever will our peers say when they find out Santana Lopez is in possession of an actual
beating heart? Woman, your reign of vampire terror will be over.”

In spite of herself, Santana can’t ward off a burst of laughter. “Shit,” she gasps when she can
breathe again, “don’t tell Puck. Without his fear to keep it in check, the earth will shoot off its axis
and collide with the moon.”

“Gotta put the world first,” Quinn giggles. “We’re like superheroes or some shit.”

“Absolutely,” Santana agrees, leaning her forehead against the cabinets and filling her lungs as
far as they will expand. “God. This has been such a fucked up semester.”

“All two weeks of it,” Quinn adds, probably too cheerfully for someone with an alleged hangover
from Hell. Santana nods bleakly.

“Two weeks. Goddamn, we’re going to be here forever.”

“Look on the bright side,” Quinn says after a beat. “That gives you a really friggin’ long time to get
over yourself and sweep New Hottie off her fancy feet.”

Santana breathes for several minutes, staring into the sink as bubbles sweep gently from side to
side. Because she is Quinn, the blonde lets her.

At last, Santana’s lips part. “I can’t date her, Quinn. I can’t even be her friend.”

It isn’t what she wanted to say, but it’s true nonetheless.

“And why the fuck not?” Quinn demands, because of the two of them, Quinn has always been the
romantic. She believes in love conquering evil, in the healing properties of some well-thought-out
lyrics and a bewitching piano solo, in a world where sexual orientation is just a guideline and eyes
meeting across a crowded room can change everything.

Santana believes in nothing of the sort.

“I just can’t,” she says feebly, curling her shoulders protectively up around her ears. Quinn makes
a sputtering noise.

“You like her.”

“Yeah.”

“You really fucking like her. And she likes you. Enough to stalk your mean, grouchy ass, even.
Enough to take your insults and your high-horse bullshit attempts at nobility.”

“Yeah,” Santana says again, flatly. Quinn makes that obnoxious confused noise again.

“You don’t make a damn bit of sense, Lopez.”

“I know,” she seethes, crushing the phone against her ear until it hurts. “Jesus, Fabray, I’m aware
that I’m out of my goddamn mind. I’m aware. Thank you.”

There’s a pause. “Well,” Quinn says at last. “As long as you know.”

It’s probably not appropriate for Santana to laugh until she cries.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

It feels more or less like a miracle, but Santana has made it to Thursday without incident. True,
there have been a few close calls—Karofsky limps away as fast as he can when he sees her
coming, but some of his football buddies are not nearly as quick of learners, and ever since Puck
banged the shit out of her, Mallory has taken to stalking around after Santana like it’s her fault he
conveniently lost her number the next morning. But the fact remains that Santana hasn’t had to
beat anyone to a pulp in almost a whole week, which is kind of a record for her, and it makes
Quinn a little less anxious and Puck a little more so, so it’s a good fuckin’ deal all around.

She hasn’t seen Brittany since the party—by which she means she’s seen Brittany (in gym, in the
hall, in the lunch line), but they haven’t spoken. It’s depressing, but comforting to think that just
maybe the girl has given up on her already.

It’s so much easier to avoid hurting people when they avoid you first, she knows.

Quinn hasn’t mentioned their phone conversation since it happened, preferring instead to obsess
over Schuester’s Glee assignment. It’s a relief, but if Santana has to hear one more bearded,
flannel-loving hippie harmonize about his metaphorical love for that girl he’s only seen once,
she’s going to take a flamethrower to the blonde’s iPod.

Puck is mostly just spending his time as he always does, skipping class and ducking scorned
bitches like Mallory as he performs his heat-seeking sex missile dance, searching for his next lay.
Santana hasn’t hit him in three days, mostly because she swore he wouldn’t see it coming next
time and has spent all following hours watching him jump at shadows.

All in all, things are better, as long as Santana can keep a lid on those vile things Quinn keeps
calling feelings.

And then, naturally enough, Glee has to get in the way.

They’re early this time because Quinn is having a goddamned stroke, turning her acoustic guitar
over and over again until each string is absolutely perfect. Santana sits at the piano, running her
fingers along the keys as if she’s got the first idea what they mean (thanks to a highly short-lived
set of lessons, she can play all of one scale, and she can’t even remember what notes she’s
hitting when she does). Puck has hiked his shirt up under his armpits and is inspecting his
bellybutton over in the corner. She’s trying to ignore him; this is apparently going to be one of
those rare days when she can’t understand why the hell they keep Noah Puckerman around.
“It sounds fine,” she tells Quinn for the forty-seventh time. “It sounds just like it has the last six
times around. Can you please put the fucking thing away before you snap a string?”

Quinn’s eyes just about depart her skull at the prospect. “Damn, I didn’t even think of that.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

She can see the blonde gearing up to fight back, wound as tight as she is, and grins over her
shoulder. “Berry, good to see you’re rocking the smallest scrap of fabric you could find. Very
classy. Not at all Moulin Rouge.”

Rachel, in her perversely tiny skirt, sets a stack of pages on the piano lid and turns uncertainly to
Quinn. “She’s making fun of me again, isn’t she?”

Her face bloodless, Quinn nods. Rachel sighs.

“Wonderful to see you too, Santana, as always.”

“You didn’t bring a bunch of songs from Grease and shit, did you?” Puck demands from his
corner, still working a finger in his bellybutton like he’s expecting to come up with diamonds or
something. Rachel wrinkles her nose.

“Noah, what on earth—“

“Don’t ask,” Santana steps in. “Don’t indulge him at all. Ignore him for long enough, and we’re
hoping he’ll vanish altogether.”

She can feel his offended stare through the back of her head. “Bitch.”

“Tramp,” she fires back without sparing him a glance. Quinn raises her head, smirking.

Rachel drums the fingers of one hand against her arm uneasily. “I never understand any of you.”

“But it’s sweet that you try,” Santana jeers, grinning when Quinn shoots her a blazing glare in
retaliation. The blonde steps instinctively closer to Berry, as if she thinks Santana is actually
going to expend energy getting up and terrorizing her physically. Like so many things involving
Rachel, it would be cute—if only it didn’t involve Rachel.

She knows Quinn well enough to read murder in those big hazel eyes, but the rest of the club is
filtering quickly into the room, affording too many witnesses. Holding the blonde’s gaze, Santana
winks and mouths, ‘Fucking chill’ until the lines in the girl’s forehead smooth out.

“All right, guys!” Santana really wishes Schuester could enter the room with his mouth closed, just
this once, but the man seems all kinds of jittery. She figures it would be a wonder to go only
twenty minutes listening to him yap, the way he’s smiling.

The piano man—Brad—is standing with his knees jammed against the bench she’s on, staring
soullessly down at her with all the compassion of a serial killer, so Santana stands and strides to
the seat between Puck and Quinn. Schuester’s eyes sear through the back of her skull all the
way, making her skin crawl unpleasantly.

“Make him stop smiling at me,” she grinds out to Quinn, who is busy forming desperate chords
with her left hand. The blonde looks up helplessly.

“I think I’ve forgotten B-minor,” she hisses back, looking utterly terrified. Rolling his eyes, Puck
leans over and demonstrates.
When her friends choose at last to sit back like normal people, Santana does her best to refocus
on the front of the room where Schue and his frustrating tie are pacing relentlessly.

“I’m very excited to see what you’ve all prepared today, so, without further ado, I’d like one of you
to volunteer—“

The door bangs open, cutting him off, and before Santana can pick a god to thank for the
intrusion, a sweaty, breathless blonde with gorgeous blue eyes is standing before them all.

“Am I late?” she gasps out, bending to plant her hands on her bare knees, red skirt swishing
lightly. “I’m late. Crap.”

No, no, no. This isn’t her day, it isn’t her luck. Santana can’t breathe because this girl, this
aggravating, pain in the ass girl is really standing there, looking at Schuester with wide, imploring
eyes, for all the world resembling tangible temptation.

“Fuck me sideways,” she hears Quinn whisper. From the row below them, Rachel looks back and
forth from one side of the room to the other, like she’s watching the tennis match of the century.

“If I’m too late, I could go,” Brittany is saying, speaking to Schuester even as she locks eyes with
Santana. “I just thought maybe I could…”

“No!” Schue exclaims so directly into the blonde’s face, she actually leaps back a step or two. “I
mean, don’t go. You’re not too late. You’re fine, you’re great!”

He looks like he might actually pass out from excitement. Santana has gone past hating his pink
face to mostly feeling bad for him, because any man who gets this jazzed about a high school
show choir is certainly missing a crucial element from his life.

“You want to join Glee?” Kurt Hummel asks, practically dripping with scorn. Santana’s fists tighten
against her thighs. Calmer now, Brittany nods.

“I’m an okay singer,” she tells them all, eyes still on Santana. “Mostly a dancer, but my singing’s
okay. I think. I could sing for you now, if you…” Trailing off, she uncertainly darts a glance at
Brad, who stares boredly back.

“We can do the formal audition later,” Schuester bleats excitedly, clasping his hands under his
chin and beaming (Santana takes a moment to mull over the prospect of an audition, something
she and her friends somehow managed to escape). “I’m sure you’re fantastic, though, you’re all
fantastic. And with a twelfth, we can actually compete now!”

Most of the kids manage wan smiles, at least, even Quinn and Puck. Santana is too busy gaping
shamelessly at the Cheerio by the piano to care about bolstering Schuester’s already overfull
balloon.

“You’re…joining Glee,” she states haltingly when Brittany makes her way up and drags a chair
between Santana and Puck. “You’re joining Glee Club. This club.”

“I’m a great dancer,” the blonde says with a faux-modest shrug. “Kind of really great, actually.”

“It’s Glee Club,” Santana repeats harshly. “No one in their right damn mind joins Glee.”

“You did,” Brittany points out, and Santana barely catches herself before she blurts out the
reason behind that little nugget of truth. Rachel is already looking at them oddly; it would be a
pretty inopportune moment to out Quinn, all things considered.
“Yeah, well,” she settles for grumbling, “I’m…different.”

Brittany almost looks amused, annoyingly enough. “Of course you are.”

“Listen, you can’t just come in here and—“

“Ladies? Having a problem back there?” If he keeps standing like that, with his hands on his hips
and his head tilted perplexedly to the side, Santana thinks Schuester might actually turn into a
woman. She pastes on her very best haughty smirk.

“No, sir. Please, carry on. I’m sure whatever you’re rambling about is very interesting.”

Schuester frowns a little, but doesn’t call her out for back-talking, which kind of feels like a waste.
Quinn shoots her a look that plainly says, ‘You asshole, I’m too freaked out to laugh, stop it.’ Puck
tosses his head back and chortles. Brittany looks a little confused.

“You’re even mean to teachers?”

There’s a pang of something that Santana thinks might border on guilt. “Only when they deserve
it.” When Brittany gapes at her, she rolls her eyes. “I told you I’m not friend material. What, did
you think I was making up stories to see which ones you’d swallow?”

“Always swallow,” Puck advises with a lecherous wiggle of his eyebrows. Without looking,
Santana slams a hand into the crotch of his jeans and squeezes hard. He goes completely still,
makes a keening sound, and gulps desperately for air.

“Don’t help me, Puckerman.”

Brittany looks really confused now. “I thought you two were friends.”

“We are,” Santana replies, frustrated. It’s a good thing this girl’s prettier than God, because she’s
apparently running a little low on gas in the brain department. “I told you—“

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Brittany declares softly, looking to Rachel, of all people, for aid.
The diminutive brunette shakes her head.

“Don’t ask me, I just sit with them.”

Santana’s getting a little tired of this whole charade, so when Mercedes is called to the front of
the room to share her three songs (Alicia Keys' "No One", Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”, and
Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”), it feels like a welcome change. Besides, apart from being a soulful
pain in Santana’s ass, Mercedes is a really good singer; listening to her belt like her life depends
upon it is enough to shut the whole damn room up for a few minutes.

Finn goes next, wailing as best he can on his triad (Styx’s “Blue Collar Man”, The Smashing
Pumpkins’ “The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning”—which, for the record, sounds really
fuckin’ terrible coming out of Hudson’s mouth—and Matchbox Twenty’s “If You’re Gone”—which,
she hates to admit, totally makes up for the Pumpkins travesty). Puck’s looking at the boy with
some serious newfound respect, and Schuester looks as though he’s going to burst into tears at
any moment. Santana leans back and props her feet up on Rachel’s chair, tuning out the look the
small girl gives her.

“They’re really good,” Brittany observes right in Santana’s ear when Artie has finished crushing
his songs (Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me To The Moon”, The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”, and Train’s
“Lincoln Avenue”—Santana is mildly scarred to find that, for a cripple, Abrams has a pretty
spectacular set of pipes on him). “I don’t get why the girls on the team don’t like them. There’s
talent here.”

“Talent and the most awkward social skills you will ever see in one place,” Santana replies out of
the corner of her mouth as Tina nervously takes center stage. “Real bad combination.”

Rachel shoots a death glare over her shoulder for Santana even considering speaking during
someone’s performance; exaggeratedly, the Latina mimes zipping her lips, turning the gesture
into a middle finger salute the second Rachel whips back around. She thinks she hears Brittany
giggle.

Tina’s selection of some Dresden Dolls song, the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Dizzy”, and Pat Benetar’s
“Heartbreaker” has Santana wondering if the girl is holding back more rage than is entirely
healthy, but when she’s finished, the petite Asian bounds right to Artie’s side and kisses him
proudly.

Maybe not.

“Fantastic job, Tina,” Schuester enthuses. “Who’s next? Puck, what’ve you got for us?”

Santana fully expects the boy to say he’s forgotten—or, given how hard she just crushed his
balls, maybe to falsetto an excuse out of the situation. To her immense surprise, Puck gingerly
stands and half-limps down to the piano.

His renditions of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded”, and James Morrison’s
“Nothing Ever Hurt Like You” are achingly beautiful. Santana reminds herself to go easy on his
junk for a couple of days as a sort of ‘I’m proud of your stupid face’ present.

Matt and Mike perform together, which Santana finds a little weird, and they do a trio of songs so
deeply electronica, Santana has no hope of recognizing even one. Schuester scratches his head
when they finish, clearly lost.

“That was…unique, guys. Not sure you entirely got the assignment, but, uh…great job!”

Santana rolls her eyes. Leave it to Will Schuester to be completely incapable of realistic criticism.

“Who’s up? Rachel?”

The brunette is on her feet before the second syllable of her name, pelting for the piano like she
expects it to play Lucy and jerk away at the last second. Quinn gives a soft, obnoxious sigh of
delight; Santana elbows her.

“Keep it in your pants, Fabray, she hasn’t even opened that big mouth yet.”

Brittany shifts her gaze between them both, clearly as confused as ever, and Santana does her
best to tune the girl out. Sure, she’s pretty and kind of destroying Santana’s ability to think straight
(does she really have to sit so close? Her leg is practically on Santana’s chair), but this is likely to
be one of those crucial ‘hold Quinn back when she tries to mount Berry in front of everyone’
moments, and it’s probably best to pay attention.

She’s fully expecting Berry to pull out the stops with Broadway classics, so when the girl
proceeds to husk her way through Ella Fitzgerald’s “Fever”, Santana finds herself sitting up and
taking notice. To her left, Quinn leans forward, fingers twisting against her knees, mouth falling
open. To her right, Brittany leans close and brushes her cheek against Santana’s shoulder.

That is almost enough to undo her.

Rachel goes from that song straight into a silky interpretation of Snow Patrol’s “Run”, and then,
because she’s Rachel Berry, proceeds to completely kill RENT’s “Without You.” Santana does
not clap when the girl is finished, because that might give the impression that she actually likes
her (which she certainly does not, though even Santana can admit when a person’s talent
outstrips their awful personality), but she does incline her head in recognition when Rachel,
beaming and flushed, bounces back to her seat.

Beside her, Quinn is visibly trembling. Santana wholeheartedly hopes the blonde isn’t planning on
lunging from her seat and tackling Berry with her lips, because the girl’s angel voice has
managed to lower the Latina’s guard just a smidge too far to be entirely helpful.

Her reaction time is usually on par with Spider-man’s, so she thinks she’d still be able to catch
Fabray around the waist and throw her out of harm’s way, but she’d rather not play with fire.

“Absolutely incredible, Rachel,” Schuester says warmly. “All right, how about Quinn? Got
something great to share?”

Santana thinks it’s entirely possible the blonde will pass out before she even leaves the risers. As
inconspicuously as she can, the dark-haired girl wraps a hand around her friend’s wrist and helps
her stand.

“Don’t blow it, Q,” she murmurs through a smile. Quinn looks entirely too willing to throw up all
over them both.

“I’m going to fucking die,” she hisses, reaching shakily around her chair for her guitar. Santana
punches her lightly in the leg.

“You’re going to fucking sing,” she corrects, doing her best to tune out the interested stares
they’re receiving from just about everybody. “Kill it, woman. Kill it dead.”

She sounds more confident than she truly feels where Quinn is concerned, because the blonde is
literally swaying as she picks her way down to where Schuester is glowing with excitement. She
looks miserable, and terrified, and so not like Quinn Fabray that it almost makes Santana want to
leap up and stand with her, a firm hand on the girl’s quivering shoulder.

But that would defeat the purpose of pushing Quinn out of the nest.

Leaning close, Brittany touches her lips to the shell of Santana’s ear and whispers, “Is she going
to faint? I think the nurse is out sick today.”

“She’s fine,” Santana snaps, not at all dizzied by the blonde’s warm breath against her skin.

Quinn doesn’t look particularly fine, nervously dragging a stool from behind the drum set and
dropping heavily onto it. She fiddles with the guitar on her lap, tapping a staccato beat against the
hollow body, and makes the strangest humming sound Santana has ever heard.

“Quinn?” Schuester asks, bowing his head and peering at the girl with clear concern. “You
ready?”

That noise again. Santana has not felt such a strong case of second-hand embarrassment since
certain episodes of Boy Meets World.

“Quinn,” Rachel says suddenly when the blonde continues to do nothing. “Look at me, Quinn.”

Hazel eyes snap to, thick, dark eyelashes stroking pale skin. Rachel smiles.
“It’s perfectly normal to feel nervous,” the brunette claims gently. “Stage fright. You can get past
this. Take a few deep breaths.”

Quinn obeys, chest rising and falling steadily. Rachel waves a hand in the direction of the guitar.

“Now play. We’re not here. Mr. Schue isn’t here, I’m not here. None of us. Just you and the
strings. Go.”

And Quinn does. Her fingers stutter on the fretboard once or twice, and her leg drums maniacally
against the floor the whole time, but her songs come out beautifully. Her voice is breathier than
anything Santana usually listens to, but lovely, and for the first time, Santana realizes she has
never heard her best friend sing before. It isn’t something they do, which now feels sort of
regrettable.

They’re all songs Santana has been subjected to over the past week—Laura Marling’s “Ghosts”,
Cat Stevens’ “The Wind”, and Joni Mitchell’s “River”—and she hated each one when it was
emanating from Quinn’s scratchy laptop speakers. Now, though, she listens and can’t resist the
blind force of her smile.

The response that follows Quinn’s performance is deafening, mostly because Puck has taken it
upon himself to launch out of his chair, shove his fingers into his mouth, and whistle like a
madman. Santana pounds her hands together, eyes bleary with pride, not even bothering to
paste on a grim expression when Brittany’s fingers latch onto her knee and knead happily.

For her part, Quinn looks dazed, clearly unable to believe her numbers were successful. She
stands and smirks that classic Fabray smirk at last, jerking her guitar above her head in pure rock
star form.

She is met at the bottom of the risers by Rachel, who has never looked more cheerful.

“That was wonderful, Quinn. I don’t know what you were so worried about. You’re very talented.”

For a second, Santana’s afraid Quinn will mack on the girl then and there, but the blonde simply
runs a hand through her hair and grins bashfully. “Thanks, Rachel. I mean, it’s not anything like
your voice.”

“No,” Rachel agrees mildly, reaching out and giving Quinn’s hand a quick squeeze. “But it’s
impressive nonetheless.”

She looks like she wants to say more (which would probably be more productive than Quinn, who
just looks starstruck), but Schuester is flailing like a big girl again, interrupting everything. They
sit, Quinn on Rachel’s right this time with her guitar between her knees, and Santana leans
forward to bump her fist against the blonde’s.

“Ditching me now, Fabray?” she asks through her smile. Quinn raises a warning eyebrow, teeth
flashing brilliantly.

“Astonishing, Quinn, your choices were absolutely beautiful.” Schuester is preening. “I want to
thank you for sharing that talent with us. The guitar was an especially nice touch.”

Blushing lightly, Quinn shrugs and grins. Santana shakes her head in amusement, mentally
preparing herself to take the girl down a peg or two before her head swells up. Tomorrow,
because it’s only fair to give her a few hours of feeling like a rock god first; Santana’s not the best
friend in the world, but she at least can offer that.
She’s so distracted by her thoughts (and by Brittany’s hand on her knee; though she’s shooting
the girl pointed looks of forced annoyance, the Cheerio is blatantly pretending she hasn’t noticed
anything awkward about their position) that she almost doesn’t hear him when Schuester blurts
her name in his over-zealous fashion.

“What?” she asks numbly. He smiles.

“Your turn. Show us what you’ve got.”

The club turns as one, waiting expectantly for her to stand and take her place center stage.
Santana only crosses her arms over her chest. They aren't going to like this. They aren't going to
like this one damn bit, but fuck them, because Santana is sick of everyone thinking they can
shove her into a box. Quinn had her moment of bliss; the rest of the meeting no longer matters.

They aren't going to like this, but whatever; they'll just have to get over it.

"Fine," she says tonelessly, holding up three fingers and ticking them down again. "Pink Floyd’s
‘The Wall’, Sara Bareilles’ ‘Come Round Soon’, Incubus’ ‘Warning’.”

Schuester blinks owlishly up at her. She smiles coldly.

“That works, right? I mean, there’s absolutely no crossover in genre there. Fits the assignment.”

“Um.” His mouth works frantically, his hands circling one another in the air. “I, uh…the
assignment was to perform—“

“Nope,” she corrects him, eyebrows arched. “The assignment was to share the songs with the
class. I just did that. They’re all on YouTube and everything. I can even write down the titles if
you’ve got a particularly lame memory.” She glances at Finn, smirking when his whole face
tightens in bewilderment.

“Santana, uh…this is Glee Club,” Schuester points out haltingly, digging his fingers into his hair.
She wonders how his wedding ring doesn’t catch more often on the longer curls. “We’re kind of,
erm, about the singing here. You’re…really not going to sing?”

“Not feelin’ it today, Schue,” she shrugs off, settling back in her chair and discreetly pushing
Brittany’s hand onto the girl’s own lap at last. “Ask me again next week, we’ll see how the wind’s
blowing then.”

He deflates, gaping at her. Around them, her fellow Gleeks murmur in confusion. Brittany eyes
her curiously, clearly trying to read something Santana refuses to paint on her face. Rachel looks
like she wants nothing better than to hit Santana for her outrageous behavior.

Quinn catches her eye and frowns. Santana says nothing.

She’s here by force, a support structure and nothing more. She doesn’t have to like it, and she
certainly doesn’t have to bend to Schue’s every drab little whim. If she doesn’t want to sing, she
doesn’t want to sing—period. As for explaining herself to these losers, well…

It sucks a little, to see the disappointment in her best friend’s eyes, but the thing is, Santana has
already had enough of people telling her what she needs and how to go about things this year.
She’s done. They can catch her by the shoulders and hold her back, battering her around with
advice all they like, but at the end of the day, she is Santana Lopez. She knows what is best for
her own life, and that’s it.

She’s done playing their little games. It's high time she started one of her own.
A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

The semester continues to crawl by. After Santana’s little display of dominance in Glee, things
have mellowed out a bit at meetings. Schuester stops looking at her with unbridled joy and starts
watching his step. The rest of the kids mostly tune her out, save for Puck, who doesn’t give a shit
how she handles herself, and Quinn, who seemed kind of pissed at first but got over it the way
she always does. It helps that Rachel splits her time evenly now between flailing over Quinn’s
voice (and her instrumental talent; the minute Berry realized she had a personal guitarist at her
disposal, everything got that much more annoying for the rest of them) and scowling at the side of
Santana’s head. The more attention she gets, the less Quinn seems to worry about Santana
single-handedly obstructing Glee’s path.

Brittany is still creeping cautiously around her, and Santana can sense that little problem is far
from over, but the girl has stopped trying to stick various body parts in the Latina’s lap. She
guesses that’s a good thing, but every once in a while, Brittany will brush just a hair too close and
Santana’s skin will vibrate like the shoddy motor in Quinn’s piece of shit car.

She still hasn’t opened her mouth to sing, but she dances when they do group numbers, mainly
because dancing is a great way to keep in shape and keep near her Cheerio stalker without
letting the girl know she’s doing so on purpose. It’s a dangerous little game she’s playing, verbally
pushing the blonde away while physically tucking her near, but she’s got a handle on it. She’s
Santana motherfucking Lopez. Of course she’s got this.

Mostly.

“You’re playing with fire,” Quinn reminds her after the fourth consecutive “accidental” trip into
Brittany’s back. “You’re, like, throwing the fire around with a pair of flame-retardant gloves.
Eventually, the no-flamey characteristics are going to wear off.”

“It’s fine,” Santana snaps, relishing the memory of Brittany’s body molded to her front. “She’s not
too bright; I doubt she gets it.”

“She joined Glee for you,” Quinn retorts disbelievingly. “And she’s gone almost a month without
Sylvester and her bitches catching on and giving her a Slushee bath. She’s not an idiot, Lopez.”

Okay, so maybe there’s a point there.

“Whatever,” she says anyway, because she’s not really up for giving Quinn anything to gloat
about right now. The girl’s unbearable enough lately, what with all the attention she’s been getting
from their resident midget. Santana’s happy for her, in her own way, but if she has to hear one
more time about the exact angle at which Rachel’s hand dusted across Quinn’s bicep during
practice, she’s going to bury her fist in some material not meant to be struck.

Like concrete.

Or Quinn’s ovaries.

That could be kind of fun.

“Why are you screwing around like this anyway?” the blonde demands, rifling through her locker
in search of one long-lost study guide or another. “She’s been leaving you alone. Isn’t that what
you wanted?”

Santana shrugs. The truth is, ever since Brittany stopped mooning around after her, it’s gotten
harder and harder to feign disinterest around the girl. It’s one of those stupid things that Santana
does sometimes, where she wants what she can’t have, what she knows she can’t handle, and
she’s pretty sure she only wants it because it is the exact thing that will turn her into a cowering
mess on the sidewalk. Brittany is so very obviously that thing, because even with all the energy
she’s put into pushing her away, Santana still can’t breathe correctly unless the blonde is within
eyeshot.

She doesn’t know when that started, but she suspects it had something to do with that night in
Puck’s kitchen.

It’s stupid, and it’s making her feel crazier than usual, but she can’t do anything about it. Not if
she wants the girl to remain safe—although, whether she’s protecting her from the other Cheerios
or from her own issues, Santana’s long past saying. She prefers to imagine it’s all about
Sylvester’s bitches, because the second they get wind of Brittany’s (rather obvious) obsession
with making Santana a better person (or a happier one; she’s not sure there’s a distinction),
they’ll go off on her like a school of tiny scowling grenades.

The fact that they’ve been collectively silent about the Glee thing makes Santana even more
certain that something big is coming. They’ve never been this quiet for this long, not where she’s
concerned; by this time last year, they’d slashed Quinn’s tires for parking in a designated Cheerio
spot, shoved Santana down a short flight of stairs (and then threatened an all-too-real lawsuit
when she caught up with the perpetrator and held her head dangerously near a shop class saw
blade), and introduced Puck’s system to a whole host of STDs.

That part, she reflects with some amusement, was entirely his own fault.

The thing is, this hatred she feels for those swishing red skirts? It’s not exactly what one would
call unfounded. She’s sorry that it makes Brittany’s nose crinkle unhappily, and that it’s an
emotion with the power to send her own self into a crippling state of self-doubt, but overall?
They’re bitches. Bitches get what’s coming to them. Even if it’s entirely karmic and entirely due to
the force of Santana’s loathing.

(It won’t be, if she has anything to say about it. The moment one of them crosses her for real this
year—or, worse, crosses Brittany because of her—she’s determined to crush them utterly. For
good.)

She’s keeping her head down for the sake of all of this, for the sake of some girl she doesn’t even
have a reason to be interested in (aside from the obvious, but honestly, she’s got some
standards; it takes more than a pretty smile and a spectacular ass to rope in this particular
Lopez), and it’s making her crazy. With each day that slips into history, she forgets a little more
why she’s really doing this to begin with.

And then Puck does something to piss her off, or she catches herself with a freshman’s throat
under her clenching fingertips, and she remembers. The thing about being a Lopez—about being
this Lopez, in particular—is, she’s a fucking mess. Dangerous. Forget the commitment issues (a
parade all on their own), and forget the gasping black hole that is the fear she will never leave this
town, never rise about the fuming aggression and bullying tendencies, never amount to anything
better than a grocery store clerk with a few cats. Forget all of that. She’s a Lopez, and if there’s
one thing she’s learned about that unlucky biological condition over the years, it’s that Lopezes
kind of suck at protecting the people they love. Specifically from themselves.

She’s seen the way her older brother’s teeth and fists grit when he’s near his girlfriend on a bad
day. She’s seen the bruises left on her aunt, the product of fury uncontrolled. And of course, she’s
heard the splitting sound of tears late at night, when her mother thinks the house is comatose.
The sounds of prayers left unanswered, of ‘why me’ and ‘why us’ floating directionlessly on chilled
night air. The sounds of a woman battered and abandoned.
Santana is not a good person. It’s not in her genetics to be good. She’s not sure she could be if
she tried, and so she never has. People like Quinn and Puck accept her this way because,
frankly, they’re pretty fucked up too. Puck’s got all those immeasurable hours waiting up for a
father who never came home—not sober, at least—and Quinn’s tribulations with her overbearing
God stretch on for miles in every direction. They all kind of suck at this growing up thing, and it’s
made for a surprisingly hefty bond.

Brittany, she’s not like them. Not even a little bit, and Santana knows that’s why she’s so drawn to
the blonde in the first place. She can see it in her eyes, in her skin, in the way she carries herself
when she walks: Brittany isn’t damaged. She’s whole, and she’s beautiful, and she shines in a
way Santana can’t recall seeing in anyone before. It isn’t that she’s unlikely to accept Santana
and all her broken, torn baggage—it’s that she’s likely to get sucked in. Maybe more likely than
anyone Santana has ever met, including the likes of Will Schuester, with his desperate need to
mentor every wayward student who crosses his path, and Emma Pillsbury, who has probably
read Santana’s file no fewer than fifty times over the years. Brittany, with her stubborn attitude
and endless optimism, likes her, and that is more dangerous than anything, because people who
like Santana don’t stay happy for long. Not if they started out that way.

Quinn and Puck, they’ve never been happy. Brittany is. Santana doesn’t even have to know her
to see it, to smell it on the air when the girl walks into the room.

She can’t break that. She won’t.

She would say this all aloud, would arrange the words on a platter and present them to Quinn—
or, even, to Brittany herself—if she thought it would make a difference. But it won’t. They’ll only
look at her the way she grimly regards herself in the mirror each morning: curious, pitying,
frustrated. Wishing she could just punch free of her family’s mistakes and join the ranks of the
normal and well-adjusted.

Her mother already looks at her that way every day. Santana can’t take disappointing anyone
else.

But holy God, is it hard to remember all of this when Brittany is dancing three feet away, all hips
and hair and searing little-girl grins. It’s for the best, this distance she’s created from day one, but
Brittany just looks so pretty, so sexy, so confident in her every move, and it’s beginning to bolster
an ache Santana was unprepared for.

She’d explain it to Quinn now, if she could, why it is she’s sticking her hand in bear traps and
rooting around in flaming coals, but Quinn wouldn’t understand. How could she, when even
Santana doesn’t? Her brain isn’t matching up with her body anymore, hasn’t been since that night
at Puck’s, and it just makes this all very, very confusing. Her body wants to give in, wants to
believe the haunted look in her mother’s eyes, the one that suggests there’s just a little too much
Lopez running through her daughter’s veins, is entirely wrong. Her body wants Brittany close all
the time, wants to feel soft hair and softer skin, wants to taste salt and smell sanctuary and coax
screams of pleasure and giggles of delight into the world. Her body wants, pure and simple. Her
mind, on the other hand, would do well to shove Brittany on a plane to Alberquerque, or maybe
Africa, forgetting the girl even exists. Her mind wants nothing better than to save them both from
the inevitable misery Santana is bound to invent out of nowhere at all.

Very. Very. Confusing.

She’d love to explain it all, but she can’t, so instead she shrugs again and says, “Whatever,
Fabray. Like your pea brain is capable of understanding anything other than the desire to shove
Berry against that piano and fuck the future fame right out of her.”

Quinn’s eyes glaze over instantly, which, ew. Santana smirks a little regretfully. When the girl
comes to, she’ll be a little indignant and a lot annoyed, but for now, her impeccable logic is out of
the Latina’s hair.

It really is about the little things in life.

Taking advantage of the blonde’s dirty little daydream, Santana trots off in the direction of the
gym, mulling over how nice it will be to work off some of this pent-up energy in the weight room.
She can’t remember the last time she was this fucking worked up, this unbelievably horny, to the
point where even random acts of violence don’t make a dent in the abject desire to do awful,
awful things to her newest Cheerio not-friend.

A year ago, she’d be screwing her way through the volleyball team, every member hating herself
—and Santana—for how easily the Latina has always been able to manipulate women into her
bed. A year ago, she’d be fucking women who think she’s about on par with dirt, grime, and serial
killers, just to clear her head a bit.

Now, she can’t even do that, because the second she so much as glances at another girl, alarm
bells screech in her head, accompanied with maddeningly-attractive images of blonde
cheerleaders wearing nothing more than a pair of fire-engine red spanks.

It’s a little hard to compete with that.

She’s frazzled, and it sucks, but she’s trying to look on the bright side here. Schuester has
stopped trying to manhandle her into vocalizing, Quinn has mostly stopped her moping (although
Santana’s not sure she can take much more of the gushing that has replaced said moping in
recent weeks; Rachel has taken to being a bit more handsy, all excited hugs and hand grabs, and
Fabray’s losing her shit over it something fierce and obnoxious), and Puck still makes the best
faces when she junk-punches him. Plus, although Mallory and two of her mannequin-inspired
pals attempted to corner her using football-courtesy pee balloons yesterday, most of the school
has been re-frightened into leaving her be. The Brittany thing is shitty and impossible, but
otherwise? Santana likes to think she’s doing pretty well.

This week, at least.

She clatters down the steps to the locker room, humming softly (damn Schuester and his
penchant for only picking the most addictive melodies for his kids to perform; AC DC’s “Shook Me
All Night Long” may not be the most appropriate song to belt at one’s students, but it is seriously
impressive at sticking in her head). A quick change and she can be pumping her sexual
frustration away in no time—in the least naughty (and therefore helpful) way possible.

All things considered, it somehow isn’t as surprising as it should be to find Brittany waiting for her,
legs crossed primly at the ankles. Santana’s sneakers slide on over-smooth concrete, seeking
purchase when she slams to a too-quick halt.

So much for the bright side.

Brittany’s still wearing her uniform, biting her lip, looking suspiciously like she never planned on
attending gym today at all. Santana can’t imagine this means anything good.

“We’re about to do that thing we do again, aren’t we?” she says almost conversationally, nudging
as much nonchalance as she can manage into her tone. Brittany’s head tilts to the side, even
teeth worrying her lip steadily.

“What thing would that be?”

Santana turns away, clenching her thighs as she walks in an effort to keep cool. She pries open
her locker, shucks off her jeans, ambles into her faded sweatpants; just because the girl she’s so
desperate be around is here, waiting for her for the first time in almost a month, doesn’t mean she
can’t get ready for class. There is iron to pump and arousal to flush away in a burst of sweat and
adrenaline. Damn anyone who thinks they’re going to get in the way of that.

“You know,” she calls back over her shoulder, tugging her t-shirt over her head and rummaging
for its holey black replacement in the locker. Blue eyes bore into the space between her shoulder
blades, plainly trying to burn her bra strap away; she smirks, because totally unhelpful though it
may be, she’s allowed to feel smug about Brittany’s obvious interest.

“I don’t,” Brittany replies calmly, and Santana actually hears the girl lick her lips. She shakes her
head, leaning one arm against the locker above her own, smiling wryly

“The one where you try to tell me you want to be friends, and I tell you to fuck off because I’ll only
wind up making you miserable. The one where you’re all cute and fuzzy, and I crush you under
the heel of my high-top. And then you’ll try to touch my shoulder or grab my arm, and I’ll leap
away like some kind of jumpy-ass jungle cat, and you’ll do the big hurt puppy eyes.”

She half turns, peering under her arm with that same smirk. “You know. That one.”

Brittany’s head gives a slow, scrupulous shake. “We’re not doing that today.”

Santana lifts an eyebrow, picking up the gym shirt and tossing it between her hands. “We’re not?”

“Nope,” Brittany says, smiling a little. She stands, the movement singular and leisurely, more of a
liquid flow from the bench to the floor than anything human.

“Huh,” Santana muses, eyes on the pipe-laden ceiling. “Funny. I was sure that was our thing.”

“Not anymore,” Brittany states with certainty. Santana gets the sudden feeling she’s being circled,
which is basically impossible, given her position against the lockers. Still, it’s unsettling.

“Why’s that?” she asks, doing her best impression of blank indifference. It must need work,
because the blonde chuckles huskily.

“Because. I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

The sentiment hits her like a bucket of ice water. Santana raises her chin, stretching the t-shirt
between her hands and poking her head through the hole.

“Is that so?”

“Mm hm,” Brittany hums, pacing a little too saucily for Santana’s comfort. This is going
somewhere, she can feel it, and she’s willing to bet her little brother it’s somewhere bad.

“Well,” she replies coolly, dragging the shirt down her body and sliding her arms in, “I guess it’s
about fucking time. Finally got all those brightly colored memos I was sending, huh?”

“Something like that,” Brittany drawls, pausing directly behind Santana with one hand clasped to
her hip. Her fingers tangle in the waistband of her skirt, fiddling the material this way and that with
no apparent sense of anxiety.

Santana rotates on her heel, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the
locker. “About fucking time,” she repeats, looking the taller girl straight in the eye. The bench
between them suddenly seems far too small and insignificant to use as protection, terrifyingly
enough. If Brittany’s playing at something, Santana’s not sure she’ll have the time and restraint to
flee before she succeeds.

Although she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious.

She watches Brittany saunter closer, hips swaying almost obscenely, bangs obscuring eyes
tinted dark by secrecy. The urge to lunge forward (or back) is overwhelming, but Santana holds
her ground because she will be fucked if she lets some pretty-ass girl get the best of her.

Even if that pretty-ass girl happens to be portraying all the subtlety of a lion at dinner time.

“So if you don’t want to be friends,” Santana says slowly, eyes dragging up the Cheerio’s
undeniably fit frame, “what exactly are you looking for? Because right now, it’s mostly just looking
like a failing grade for gym today.”

“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit whether or not I show up,” Brittany retorts, smirk mirroring Santana’s
own. She reaches the bench, bumping it lightly with her calves, and twists the skirt a little higher.
It would be prudent of Santana to control her eyes, but the pale skin is too damn tempting for its
own good.

“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit about much of anything,” Santana says, hating herself for how
breathy the words come out. “He’s a putz.”

She doesn’t like the way Brittany’s smiling. More precisely, she likes it too damn much. If this
doesn’t go somewhere now, Santana thinks she might have to break something as a diversion
and tack the only class she actually enjoys onto the list of “places too dangerous to venture.”

Her question is still out there, hovering between them nastily like a mocking ten-year-old with a
water gun. She watches Brittany’s hand trail down the side of her skirt, flicking the pleats
absently, and raises an eyebrow.

“If you’re just going to stand there gaping at me, I’m out of here. I’ve got a date with some fifties
and a medicine ball, neither of which has ever managed to stalk and corner me like some kind of
goddamn creepy lioness—”

“Shut up,” Brittany says, still smiling in that maddening, beautiful way. It’s the first time anyone
outside of her brothers or Quinn has had the balls to give her that particular order in years;
Santana’s surprised enough to allow her teeth to click shut on what was quickly and mortifyingly
transforming into a mother of a ramble.

“Good girl,” Brittany adds, which should sound less sexy and more rage-inducing, but all Santana
can see is the seductive crawl the Cheerio’s fingers are performing up the front of her uniform.
She sucks in a breath, arms clenching harder across her t-shirt.

“What the fuck do you want, Brittany?” she hears herself ask softly, from some great distance she
can’t remember traveling.

The girl leans across the bench, planting her hands against the lockers on either side of
Santana’s shoulders. Her lips pull back. Santana suddenly feels like dinner.

“We’re not going to be friends,” Brittany breathes, still too many inches away to kiss, but close
enough that her raspberry-scented lip gloss is making Santana’s head feel heavy. “So how about
we try being something else?”

It’s cheesy.

It’s clichéd.
It’s wrong.

Santana closes her eyes, leans forward, and nods.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

This is exactly the opposite of everything she has been working towards, exactly the opposite of
why she’s been kicking the shit out of her own wants and needs since first laying eyes on this girl,
and truthfully, the whole thing is beginning to remind her uncomfortably of a porno she saw once
—but Santana’s having one hell of a time putting a stop to it.

“Bad idea,” she mumbles, inhaling something so completely Brittany that her head spins. “Bad,
bad, bad idea.”

“Bad,” Brittany agrees, craning her long neck forward until her words etch themselves lightly onto
Santana’s skin. “But we’re doing this. Aren’t we?”

“No,” Santana denies unconvincingly, lips brushing the other girl’s like the caress of a ghost. “No,
we are not.”

“Think we are,” Brittany breathes, barely touching her, and fuck, Santana wants so very much to
die at this moment. She feels the weight of the girl’s hands hovering over her shoulders, sees the
promise in blue eyes, and simultaneously knows what it is to love and hate absolutely everything.

“Think we shouldn’t,” she replies distantly, waiting, praying for footsteps to clatter on the stairs
outside. The door’s unlocked, she remembers. Anyone could burst in. Anyone could save them
both.

“You’re not exactly running away,” Brittany points out, and Santana really wishes the girl would
refrain from using words like ‘running’, because her lips come even nearer when she says it. She
swallows, watches the girl’s gaze dart from her eyes to her lips and back again.

“I am,” she insists softly, clutching her own arms so tightly, it actually feels like she’s leaving
bruises behind. “In my head, I am halfway up those stairs right now.”

“Your head is a crappy place,” Brittany teases, and Santana tacks words like ‘crappy’ onto her list
of ‘things Brittany’s mouth should not speak when hovering almost flush against Santana’s’. She
shakes her head.

“If we do this—“

“Shut up,” Brittany pants softly against her mouth, and they’re kissing now, Santana’s lips slipping
and sliding under Brittany’s assault. She whines into the other girl, digging her nails into her own
skin.

“If we do this—“

“Still talking,” Brittany admonishes, leaning uncomfortably across the bench and pressing her
mouth ever closer.

“I need you to listen,” Santana insists, though her lips are kissing back entirely without the input of
her brain. “I need you to hear—“

“I’ve listened enough,” Brittany proclaims, moaning almost soundlessly when Santana catches
her lip between curious teeth and tugs. “I’ve heard it. You’re scared. You don’t want to break me.
Yada yada. It’s old, Lopez.”

Santana can’t think of anything to say to that, so she decides to stop operating on two separate
planes of existence at once, instead pushing off the locker and kissing back hard. Her arms slip
around Brittany’s shoulders, yanking until the blonde makes a frustrated noise and swings both
legs over the bench, winding one arm around Santana’s middle and punching her right back into
the wall again with a metallic clang.

“Fuck,” Santana hisses, because no matter how turned on she is, a handle to the spine is never
delightful. Brittany makes an apologetic sound, followed immediately by a hungry one, nipping at
her lips.

“Sorry.”

You’re going to be, Santana can’t resist thinking morosely, splaying her fingers across the back of
the girl’s pristine uniform. It’s oddly delicate, for something that symbolizes so much hate and
anger; only the best for Sylvester’s underlings, she supposes. If it were any other article of
clothing, she might consider donning it herself.

But it is what it is, and there’s no denying that—even though Brittany seems all too keen to do so,
roping Santana along for that dismal little ride.

This is such a bad idea.

She threads a hand into Brittany’s taut ponytail, tugging a few strands loose as she gropes
hopefully for the black tie hidden within spun gold. “Why,” she demands after a second of yanking
as gently as she can, “do you wear this stupid thing all the time, anyway?”

“Have to,” Brittany grinds out, trailing quick, wet kisses alone Santana’s jawbone. “Flogged if I
don’t.”

It’s a mark of Sylvester’s evil reign that Santana doesn’t even think about questioning the reality
of that claim.

“It’s stupid,” she says anyway, finally easing the tie free and running her fingers through Brittany’s
hair. “It’s really fucking stupid. What’s the point?”

“Winning, I guess.” Brittany’s teeth graze hot skin seconds before her tongue follows suit, licking
a blazing path to Santana’s ear. “Coach likes to win.”

“So do I,” Santana admits, groaning when blunt teeth meet her sensitive lobe. Her body tries to
arch off the lockers, her mouth seeking Brittany’s skin; the blonde shoves her back, hands to
hips, grinning.

“Are you winning now?” she asks playfully, biting down harder and sucking until Santana’s nails
scrape her scalp desperately.

“Could go either way at this point,” the Latina manages. A low chuckle fills her ear.

“You’re about to get lucky in the locker room,” Brittany points out, pulling back and raising an
eyebrow. “If this isn’t winning, you are so playing the wrong game.”

Santana growls, pushing her hips forward. She’s hoping to catch the girl off-guard, but Brittany
meets her halfway, kissing her with a slow, easy patience that strikes Santana as both
maddening and beautiful. Tongues brush and caress, and though Santana may not be much of a
dancer—not the way Brittany is, anyway—this tango is one she knows intimately. She pulls
Brittany closer, cupping the back of her head and urging her mouth to open wider, pleased when
the girl gasps.

“You’re good,” the blonde observes when Santana breaks off for air.

“Not good enough, if you’re still running that mouth,” her dark-haired partner returns, smiling
tensely. Brittany laughs and kisses her again and again, body molding close, breasts warm and
weighty against Santana’s torso.

She feels Brittany’s hand coast under her shirt, toying against her abdomen with a child’s
innocence—something she might actually put some stock in if not for the hearty way the Cheerio
sucks down her throat, leaving blatant marks that will be an absolute bitch to cover up. Santana
thinks she might just not bother; Quinn will shoot her some unrepentant looks of annoyance, and
her mother will probably give that familiar ‘my daughter is a whore’ frown, but the fact that these
marks are proof of Brittany’s place in her life—fucked up and confusing though that place is—
almost makes it worth it.

As if sensing her drifting thoughts, Brittany gives a particularly voracious suckle and grins into
Santana’s skin when her hips jump forward again. “Focus, stud,” she teases, running that
adventurous hand up high enough to skim just below Santana’s sports bra.

“I’m focused,” Santana replies instantly, curving into the girl’s touch as it inches ever-higher,
kneading her through fabric. “I’m suddenly very…very focused.”

“Awesome,” Brittany chirps, almost too sweet for what her hand is doing under Santana’s shirt.
She gives the nipple a quick pinch, clearly pleased with its pebble-hard response to her
ministrations. Santana catches the back of her neck, guiding pink lips back to her own.

“We could get caught, you know,” she says when they part, one hand tousling Brittany’s hair. She
smiles. “I like it like this. All messy. You look sexy.”

“I’m always sexy,” Brittany bites off, squeezing with abrupt roughness. Santana groans, back
bending on command. “This is coming off now,” the blonde adds as a sort of afterthought,
grasping the hem of the shirt and directing it upwards. Santana moves, letting her make short
work of the clothing, until she stands naked from the waist up. She shivers.

“Fuckin’ lockers.”

“Cold?” Brittany asks innocently, tracing a winding path between Santana’s heaving breasts with
one finger. The Latina bares her teeth, hands clenching just under the edge of that damnable
uniform top.

The banter’s fun and all, but she finds she appreciates Brittany so much more with their lips
crushed together, sinking her tongue deep into the blonde’s waiting mouth. Somehow, Brittany’s
shirt joins her own on the floor, and Santana finds herself hoisted up, back scratching painfully
against the grating on the lockers, until her legs are wound around the blonde’s waist. She moans
embarassingly loudly when Brittany’s head bows, mouth latching onto air-cooled skin, hips
advancing to press Santana harder into the wall.

This is new; usually Santana is the aggressive one, calling all the shots and grinding against the
women wrapped around her body. It’s new, but it’s not necessarily bad, not with Brittany’s wildly-
talented lips doing that thing against her breast, drawing the skin in tight and painting sizzling
circles around the bud. Santana feels her shoulders roll back, her hands fisting in the girl’s hair,
taking every wave of pleasure with guttural retorts until the soaking heat running down her thighs
grows too intense to ignore. Her pelvis has developed a mind of its own, as it always does during
sex, canting frenziedly into Brittany, but thanks both to her position and the sweatpants she’s still
wearing, it isn’t doing much good.

She presses her lips against the halo of blonde hair, tugging until Brittany’s head tilts back, eyes
searching out Santana’s. “Not enough,” she pants, kissing the girl breathless. “More. Now.”

Brittany shifts her hands under the Latina’s thighs, lifting her a little higher, and rears back until
her body connects with the bench. She drops into a seated position, pulling until Santana
straddles her lap, and grins charmingly.

“Better?”

It would be cute, except the word is punctuated with a deft roll of her hips, and even through the
weight of her sweatpants, Santana feels something. Her hands lock around Brittany’s neck, her
own body responding with a hungry rhythm, and it doesn’t matter that they aren’t touching as
much or as perfectly as she needs. Brittany has one hand on her hip, the other palming her
cheek, her mouth fluid and wanting as she kisses Santana to the point of stupidity. It isn’t enough
in the way Santana is so accustomed to, the shiver-all-over-and-scream breaking point, but it
feels blissful all the same.

She loses track of time as they ride together, Brittany’s breath hitching each time Santana comes
down against her. She loses track of everything—who she is, how she is, the darkness her name
pins her with. She loses track of the locker room, of the absurdity that is her involvement in Glee
Club, of how very much she despises McKinley and the unoriginality it stands for. Her thighs
clench on either side of Brittany, her knees prying into the wood, and though the angle is awful
and there is still far too much clothing involved, their kisses are hungry without being hostile,
delicious in some desperate way. It’s something Santana has never known before, this feeling of
utter desire without loathing, the rub of Brittany’s tongue against her own, of Brittany’s breasts
against her own, of Brittany’s smile under hers.

The warm hand on her hip slides around, Brittany’s body bucking up, and Santana finds herself
rising up on her knees just enough to create space for that hand to move in. Her mouth swings
open at the first press of Brittany against her, burning through the sweats, cupping with light
pressure.

Brittany’s eyes meet hers, uncertain for the first time. “Okay?” she asks softly, grinding her palm
carefully up when Santana releases a low whine. “Good?”

Santana can only nod feverishly, riding up and down, urging the heel of the girl’s hand where it
needs to go. She clutches the back of Brittany’s neck, fingers sweeping under thick waves, nails
digging in, groaning when Brittany’s fingers replace her palm. The girl rubs in slow, heavy
motions, each stroke a promise of something deeper and more real, and Santana’s body carries
itself away without her consent.

She kisses the blonde again, reaches down, wraps slim fingers around Brittany’s wrist. Shifting,
she pushes their hands down the front of her sweats, into the underwear lurking beneath, and
moans huskily as Brittany curls straight inside. Bowing her back, Santana impales herself upon
strong fingers, her own hand stroking her clit in sharp, fanatical motions that directly oppose the
measured, deliberate pattern of Brittany’s thrusts.

She’s never been one to keep her eyes open during sex—has never particularly cared to see
who’s doing the deed—but right now, it would be impossible to look away. Brittany’s eyes seem
to go on forever, dark rings tinging vibrant blue. Santana gazes deep, taking every thrust and
twist with rocking hips, making mad, wild sounds the likes of which she’s never heard before. She
strokes herself hard, slamming down with her whole body, walls clenching convulsively, and
tastes Brittany’s pleased groan as she cries out.
Brittany kisses her until the aftershocks fade away, until Santana can find the energy to slip from
the Cheerio’s lap, hand easing out of her sweatpants. She kneels on the concrete ground, fully
aware of how unsanitary it is (for Christ’s sake, she’s having sex in a high school locker room—
how hygienically appealing could any of it be?), and runs her hands up Brittany’s legs, spreading
the girl.

Blonde hair shivers, Brittany’s hand finding the top of Santana’s head and gently coaxing her
down. She smiles, hooking her fingers into the material blocking her path and pulling until she’s
faced with a red skirt and light curls.

She tilts her head up, peering at Brittany through hooded eyes, enjoying the heat from the hand
pressing down. “Hi.”

Brittany’s lips quiver. “Hi.”

She feels words on her tongue, waiting to be released. It’s so tempting to tell the girl everything—
why she pushes her away, what her family is like, what Santana is like. But the hand on her head
is pushing gently, guiding her, and Santana allows the distraction to happen. It’s so much easier
—so much better—to lower her mouth to Brittany’s flushed skin, to trace intricate little patterns
with her tongue against swollen flesh, to loop her arms under the girl’s open legs and run one
hand up firm abs. It’s so much better—so much safer—to lick and suck, feeling the weighty press
of Brittany’s heels against her shoulders, hearing the throaty appreciative moans reverberating off
the walls as Brittany thrusts up into her mouth. She opens her eyes, gazing up the plane that is
Brittany, to see the Cheerio’s head thrown back, her lips forming unintelligible words. The hand in
her hair tugs hard enough to hurt in some faraway delicious way, urging her closer; Santana
bumps her nose against the girl’s clit, drags her tongue up and down and in.

Brittany’s free hand remains on the bench, steadying her body as she bends up onto the air, hips
churning almost hard enough to dislodge the dark-haired girl between her knees. The ground is
getting harder and colder under Santana, her legs whimpering in frustration, but Brittany is
beginning to wail, thighs clamping around Santana’s head. The pain fades off, distracted by the
way Brittany cups the back of the her neck under her hair, begging silently. Santana flattens her
tongue, scratches her nails up the blonde’s all-too-perfect abs, and sucks greedily at the wettest,
softest part of the girl. She feels Brittany explode, feels the trembling in her muscles and the
release of every inch of tension she’s ever carried, and closes her eyes against a sudden
sadness.

It takes a moment to work up the motivation to pull away; her mouth isn’t done, isn’t ready to
leave this world behind, her ears unprepared for the idea that she will likely never hear those
sounds of desperate pleasure again. She trails long, lazy licks down one of Brittany’s thighs,
kisses her way slowly and serenely back up the way she came, feels pale fingers drawing shapes
on the nape of her neck.

Brittany makes a low purring sound, tilting her hips to receive the open-mouthed kiss Santana
leaves on slippery flesh. “Mm. Not bad, Lopez.”

Dark eyes flash, unreasonably put off by both the cavalier use of her last name and the
implication behind it. “Not bad? You want to go again, Blondie?”

Though she’s joking, her entire body jolts excitedly, arousal snapping straight to her core again.
Brittany smiles lazily down, fingers coasting through dark hair, tapping her toes against Santana’s
upper back.

“I’m up if you are,” she says casually, bright eyes sparkling, and Santana has to bite down on a
sense of extreme lust. She wants to say no—needs to say no—because this cannot be a thing.
Sex isn’t dating, it’s true (hell, it doesn’t even have to be friendship; she’s never before had sex
with someone she didn’t in some way look down on or deplore), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t
dangerous. She should say no, extricate herself from the dancer-strong legs around her, pull her
sports bra and shirt back on and go upstairs. She should go to class.

But Brittany’s sitting up there in her red bra and skirt, expression so open and hopeful that
Santana thinks it’s a wonder they haven’t both lost their minds from this whole thing. Maybe they
have; maybe that’s what this is. She’s concerned, she can’t deny it, but Brittany is tracing what
she thinks might be a duck into the back of her neck, and she’s smiling, and Santana has never
before felt quite this wrecked.

She crawls up, back into the blonde’s lap, hooking her fingers under the straps of the girl’s bra
and pulling her close. It’s bad, she thinks as her mouth descends feverishly, and it’s wrong, and
Quinn is going to be so confused when this comes to light, but she can’t help it.

And anyway, what’s one more time?

Brittany’s tongue vibrates against the roof of her mouth, and suddenly Santana isn’t thinking so
much anymore.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

Maddeningly, it’s like nothing has changed. They see each other in the halls, between classes, in
Glee, and nothing happens. Nothing explodes. No part of McKinley comes crashing down. There
is no screaming, no bleeding, no dinosaur stampede or invasion of those creepy-ass bastards
from Alien.

Nothing ends, but Santana can’t shake the feeling that it’s only a matter of time.

She tries to distract herself from such bleak thoughts, because frankly, Brittany doesn’t seem too
damaged by what they’ve done. The smiles sent across the choir room are the same, but the girl
hasn’t attempted anything further—which, if she’s honest with herself, is kind of making Santana
crazier than ever. It isn’t that she wants to keep shoving Brittany away, but the idea that she could
have fucked the girl until she screamed and then not received a follow-up in attention is just plain
baffling.

When she snaps one afternoon and grouses this to Quinn, the blonde’s eyebrows just about dive
into her hair.

“You’re kidding,” she says flatly, staring Santana down. It’s October now, nearing fast on
November, and though it is too chilly for this sort of thing, they’re laying out on Santana’s roof. It’s
the sort of activity she can only finagle her friend into doing once in a great while (Quinn’s got this
whole mad thing about heights, ever since an incident with her tree house in the fourth grade),
whenever Quinn is at a particularly serene place in her life.

Which, as she’s started tutoring Rachel Berry in Spanish—a circumstance both convenient and
(in Santana’s mind) totally unnecessary, since Rachel is notorious for her precise note-taking
skills and honor roll status—is unavoidable.

For the first time since Santana can remember, Quinn is more likely to be happy than not. It’s
awkward, and confusing, and Santana is happy for her.

She only wishes her own life were traveling down a similar path. Instead, she gets this: memories
of flicking her tongue between Brittany’s legs, of sticky heat and sweaty skin, of Brittany
screaming her name until she was forced to clap one hand over the girl’s mouth to prevent them
from being found out. She gets to indulge in dream after unwanted dream of things they haven’t
even done (showers seem remarkably prevalent; Santana actually kind of hates shower sex, for
all its bumbling, slippery nature, but the idea of pressing Brittany face-first into one of the dividing
walls and pounding three fingers into her from behind is entirely too alluring). She gets, in short,
to live inside her own head, feeling progressively more obscene every time the blonde turns a
sunny smile on her as they sing about togetherness or undying love or whatever the hell it is
Schuester’s picked out that week.

It’s making her completely insane, but not quite insane enough to break past her own guard rails.
Which, Santana supposes darkly, she should be thankful for. It’s keeping the balance.

“Santana,” Quinn says, concern flashing all over her face, “let me see if I’ve got this right. You
meet a girl—pretty as hell, totally into you for some ungodly, illogical reason—and you tell her you
can’t be friends. You tell her this over and over again, until she finally takes the hint. And then, out
of nowhere, you fuck the shit out of her in the locker room—and suddenly you’re the wounded
puppy? Suddenly, you’re all upset that she’s not hopping along at your heels, desperate for
another go-round?”

“Something like that,” Santana mutters, eyes on the sky. A cloud strongly resembling John
Lennon saunters past; her gaze bores into it like it’s the most intriguing thing to cross her path.

“But you don’t want to date her,” Quinn presses, rising up on one elbow and fixing Santana with
an arch look.

“Can’t,” Santana replies as coolly as she knows how.

“You just want to screw her?” Quinn asks, clearly doing her best to restrain the horror in her voice
and doing a damn poor job of it. Santana flinches.

“Can’t really do that either,” she says, choosing not to comment on how, no, she does not want to
‘screw’ the girl. She just wants to make her happy. Very, very, scream-and-shiver-and-shatter
happy. Again.

“Why?” Quinn demands, leaning over until her irritated face fills Santana’s entire field of vision.
The dark-haired girl tries to glance away; Quinn’s fingers latch around both cheeks, squeezing
like she’s some five-year-old who’s just swallowed a quarter. ”Santana. Come on, I'm done with
this whole bottle-it-up routine. Talk to me.”

“I…” Santana frowns. This shouldn’t be so hard; it’s fucking Quinn, for God’s sake. This is the girl
who has seen her at her very worst and not batted an eye, the girl who watched her fall off her
two-wheeler for the first time, who gripped her shoulder when Santana got her first tattoo, who
picked her up the first night she tried a little too much vodka. This is the girl who has gone along
with every harebrained scheme Santana has ever cooked up involving fireworks, spray paint, or
stolen lunch money. The girl who cradled Santana on the nights her parents’ fighting grew to be
too much, prompting the ten-year-old to clamber out her window and sprint under cover of
darkness down the street. The girl who silently bandaged her split knuckles the day she found out
her father was leaving, unable to process the jumbled emotions warring within her eleven-year-
old body. The girl who accepts every word, every misstep, every shred of chaos that is Santana
with a shrug and a glancing punch to the shoulder. It’s Quinn.

Quinn, who is staring at her now with unshrouded concern, because this is the first time in their
lives Santana has held something back.

She inhales, a whistling breath through her teeth, and clenches her hands behind her head. “I’m
scared,” she admits finally, raising her eyes to stare above Quinn’s hairline.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one eyebrow curiously lift. “Of her?”
“Of me,” Santana says, voice rough with raw honesty. “She’s perfect, Quinn. Cheerios and all that
shit aside, she is fucking incredible. I mean, have you seen her move? The way she dances, like
there’s nothing between her feet and the air? And the way she speaks—it’s like she just loves
every goddamn inch of this life. She’s so…vibrant, so lively, and everyone fucking adores her.
She’s…Brittany.”

To her credit, Quinn waits wordlessly. Santana breathes.

“I don’t even know her,” she continues dumbly. “I don’t know her at all. She doesn’t know me. I
don’t…I don’t get how this can be so strong, this thing between us. She’s a cheerleader with a
nice smile, and that should be all, but it’s not. And I can’t deal with that right now. I’m…I’m barely
getting through each day, you know? Like always. Get up, go through the motions, slam through
every obstacle until it’s time to sleep again. My only focus is getting out. Except now…now, it’s
not. Now it’s her. And when she approached me in that locker room, when she kissed me and
didn’t give me that chance to squirm out, I thought maybe it would be enough. Just once, just one
time, feeling her, feeling it—and then I would let it go.”

“But you haven’t,” Quinn finishes, brushing a lock of hair out of Santana’s eyes with startling
tenderness when the wind stirs it. She blinks.

“Not remotely. And…I mean, you know me. You knew my dad. You know everything. Quinn, I
can’t go two days without ramming my fist down someone’s throat. I go to that school every day,
telling myself to chill the fuck out, to keep my hands to myself. And then I see Mallory, or one of
her bitch friends, or Karofsky or Azimo, and I just…they’re soulless. They don’t care about
anything outside of the moment, outside of putting on their letterman jackets and running
everything. They’re futureless little machines straight out of a goddamn nineties teen flick, and
still everyone falls to their knees in front of them. It makes me so fucking mad, what they have,
what they haven’t done to earn it. And I lose it. I see the way everyone scurries out of their way, I
see the way the teachers bow and scrape, I see the uselessness of it all, and it hurts. And I need
to hurt something back.”

Her throat is beginning to burn. She swallows hard. “I can’t stop. I can’t stop hurting people, I
can’t stop hating people. And my mom…she looks at me with this…emptiness. This hollow
expression, like she’s too tired to even be disappointed anymore. She doesn’t even try to make
me…better, or more worthwhile, or less him. She looks at me, and I can tell she wants something
more, but I can’t…I can’t put my finger on it. I can’t give it to her.

“These looks Brittany keeps giving me? The ones she’s been giving me since that first week of
school? They’re the looks my mom used to get on her face, before he left. These little hopeful
smiles, like if she waits long enough for all the bad stuff to fade out, something really amazing will
be left behind. Something to make it worth it. Brittany looks at me like she thinks that, even
though she doesn’t know the first thing about me, even though I won’t let her near enough to see,
there will still be that moment. Someday. When it’s all worthwhile, when it all makes sense. But
the thing is, it won’t. Life doesn’t happen that way. Even if I make it out of this crappy town, even
if I walk away forever, I’ll still be me. I’ll still have him. I’ll still be so angry, and so fucking certain
of the stupidity of this whole thing, and...that’s just never going to be enough for her. She doesn’t
know it yet, but someday, she will. I can’t watch that realization dawn again.”

Spent, she closes her eyes and presses her lips into a thin line. Above her, she can feel the
weight of Quinn’s frown.

There is silence for just about forever, and then Quinn says softly, “Hey, Lopez?”

She cracks one eye, chest crushing inward with self-pity. “What?”

The hand comes down faster and harder than anticipated, smashing across one cheek with
single-minded force. Caught off-guard, Santana shrieks and flails automatically back, catching
Quinn across the mouth with the back of her hand.

The blonde glares down at her, apparently unconcerned with the blow she’s just taken. “You,” she
hisses murderously, “are a fucking idiot.”

Jerking up on her elbows, Santana gapes at her. “What the fuck, Fabray?”

Quinn pokes a finger into her face, glowering stonily. “I don’t even know where to start. First—
idiot. You are not your fucking father. You’re a bitch, yeah, okay. You’ve got some anger
management issues, and you would probably benefit from some serious fucking therapy, but
Jesus, Santana. You’ve never done what he did. Ever. You’ve done some jacked up shit, but he
was…he was incredible. He was beyond anything you could ever dream to do to someone. Get
that through your fat-ass head right the fuck now, because I do not know how to say it more
clearly.”

Cupping her cheek, Santana stares. “What—“

“Shut the fuck up,” Quinn snarls, threatening cocking her wrist back again. “Second—what the
hell are you doing, plotting out what it is Brittany wants or needs or whatever? You’ve known her
for like three months. You talk occasionally, you’ve fucked once, and that’s it. You think you, like,
love her or some shit? You think you know what’s best? You think you can protect her from
something? You don’t even know her favorite friggin’ color, Santana. You’ve never seen her
house, or asked if she likes Thai food, or held a conversation that lasted more than a few tense-
as-shit minutes. I know you think the sun shines out of her perfect little ass, but for all you know,
the girl could be more fucked up than even you are. Get the hell over yourself, Lopez. Ask her on
a fucking date, bring her a chocolate bar, but don’t do this noble Peter Parker bullshit. It is the
stupidest thing I have ever heard from you.”

“I—“

“And third,” Quinn powers on, running both hands through her hair with blind aggravation, “will
you knock off this feeling sorry for yourself thing? You are Santana motherfucking Lopez, all
right? You think the world bends to the will of football players and Cheerios? The whole school
respects your ass. Sometimes literally—your ass. Sure, they’re kind of petrified you’ll beat the shit
of them if you’re crossed, but for the most part, they respect you. Okay? This whining, ‘my daddy
issues are consuming my soul’ bullshit is so not going to help. You’re a fucking head bitch, babe.
Own it.”

“Quinn—“

“Finally,” Quinn says, gradually growing calmer. “Finally, I’ve got this to say, and I'm thinking it'll
sound kind of familiar. You want the girl? You can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t stop, even though you
know there’s no rhyme, reason, or reality to it? Do something about it. Do something now.
Because I’ve seen the way Finn looks at her, the way Mike dances with her. She’s not going to be
available for long. She’s not going to wait around forever. She likes you, Lopez, and you’d do well
not to fuck that up before you’ve even gotten started. You’re not going to find another girl that
crazy again anytime soon. And believe me, she has got to be out of her fool mind, to want your
whiny, punch-happy ass.”

She sits back on her haunches, rests her hands on her thighs, and smirks. Her lip is bleeding
lightly, her hair a tangled mess. Santana has never seen her so satisfied.

“Where,” she asks at last, “did that come from?”

“Truth hurts, baby,” the blonde replies smartly. “What, you think you’re the only one with the right
to snap people back to the real world?”

Two weeks ago, Santana would have immediately answered yes. Right now, she’s kind of
thankful her best friend is an opinionated bitch with low tolerance for anyone’s whining apart from
her own.

“What am I going to do?” she asks as calmly as she is able. Quinn smiles.

“Lopez, you are going to get your shit together.”

It is the best and worst advice she has ever received. Slowly, painfully, Santana grins.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

Come the next day, Santana intends to take Quinn’s advice—although, really, why she’d do a
stupid thing like that is beyond her. Quinn is her best friend in the world and all that crap, but her
being a hapless romantic and something of a hypocritical wimp who still hasn’t advanced beyond
guitar solos and history books when it comes to Rachel Berry…well, Santana almost thinks she’d
be better off going to Puck for input. Except, of course, for the part where his inevitable counsel
would come in the form of strap-ons and handcuffs—assuming he was even able to speak
around his own raging hormones to begin with.

Santana sometimes thinks she needs to find more useful friends.

The point is, she intends to take Quinn’s advice, as ridiculous as it feels. She wakes with
butterflies playing bocce ball in her stomach, anxiety running rampant over her usual cool
demeanor. She’s out of it enough to trip down the stairs for the first time in years. She burns her
hand on her morning Pop-Tart. She comes real, real damn close to forgetting to tie her shoes.

It’s a weird morning, but when she piles into Quinn’s piece of shit vehicle, she’s still feeling
determined. She’s going to get her shit together. She’s going to make this day different.

Except, somehow, Brittany doesn’t seem to be in school.

Not that Santana is actively seeking the girl out, or anything (she has decided stalking takes too
much effort to be her thing), but it’s weird not to see her around. It usually seems like Brittany is
everywhere, hovering on her periphery with a preternatural talent for making her head spin.
Today? Nothing.

It’s a good thing Santana is exceptionally skilled at pretending not to be a champion worrier.

Quinn, predictably, is unsupportive. “Maybe Sylvester’s training program of doom finally took her
out.”

Santana groans, burying her head in her arms. “Shut up.”

“What?” Hazel eyes bat innocently down the table. “Shit happens, San.”

“Shut up,” Santana growls a second time, batting Quinn’s hand away when the girl reaches out.
“This is your fault, you know. Being all…’act like a normal person, Santana; ask the girl out on a
date, Santana’. You’ve thrown off the balance of the universe.”

“Yes,” Quinn drawls sardonically. “As retribution, said universe has clearly shipped Brittany off to
Iceland. That is totally how it works.”

“Totally,” Santana mutters mournfully, tucking her chin under her arms so only her eyes and up
are visible. Rolling her own eyes, Quinn smacks the top of her head.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, not without a certain amount of affection. “The chick probably caught
a stomach bug or something. Maybe from necking with you in the least sanitary corner of this
school. Don’t fucking freak out over it.”

It’s another batch of advice Santana truly intends to follow, but she can’t help herself. Something
feels off.

She sleepwalks through the remainder of the day, not bothering to rouse even when a couple of
the male Cheerios fire catcalls after her. On a normal day, she would beat the living crap out of
them for it—or die trying (not entirely figurative, she supposes; the last time she dared lay a hand
on a Cheerio, only blind luck prevented Sylvester from gunning her down from the high-rise seat
in her bright red Hummer)—but today, she feels drained. It’s as if her entire body spent the night
pumping itself up for an emotional triathlon, and now, without the proper outlet, she has more or
less shut down.

It is—

“Pathetic,” Quinn observes coolly, pushing hard on the Diet Coke option on the school’s one and
only vending machine. “Come on, you fucker.”

“Figgins hasn’t paid to refill it in two weeks,” Santana says monotonously, leaning into the tiny
space between the box Quinn is swearing at and the wall. “His hands are tied, don’t you know.”

“Fuck Figgins,” Quinn curses, pounding the machine half-heartedly with the side of her fist. She
grimaces, shaking out her hand. “Damn. How do you go around punching people all the time? It’s
like bruising yourself for shits and giggles.”

“Tends to bruise other people more.” Santana shrugs. “Takes the edge off. So have you seen
her?”

“Seen wh—oh.” The blonde shakes her head almost regretfully. “Santana, sweetheart, you have
got to pull it together. When I said you should go for it, I didn’t mean with a single-minded lack of
grace reminscent of a fucking Twilight character. You’re kind of starting to creep my shit out.”

Santana chews on her lip contemplatively. “It’s just…I want to get this out of the way. You know
me; you know how I am with waiting.”

“Shithouse,” Quinn provides helpfully. It’s an assessment Santana can’t exactly argue with.

They set off down the hall, Quinn still muttering about cheapskate authority figures and caffeine
withdrawals. It takes all of three minutes for Santana’s frazzled state of mind to be put into words.

“Oh, God, Lopez,” Quinn snaps at last. “You’re seriously worried about this, aren’t you?”

Santana becomes abruptly enamored with her own sneakers. A semi-irritated fist swings into her
arm, catching her just above the elbow.

“She’s fine,” Quinn jabs, shaking out her hand again. “She probably forgot to write a paper or
something and skivved off to get it done. Also, ouch. Seriously, that hitting people thing? Totally
irrational. Leads only to bruising and ice packs.”

“There’s a reason you’ve never been the brawn of our little operation,” Santana taunts wryly,
tucking her hands into her pockets and looking back at the floor again. “And, no, I’m not…worried.
Exactly. More like…mildly concerned.”
“She’s fine,” Quinn repeats. “She’s fine, and you’re late. Again. Get to class, felon.”

“Fuck off, hypocrite,” Santana returns. Quinn flips her the bird.

“I’m telling her tonight!” she shouts back over her shoulder, words almost lost in the rushing
hallway din. Santana widens her eyes in mock surprise.

“I’ll believe it when you’re sucking face with the midget, and not a minute before.”

That finger again. Santana smirks. She might be a mess and a half today, but let it never be said
she’s not talented at irking those who need to be irked.

A glance at the nearest clock tells her Quinn was right about the being late thing. Not that she
especially cares; it isn’t like she’s ever going to use Biology in the real world. But she figures
there’s something to be said for not flunking out midway through her junior year, since she’s
managed to come this far and all. And also since it’s taken her this long to meet someone who
makes her actually want to stick around.

Or, more accurately, makes her want to grasp the girl around the waist, toss her over Santana’s
shoulder, and board the first bus to New York. Whichever.

She’s three doors from the correct classroom (she thinks; she kind of hasn’t been there all week,
and she’s found the rooms in this building are exceptionally talented at blurring together after a
while) when a hand snaps out from what she believes to be a lab room, grabbing her by the back
of her t-shirt and hauling her bodily inside.

The door clicks shut, and for one bizarre instant, Santana has a mental image of McKinley’s
entire nerd population, banding together at last and bearing down on her like a singular buzzing
vengeance entity.

She turns sharply on her heel, fists raised in preparation, only to be met with an amused cobalt
gaze.

“Hi,” Brittany says, like she hasn’t been suspiciously absent all day long—and, also, Santana
thinks warily, like this isn’t the first time they’ve been alone together since the locker room.

“Hi,” she replies, not because she thinks that’s a legitimate response under the circumstances,
but because twenty-four hours were just enough time to dull the heat that flows through her at the
sight of that goddamn uniform. Now that she’s been properly reminded, it’s a wonder she’s still
standing so many feet away from the blonde.

“What’s up?” Brittany asks, as cheerful as she’s ever been, and it’s weird how very nonchalant
this whole thing is. Like Brittany didn’t just more or less kidnap her into this room.

“I’m never going to pass a class again if you keep getting in the way.” It isn’t what Santana wants
to say at all—she’s much more interested in dropping to her knees and panting out a whole
poorly-constructed diatribe involving trust issues, asshole fathers, and habitual fight clubs,
actually—but it will do in a pinch. She reaches discreetly behind herself, clutching at a desk with
white knuckles. Brittany smiles.

“You don’t like class,” she observes in that same mild tone, swinging her clasped hands in front of
her body. Against her will, Santana stares, remembering exactly what those hands are capable
of.

“Um,” she says, a pillar of intellectualism. Brittany’s grin stretches wider across her face.
“Besides,” the girl says brightly, “you’ve missed me. Don’t deny it.”

She couldn’t even if it weren’t the truth. It’s not that Santana Lopez is an inept liar (please; she’s
practically a goddamn gold medalist) so much as that she’s got a sincere weakness for those
eyes.

“Where have you been?” she asks, instead of biting off some retort about neither wanting nor
needing Brittany around to begin with. As she watches, something visibly melts off the taller girl.
She stands a little straighter, skirt swishing a little less frenetically around strong thighs.

“Around,” Brittany says, almost coolly. Santana arches an eyebrow.

“Around where? Sylvester’s reign of homicidal terror is impressive, but even she requires you to
attend classes here and there.”

“Oh, is that why you’ve never joined?” The words are teasing, but something is still off about the
way Brittany is holding herself. Santana frowns.

“That, and I value my soul just enough not to sell it to the devil. Seriously, around where?”

“Just…” Brittany blows out a breath, and Santana catches herself thinking the girl is actually
trying to hide something from her. It amazes her how strange this seems.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she blurts, before Brittany can weave a reasonable enough lie. She
doesn’t want to hear it, actually—doesn’t want to know that Brittany is capable of such things.
Lying is a Lopez quality, a Puckerman quality, a Fabray quality. She doesn’t want it to be a
Brittany quality too.

She’s not sure what she expects, but when Brittany quirks an eyebrow, her beautiful face splitting
into an intrigued smile, it feels about right.

“Have you really?” the blonde asks, leaning back against the teacher’s desk with arms crossed
over her uniform front. Santana shrugs.

“Kind of.”

“Kind of, or really?” Brittany presses, lips parting in the halting birth of a giggle. Santana’s more
than a little uncomfortable now; people just don’t see her like this. It’s not allowed. She’s pretty
sure there’s a law written about it, and if there isn’t, she’ll have one penned and faxed in by
seventh period.

At any rate, Brittany doesn’t wait for a response. She pushes off the desk and fairly struts closer,
skirt flitting distractingly, grinning all the while like she knows just how dry Santana’s mouth has
gone at the sight. “You’ve been looking for me,” she drawls, twisting her thumbs in the belt loops
of Santana’s jeans and reeling her slowly in. “All day?”

Santana thinks about denying it, but the whole point behind Quinn’s half-assed little plan is truth-
telling. It’s not something she’s innately good at, perhaps, but everyone has to start somewhere.

“All day,” she confirms at last, heart feeling just a little too full when Brittany’s familiar smile bursts
across her face. It’s not quite as clear as usual, perhaps; there’s something taut there, residing
just below the surface, which is weird. In the large handful of weeks they’ve known each other,
Brittany’s smile has not once looked strained in the least. It’s weird, but it’s a smile nonetheless,
and in Santana’s world, a smile is perplexing enough on its own.
“Why?” Brittany challenges, fingertips hot through denim. Santana swallows.

“Because,” she says, willing her voice to be still. “Quinn told me I should…”

“Mm?” She wonders how she’s supposed to think with Brittany doing this—smiling, holding on so
firmly, her body pressing warm and close and real in a way Santana is just not accustomed to.
She wonders how she’s supposed to achieve anything at all with Brittany standing inches away,
hips jutting forward to nudge against Santana’s own, looking up through her eyelashes like some
perverse attempt at purity.

(She’s seen this girl with her legs arched up, one hand positioned firmly on the back of Santana’s
head, groaning like her whole world was coming apart with the force of her orgasm—if there is
one thing Santana Lopez now knows, it is how not pure Brittany is.)

“Quinn told me I should tell you,” she forces out at last, trying to ignore the teasing stroke of two
fingers against the small of her back. “Tell you that I…uh…”

Spit it out, Lopez. Get your shit together. Man up; don’t be Quinn.

“Ikindofmaybelikeyoualittle,” she closes out, staring Brittany in the eye. The blonde’s forehead
creases in confusion.

“What?”

“Just a little,” Santana surges on, hooking her hands into her back pockets and taking a reflexive
rocking step back. “I’m not like…in love with you or something. That’s stupid.”

That beautiful brow furrows deeper. “It is?”

“Well. Yeah. I mean…love. Love is stupid. It’s all…coarse and needy and you can’t rely on it for
anything.” This is all coming out so wrong, but she can’t seem to shut herself up, can’t seem to
find the nozzle for this particular stream. “Once you fall in love, you get all douchebaggy and
useless. Weak. And people always wind up hurt. Someone ends up leaving, or—worse—
everyone ends up staying, and it’s just a big fucking mess.” She swallows a lungful of air, gulping
until it burns to breathe. “So I’m not. In love. With anyone.”

Brittany cocks an eyebrow, looking much less seductive and much more legitimately confounded
by the whole word vomit fiasco. “So you were looking for me all day to tell me…you’re not in love
with me?”

“Yes,” Santana replies, then winces. “No. Ish.”

“Ish.” Something hard is casting its way over Brittany’s delicate features—something Santana
decides immediately (as immediately as she crashed down on her head for this girl to begin with,
in point of fact) not to like. She hurries to explain, to untangle this mess before it freezes in a
sterling knot of threads twisted too finely together.

“Quinn keeps telling me that I’m being stupid with this whole…protecting you vibe. She wanted
me to get off my high horse, stop being a coward. Which, when you think about the way she’s
been drooling over Berry for fuckin’ forever, is kind of a huge joke. But anyway, the thing is, she’s
right. She’s right, I’ve been a wuss, and there’s no excuse. So I’m asking you out. I owe it to…one
of us.” She’s a little confused herself, to be honest. “I’m not entirely sure which one.”

“This is you asking me out?” Brittany asks disbelievingly, dropping her hands from Santana’s
sides. The dark-haired girl misses the warm, comforting weight instantly.
“Yes,” she replies dumbly. “Kind of. Ish.”

Blue eyes flash almost dangerously. “Say ‘ish’ again,” Brittany says, too calmly. “That’ll help.”

“Look,” Santana says, sort of desperate and sort of angry at the same time, “this isn’t my
decision, okay? I shouldn’t be doing this at all, I shouldn’t even be talking to you. Okay? You’re a
goddamn Cheerio. Your kind hasn’t done me any favors in three years at this god-forsaken
school, and I’m not expecting anything especially wonderful to start now. Especially given,
y’know, who I am. I’m not expecting anything, but my ass is getting ridden so hard over this. I
hate it, okay, I hate that you’re a fucking cheerleader, and I hate that I can’t stop thinking about
you, and this whole thing is so fucking stupid, but I needed you to know. Okay? I needed to tell
you before it ate its way out of me.”

It takes less than two seconds to realize how not the right thing to say that all was. If she thought
Brittany seemed cold before, the girl has now gone downright glacial. Santana fidgets
uncomfortably.

“Say something,” she snaps, annoyed with how nervous she feels. It doesn’t help that Brittany’s
response is to retreat two steps.

“You know what I’m sick of?” the girl says in a distressingly detached, eerily conversational, tone
of voice. “You know what’s really getting old? This…Santana Lopez versus the Cheerios bullshit.
That’s getting so very tired. I have been at this school for almost three months now. I’ve been a
Cheerio for almost four. I’ve been watching you since that first damn day, and do you know what
I’ve seen? Nothing. Not one hint of a two-sided war between you and my ‘people’, as you call
them so casually. I’ve seen you being angry, and snippy, and kind of a bitch, and I’ve seen
people like Mallory giving you as good as you send out, but that is it. I’m tired of you telling me
you can’t be my friend, or my girlfriend, or whatever it is this week, all because I chose to do
something with my high school career other than paint curse words on walls and beat up anyone
who looks at me sideways. I’m tired of the fucking excuse you keep falling back on. It’s boring,
Santana. I am bored. Find a new damn song to sing.”

Santana’s mouth drops open, her eyes narrowing on instinct. “You don’t know the first thing about
me, or about why I do what I do—,” she begins sharply. Brittany throws both hands into the air,
bowing her head with an aggressive little toss of her ponytail.

“I don’t,” she agrees. “And right now, God help me, I don’t even know why I want to. You’re crazy,
Santana. It’s a very attractive kind of crazy, and God knows I’m interested, but you can’t tell me
you’re not. I don’t know what your problem is, and right now, I don’t care. I want you. You want
me. Whenever you’re ready to get your head out of your pretty little ass and stop this pathetic
fucking vendetta, whenever you're ready to see past this stupid uniform and look at me? You feel
free to give me a call.”

She’s halfway to the door before she pauses and flicks over her shoulder, “Oh, and today? I
skipped class to look for the perfect place to try one more time to ask you out. I thought after the
other day, if I could find the exact right place to do it, you might be ready to grow the fuck up and
be happy. Guess that was a mistake, huh?”

Before Santana can so much as swallow against the tightening stone in her throat, she’s gone.
The Latina purses her lips, fingers clenching around the edge of a desk.

“Fuck me,” she hisses. “Fuck me.”

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.

“Well,” Quinn says calmly. “That wasn’t exactly what we rehearsed, was it?”
Santana’s only response is to kick the wall as hard as she can. Which, considering the relatively
flimsy nature of her sneaker, is possibly not the best option. She winces.

“Hey,” Quinn snaps, “no holes in my parents’ walls. In about two days, I’m going to have to tell
them about Rachel, and I need them as well-buttered as possible for the occasion.”

Because Quinn, fuck it all, actually held up her side of the bargain. And now Quinn, fuck it all, has
that “I’ve got a girlfriend” look obnoxiously splayed all over her stupidly pretty face.

Right now, Santana would prefer to be kicking Quinn, rather than this wall. She bites her tongue,
resisting.

“How did this even happen?” her friend goes on, oblivious to how closely she is edging to new
bruises. “How on earth does ‘ask her out’ warp into ‘insult her enough to make her leave’?”

“I have no idea!” Santana growls, though that isn’t entirely true. “I was just…talking.”

She pretends to ignore the arch look Quinn slides down the desk. “You talking,” the blonde
comments with a certain amount of serenity, “is rarely a good thing where girls are concerned. Or
have you forgotten how every person you’ve ever slept with hates your ever-lovin’ guts?”

“Nope,” Santana grinds out through her teeth. “Haven’t forgotten. Thanks, Q.”

She watches the blonde swivel from side to side in her desk chair. It’s more than a little annoying
how even her hair seems blindly cheerful, all swishy and pleased.

“Next time,” Quinn is saying when she tunes back in (that hair is damn distracting; she thinks that
might explain how Quinn was so successful with the brunette midget she’s been jonesing for—
instead of opening her mouth, she probably flicked the girl in the face a couple of times with that
hair and bada bing, insta-girlfriend), “maybe you should try keeping to the script.”

“What script?” Santana asks dully, flopping back on the bed and folding both arms over her face.
The leather of her jacket still smells bitterly of Quinn’s closet—repression and alcoholism, just like
the rest of the Fabray household—but she thinks that’s better than the Brittany-smell clinging to
the rest of her outfit. Brittany-smell is equal parts intoxicating and maddening, since it only serves
to remind her of failure.

Quinn already has a pen in hand, scrawling across a pristine sheet of notebook paper. “This one,”
she replies mildly, not bothering to glance up. “The one you will carry in your back pocket in
preparation for the off chance she ever chooses to speak to you again.”

“Fuck you, Fabray.” The words are automatic, but insincere. God help her, she’s almost curious.

She waits for Quinn to finish, inhaling and exhaling in steady streams to keep calm. Her own
personal brand of meditation, almost, and it’s just about working when Quinn plops down beside
her and slams the notebook into her chest.

“Here,” the blonde says when Santana coughs and lifts an arm to glare out from under it. “Read.
Memorize. Use as needed.”

“Take two and call you in the morning?” Santana mocks, sitting up and pulling the notebook to
eye-level. “Who are you, Dr. Fabray: Lesbian Therapist?”

“Just smarter than you,” Quinn snips, wisely migrating back to her chair before Santana can
swing the three-ring into her face. “Do yourself a favor, Lopez. Quit with the self-effacing shit.
Thwarting your own efforts is one of those things that stopped being cute after the first time you
scored on your own soccer goal.”

“I was eight,” Santana reminds her witheringly. One eyebrow performs its typical trick.

“No excuses, Lopez. Talk to the girl tomorrow. Read straight from my impeccable handwriting if
you must. Don’t fuck it up again, okay? You being a shithead bums Brittany out, and when
Brittany’s bummed out, we all kind of wind up feeling shitty. And when Rachel feels shitty, she
gets bossier. Which is fine in the bedroom, but when it’s in Glee, Kurt’s head always looks like it’s
going to blow off. And frankly, I’m getting sick of Schuester doing his ‘I’m going to cry soon’
routine.”

“She’s already been bossy in the bedroom?” Santana smirks. “All right, Berry, get down with your
kinky-ass self.”

“Don’t tell her I mentioned it,” Quinn warns, her ears going more than a little pink. The Latina
swings a pillow smartly through the air, chuckling.

“Secret’s safe with me, Q. Until you piss my shit off.”

She ducks the hastily lobbed baseball with remarkable agility, she thinks—and there’s a certain
poetic justice in Quinn’s horrified expression as she beholds the small puncture in the plaster
behind her bedpost.

“Oh, look,” Santana says lightly. “A hole.”

Quinn has never looked so hilariously murderous.

***

All kidding aside, Santana is pretty sure she’s going to throw up when she finds herself at
Brittany’s locker the next morning. The hall is emptying quickly, the typical sleepy ruckus dying
down as kids make various shuffling bids for the proper classrooms, and Santana wonders
blankly how it is she keeps getting away with this skipping thing. She’s good, it’s true, but she’s
normally not so good that Figgins doesn’t toss out a detention slip now and again. Not that she
goes; that man is damn near the most inept authority figure she has ever come across. The most
he ever manages to achieve is a phone call home—and it isn’t as though such things come as
any sort of shock to her mother by this point.

All the same, not a single teacher bears down on her as she leans against Brittany’s locker,
aiming for casual. She’s almost positive she’s hit the mark, despite continually removing Quinn's
notes from her pocket and mulling them over, when she spots a familiar ambling form down the
hall.

“Late again?” Puck greets her, protectively settling his books in front of his crotch. She smirks.

“Is it really considered late if you don’t plan on ever showing up?”

He pauses to consider, cupping his chin thoughtfully. “Probably not. You lookin’ for Hot Blonde
Chick?”

He’s not the most perceptive creature on the planet, and she knows it. It would be kind to ignore
his idiocy and simply respond in the affirmative, but really—she’s standing at Brittany’s locker.
Literally; she’s blocking the goddamn thing.

“No,” she snipes nonchalantly. “I’m getting ready to polish her locker for her. Sort of a ‘sorry I’m
an ass’ giftie, if you will. Think she’ll like it?”

“I’d have gone with flowers,” Puck says with a shrug, and for a moment, Santana is certain she’s
waltzed right into a parellel dimension in which her best guy friend has traded bodies with Finn
Hudson. Then he grins. “Smart-ass. Anyway, if you really want to chat her up, I’d try the football
field. I saw her out there with Mallory and some of the other sexy bitches who want me strung
up.”

“And you mean that in a strictly homicidal, non-sado-masochist fashion, yes?”

Thick eyebrows give their usual lecherous wiggle. “Believe what you will.”

“Creep,” she blows back affectionately, bumping his shoulder as she steps around him. He
bumps back, albeit more cautiously.

“Hey, Lopez?”

She turns, pushing swinging hair out of her face. “Yeah, Puckerman?”

His smile has dimmed, his expression transformed in a heartbeat into something disturbingly like
gravity. “Might not wanna blow it this time, eh?”

Any other day, she would punch him for suggesting she’s capable of anything less than success.
Right now, she feels just as faithless as he looks. She tries a wan smile.

“Don’t worry. Quinn wrote me a script.”

“Ah.” He nods wisely, combing fingers loosely through his mohawk. “The proverbial lady killer.
Or…Berry killer.”

“Half a lady,” Santana can’t resist snickering.

“Either way,” he says almost cheerfully, though his eyes still weigh heavier than she likes. “Chick
knows her shit about other chicks. You’ll be fine.”

As long as you aren’t you, she hears him finish silently, shifting his books under one arm and
lifting the other in a quick wave goodbye. She sighs. Steels herself. Sets off for sunshine.

Brittany is indeed on the field, uniform neatly pressed, bookbag slung over one shoulder. Her
forehead is creased under side-slashing bangs, her hands digging into her sides as she faces
down three of her Satanic brethren. It looks almost like they’re arguing—something she knows
she should stay out of. It isn’t like Brittany wants her help right now.

All the same, Santana takes a breath and steels herself.

“Hey!” she calls while still halfway across the field. It probably isn’t her wisest decision; alerting
Brittany to her presence this early gives the taller girl a better chance to hoof it away as fast as
strong, gorgeous legs can carry her terribly fit body. However, although Brittany’s head snaps
around quick enough to instigate a little whiplash, the rest of her stays put. Santana takes this as
an okay sign.

“What do you want?” one of Mallory’s flunkies sneers, all hateful green eyes and flawless skin.
Santana’s pretty sure she is one of the girls who ordered the hit out on Quinn’s tires last year and
resists an instinctive middle finger salute in greeting.

She settles instead for raising both hands to the level of her ears, as peaceful as she was made
to be. “Hi,” she says quietly, looking only at Brittany for fear of slipping up and decking one of the
others. The blonde’s lips twitch.

“Hi,” she replies, and shifts under the weight of her bag. Santana’s fingers itch to remove it from
slim shoulders, to cast it carelessly over her own back.

“Listen, about yesterday—,” she begins, flinching internally when Brittany’s eyes harden.

“She has nothing to say to you, Juvie Hall,” Mallory jeers, stepping protectively in front of the taller
girl. “She knows better.”

Santana fires a helpless look over her head, searching for Brittany’s gaze. “Brittany. Listen. I was
an ass.”

“You’re always an ass,” the third Cheerio pipes up, a little sweeter than the other two, but just as
inherently evil. The Latina's teeth clamp down jarringly upon her tongue.

“I was a bigger ass than usual,” she presses on. “But I’m sorry. I wanted you to know that I just…
kind of panicked. I don’t think well when you’re around.”

“You don’t think ever, Fisticuffs,” Mallory bites off, giggling. The sound is uncannily hyena-like,
enough to set Santana’s nerves on their very furthest edge. Brittany’s eyes raise, something
sharp and uneasy sliding across her features.

“Anyway,” the green-eyed bitch adds, stepping so she is shoulder to shoulder with Mallory, “you
should run along now. We were having a little members only chat with Brittany here about
certain…decisions she’s made of late. Straightening some things out, you know how it is.”

“See,” the third girl chimes in, “when you’ve got friends, sometimes interventions need to be
made. To prevent…undesirable consequences.”

Undesirable consequences. It's hard to ignore the fact that this is what she is—not just to
scumbags like these three, but to the whole school. Against her will, Santana’s head droops,
shoulders cuffing up around her ears. Brittany’s expression remains unreadable.

“Fine,” she says shortly, though the urge to knock skulls together and draw screams from bruised
throats has grown nearly deafening, racing like boiling blood through her head. “Forget it.”

“Wait,” Brittany starts, making as if to move past her bodyguards. Mallory swivels, one hand
pressed decisively to the blonde’s shoulder.

“That’s another thing we should be talking about,” she smarms, eyes dangerous and edgy. “First
Glee, which honestly is pathetic enough without any additions, and now this…thing. Whatever it
is. It’s like you’re trying to get yourself axed.”

Santana lifts her head, feeling even more murderous through her not-inconsiderable shock. Glee
is their first priority? Glee is more scandalous than Santana Lopez?

Well, fuck that.

To her credit, Brittany is standing taller than ever, shoulders thrown back, chin pointed down. “I’m
not trying to do anything, Mallory, except enjoy high school. God, the way you all talk, you’d think
that was a crime or something.”

“Practically a felony,” Mallory shoots back, digging her nails into the soft material of Brittany’s
uniform. “The way you’re going about it, anyway. You’ve got everything right now. Why are you
so inclined to throw it all away? And for a few cheesy heart-warmers and this piece of trash, no
less.”

She jerks her head towards Santana, who is feeling decidedly miffed about her role as an
afterthought in this whole situation.

“That’s what’s worth it to you? Singing and prancing around like an idiot with some bitch who’d
sooner knock you out in the heat of the moment than keep a civil tongue? That’s what’s worth
losing popularity and power and status?”

Santana feels her whole self go livid. Brittany’s eyes drop. “I’m just trying to—“

“You’re just trying to wreck everything,” Mallory snarls. “We have taken Nationals every year
since I joined up. We will do it again, provided you pull your head out of your ass, quit this sneaky
gay behavior, and drop that pathetic excuse for a club.”

She turns, flicking her ponytail with royal arrogance. “Sue’s orders,” she adds over her shoulder.
“You’re a Cheerio. Start acting like one.”

Santana’s fists ball, and before she knows it, her feet are propelling the rest of her after the
retreating uniforms. Or, at least, that’s the unconscious aim—before a strong hand snaps out and
latches onto the back of her hoodie.

“Don’t,” Brittany says almost sadly. “You were doing so well at keeping it together this time.”

Santana’s shoulders sag. Without turning, she mutters, “They’re bitches.”

“Is this the part where you say you told me so?” Brittany asks, sounding the vaguest bit amused.
Her hand is warm on Santana’s back, still pinching fabric to restrain the smaller girl. Mechanically,
Santana leans back into the touch.

“No,” she says, voice trembling with the effort of her calm. “This is the part where I say again that
I’m sorry. Me telling you what to do, me telling you how evil those girls are…it’s really no better
than them telling you how trashy I am, or how useless Glee is. You’re a big girl. You make your
own choices. Regardless of their…undesirable consequences.”

She chances a glance over her shoulder. Brittany’s hand slips from her back, resting instead
behind the blonde girl’s own neck. Chewing her lip, she looks genuinely contemplative in a way
Santana has never seen before.

“I won’t do it,” she says slowly. “Quit Glee, I mean. I don’t want to. I like it too much—I like what it
is, how it makes me feel. I like dancing with Mike and talking to Kurt and watching Rachel pretend
not to be in love with Quinn.”

“Won’t be much more of that last part,” Santana murmurs. Brittany’s eyes brighten.

“Good,” she says simply. “Anyway, I’m staying. They can’t make me quit.”

“Sue can kick you off the squad,” Santana points out, body still angled away from Brittany’s. “She
can crush you.”

Brittany snorts. “Crush me how? By taking away the uniform? By giving me back my old diet and
the chance to sleep in on weekends? I’m sure it would be really hurtful.” She shakes her head.
“Anyway, they need me. I’m the best dancer they’ve got—better than Mallory and those other
girls put together. I’m their best shot at Nationals.”
At a loss for what to say to that, Santana nods. Her gaze remains trained on the grass, her
shoulders tense. From the corner of her eye, she sees Brittany hug herself.

“Was there something else?” the blonde asks eventually, sounding about as uncertain as
Santana feels. The dark-haired girl shrugs.

“I’ve got a whole list of things I’m supposed to say,” she admits. “But honestly, I think sorry about
covers it.”

A slow nod; she knows Brittany wants more, expects more, but Santana can feel the rush of
hatred flowing through her veins, can hear the blood pounding away in her ears. It's too much to
finagle around right now, especially working in tandem with her overwhelming anxiety.

The girl waits a second more, then merely says, “Okay.”

She can feel Brittany starting to walk away, can feel the girl slipping through her fingers for what
feels like the thousandth time, and still, she cannot say what she feels. Screwing her eyes shut,
she presses the back of one hand against her mouth.

“Santana?”

She turns, frustrated. “Yeah?”

Blue eyes sparkle. “It’s a start. I’ll see you in Glee.”

Brittany is fifteen feet away when Santana realizes what she has to do. She sets her jaw, smiles
tightly, and strides off in the opposite direction.

Though she hopes it will be the last time this will be the case--she needs Quinn.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name--and
because I'm classy, yes, it is the same song used here. And for the record, I'm so not satisfied
with this ending...bah. This whole thing kind of went in a direction I didn't intend for it to. I'm of
mixed mind on it, so feel free to critique the hell out of it.

“This isn’t going to work,” Santana mutters as Quinn blows through the door and flops down
beside her. “Your taste in music is too fuckin’ shoddy, it’ll never—“

“It will be fine,” Quinn says, like Quinn always seems to be saying these days. Her soothing voice
is beginning to sound a little more like nails on a chalkboard than anything else, and Santana is
feeling more and more like punching everything when she hears it. It has gone way past being
just mildly counterproductive.

“Sure,” Rachel pops up from Quinn’s other side, nestled into the blonde with her chin resting on
one slim shoulder. “Totally fine. Quinn’s very romantic, you know. Just the other day, she took me
out for a picnic and we—“

“I don’t need to hear about your sordid little flings, Berry,” Santana enunciates carefully, smirking
when both faces turn sour. “What you and Fabray do in the bedroom so needs to stay between
you.”

Rachel cranes her neck to look up at Quinn, eyes grim. “Was she by chance dropped on her
head as a child? I believe her to be emotionally stunted in a very real, very serious fashion.”

Quinn snorts, bowing her head and brushing her lips across Rachel’s. The brunette sighs happily.
Santana gags.
“You two are pathetic,” she grumbles. “And this had better fucking work.”

This is, after all, her last idea. Brittany’s standing firm right now on the whole ‘do what I want
regardless of people putting me down’ thing, which is pretty admirable—especially in this wastoid
school—but Santana knows this place well enough to know mindsets like that don’t necessarily
last. There’s too much to fall back on—too many teachers like Sue Sylvester, too much pressure
from the likes of Mallory and her drones, too much fear like Santana’s own. Leaving fragile things
out in the open for too long is more than minutely dangerous; more often than not, such things
are broken beyond repair.

It isn’t that she thinks Brittany is weak. It’s that she knows what love can be like, how easily things
can fall apart. She knows how long bruises can last, how deeply scars can run, and she knows
that things worth having are the easiest to smash in the first place.

Brittany isn’t weak, but right now, what they have is. It’s real—real enough to make her skin hum,
real enough to haunt her in her sleep and disturb every square inch of the perfectly detached life
she’s built up until now—but it’s tentative, tenuous. She has to do something about it now.

And since she obviously can’t form words properly to save her life…

An elbow rams into her ribcage hard enough to capture her attention. Her head comes up
dizzyingly fast, just in time to see Schuester twirl into the room on his usual cloud of fairy dust and
dreams. He gesticulates excitedly in her direction, fully aware that this is a momentous occasion
for the both of them.

For him, because nothing pleases Will Schuester more than succeeding with a difficult student.

For her, because if this make-or-break attempt fails, she’s got no other choice but to kiss this idea
of being happy for the first time since childhood goodbye.

She thinks her side is more imperative, but it’s not like she’s unbiased.

Doing her best not to hyperventilate, Santana rises. Grasping her chair, she raises the thing over
her head and plants it directly in front of the piano. Quinn smiles.

“I, uh,” Santana hears herself say gruffly. She clears her throat, rotates her head uncomfortably
along her neck, cracks her back. “I’ve got something. To share.”

She wishes she could tune out the excited way Schuester claps his hands together. It’s making
the unpleasant flipping sensation in her stomach feel all the uglier. She swivels her upper body,
wanting so badly to glare at him and snap that it’s just a song, not a bid for world peace.

Instead, she makes eye contact with Brad over her shoulder and gives an uneasy nod to let him
know she’s ready. Which, really, she isn’t—but she figures it’s best to get this sort of thing over
with before she drops dead on the spot from apprehension.

She sinks into the chair as the first notes pour from the piano’s belly, slow and heavy. It’s
melancholy, too deep for Santana’s usual tastes, and therefore feels perfect for the occasion;
after all, it isn’t as though Brittany has ever been to Santana’s usual tastes.

She begins, shaky and tense, hands pressed to her knees as the initial lines sidle from her lips.
She can barely hear herself over the roar of nerves, screaming all the while that this won’t do it,
this won’t be enough, that Brittany won’t be able to see past the pictures Santana has already
painted for her. That paint is drying so quickly, and with every sad attempt at alteration Santana
makes, it seems to get worse. Does she really think one song is going to make a world of
difference?

Cursed with a love that you can’t express; it’s not for a fuck or a kiss. Rather give the world away
than wake up lonely; everywhere in every way, I see you with me…

She hates this—hates singing, hates opening herself up, hates the way Will’s eyes shine and
Quinn’s soothe. She hates Glee for giving her this as her only option, hates Kurt and Mercedes
for their knowing smiles, hates Puck for his smirk. She hates this song, hates the woman who
usually sings it, hates Brad behind her for never missing a single note.

What she doesn’t hate is the way Brittany is arching forward in her chair, eyes roving over
Santana as she sings, fingers twisted in her lap. She finds she doesn’t hate that much at all.

She can’t hear herself, and doesn’t care; whether or not her voice is Rachel Berry-powerful or
Quinn Fabray-lovely or Noah Puckerman-smooth, she couldn’t care less. The words don’t even
matter as much as the fact that she’s doing this in the first place—and from the glaze to Brittany’s
sapphire eyes, she can tell the girl understands. Her heart lifts in her chest, floating higher as she
continues, nudging against lesser organs as if to call attention to itself.

We’re out here screaming, “The life that you thought through is gone”—can’t want out, the ending
outlasting the movie; I wake up lonely…

Behind her, the notes die off, but Santana really isn’t here anymore. Her mouth slides shut, her
eyes fixed on Brittany’s, and though she can hear Schuester squealing his approval, she’s not
taking it in. Brittany’s smiling, and that’s all she needs. She stands.

“That’s it.”

She shrugs a little, embarrassed, ignoring the applause and Quinn’s wolf-whistle. Leaving her
chair behind, she pushes her hands into her pockets and walks straight up the risers, straight to
Brittany’s side. The blonde cranes her neck to look up at her, eyes bright.

“Hi,” the girl says. Santana bites her lip.

“That kind of sucked, didn’t it?”

“Well, as grand gestures go, it was a little predictable,” Brittany teases, taking the sting out the
instant her hand winds with Santana’s own. She slides their fingers together and squeezes, and
Santana’s heart damn near fires up into her throat with glee.

“I’d have picked a less shitty song, but my iTunes has been cracky of late,” she says, trying for
levity. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Quinn’s smile dim into an annoyed pout seconds
before Rachel giggles and kisses it away.

“It wasn’t exactly the ideal love song,” Brittany agrees, using Santana’s arm to pull herself to
stand. She bends her head a little, cups Santana’s cheek with her free hand, smiles blindingly.
“Kind of depressing, if you want the truth.”

“Blame Fabray,” Santana breathes, edging into the touch and closing her eyes. “She picked the
damn thing.” Quinn makes a more-than-miffed noise; she grins.

“Quinn, you need happier music,” Brittany informs the other blonde. “Maybe something involving
cowbell and a little less of the heartfelt midnight piano.”

“I like Emily Haines,” Rachel proclaims loyally, rubbing Quinn’s back in sympathy. “She’s very
talented.”
“See?” Quinn mopes. Santana throws her head back and laughs.

“But your voice is very nice,” Brittany adds, applying pressure to Santana’s jaw and fixing her with
a scorching smile. “Very sexy. I approve.”

“Do you?” They’re nose to nose, Santana tilting up on her toes in an effort to press closer. The
fingertips on her cheek stroke low to cradle her chin.

“You’re still going to be kind of mean and ornery and impossible to deal with, aren’t you?” Brittany
asks huskily. Santana shrugs.

“It’s kind of my thing.”

“And you’re going to keep fighting with the Cheerios until one of you draws blood?”

She can’t resist a smirk. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But you’re going to stop telling me what’s good for me and what isn’t?” the blonde presses, eyes
serious. Santana’s gaze drops.

“I’ll try,” she says honestly, because a Lopez doesn’t make promises well, and keeping them is
even less simple. Someday, she’ll tell Brittany everything—twisted together in bed, cradling the
blonde close, she’ll lay the cards out on the table. Her father, the abuse, the lies, her own
personal demons. Someday, she’ll do what it takes to tug free of the shadow that’s been pinning
her to Lima since she can remember understanding.

Right now, she leans up and brushes her mouth silently against Brittany’s, sealing the first pact
she’s made of her own accord in God knows how long. Brittany makes a soft, delighted sound,
kissing back with more fervor than Santana could have thought possible. Behind them, Puck
whistles.

“This show keeps getting better and better.”

Santana pulls away, eyes still glued to Brittany’s beaming face. “Hey, Puckerman?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll give you a five-second head start.”

He’s up and scrambling for the door before her next breath. Brittany laughs like the world is
perfect. Grinning, Santana rears up and kisses her as hard as she can before turning on her heel
and bolting after her prey.

This year, she thinks as she watches Puck’s sneakers slip and send him sprawling halfway down
the hall, could most certainly be worse.

*******

Title: Crowd Surf: So Let Me Get This Straight (You Say Now You Loved Me All Along)
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: R
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: An outtake from the Crowd Surf ‘verse, because I did not give Faberry enough love in
the tale itself. Includes slightly-bossy-when-horny Rachel and over-excited Quinn. Would we have
them any other way?
A/N: Title from Anberlin's "Day Late Friend". Have I gone a little title-happy? I might have gone
title-happy. Whoops.

It takes some time, but the novelty of being inside Rachel Berry’s bedroom eventually wears off,
leaving Quinn in a bizarre comfort zone. It isn’t like being in Santana’s room—for one thing, there
is far less in the way of earth tones and Bruce Lee posters, and the fear of being punched for
absolutely no reason is greatly diminished—but it’s nice. Very nice.

They’ve taken to studying here four nights out of the week, with Rachel primly set up at her desk
(“Good posture is key for higher cerebral functioning,” she once explained cheerfully to a
somewhat baffled Quinn) and Quinn stretched out on the girl’s floor. Once or twice now, she’s
entered the room with the full intention of setting up shop on the bed, but something always stops
her. She thinks it has something to do with it being Rachel Berry’s bed.

Minor details, really.

Tiny anxieties aside, Quinn is really enjoying this whole system they’ve worked out. She’s always
liked Rachel—much to Santana’s chagrin—but they’ve never really been big on the talking thing
before. Hers has mostly been a gaze-longingly-from-afar sort of admiration, and while she can
appreciate the Angel-to-her-Buffy romance of the whole thing, life has improved tenfold since she
joined Glee. Singing was all it took to capture Rachel’s attention, and now? Now she believes
she’s truly got a chance with the girl.

This being friends thing is especially awesome because Rachel, although somewhat
unexperienced when it comes to normal human relationships, has proven herself to be a wildly
touchy-feely individual. The exact kind of behavior that would normally put Quinn off has her
coming back desperately for more, thrilled with the notion of spending yet another evening on the
receiving end of light touches and too-quick hand grabs.

She is supposed to be studying history. She’s supposed to be behaving like a good Christian girl.
It’s what she told her parents in order to obtain their blessing upon leaving the house.

In all actuality, she thinks tonight is the night.

Quinn Fabray, after years of pining like a little bitch (Santana’s words more than her own,
although Quinn can’t argue with teeth-gritting truth), is going to ask Rachel Berry…something.

She hasn’t exactly put her finger on that last part yet. Which is weird, for a girl whose entire life
has been based around lists and expectations, but who could blame her? She’s been in love with
Rachel since she was old enough to know what the combination of a short skirt and a dry mouth
meant to begin with. This is, not to put too dramatic a point on it, bound to be the most important
evening of her young life, one way or another. Things this huge just don’t sit well with notebook-
paper play-by-plays.

But that changes nothing. She is going to do it. Tonight. No way out, no squirming free at the last
second. She’s told Santana in advance and everything.

Tonight, Rachel Berry will be hers.

Or, just as possibly, she will learn how hard Rachel Berry can punch.

She shuffles uncomfortably, rotating a couple of papers and flipping aimlessly through her
textbook. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rachel’s head turn. The attention simultaneously
thrills and horrifies her.
What am I doing?

“How is that paper coming along?” Rachel asks, smiling. She stretches her arms over her head,
baring the slightest hint of skin under her flimsy tank top; not for the first time, Quinn is filled with
gratitude that Rachel’s at-home attire differs so greatly from her school sweaters. The girl has one
seriously rockin’ bod.

Santana has no idea what she’s talking about.

“It’s, uh…kind of a nightmare, to be honest,” Quinn answers after a beat of disguised staring. “All
this crap about the Black Plague and rats and stuff. A yawn-fest.”

“Sounds exciting,” Rachel disagrees mildly, tousling her own hair with one hand. “Europe
certainly had its share of wild times. A little disgusting, perhaps, what with the biological warfare
and…the pustules, but fascinating all the same.”

It should probably disturb her that Rachel’s use of the word “pustules” does nothing to diminish
the level of attraction Quinn is suffering from at this very moment. Her lips curve.

“Well,” she drawls in her very best come-hither tone, “maybe it would be more interesting if I
wasn’t drowning alone in this river of vermin and disgustitude. You should come down here, study
with me.”

“I’m not in your class,” Rachel reminds her, but she rises from her chair anyway and steps lightly
across the clean beige carpet. Quinn sits up a little straighter and extends a hand, capturing
Rachel by the wrist and tugging her down. The squeak of surprise Rachel releases is, she thinks,
the most adorable thing she has ever heard.

The face she makes as she catches sight of Quinn’s textbook is almost as precious. Quinn
supposes boils and keening torment aren’t for everyone, though Puck’s cursory glance through
these pages ended in giggles and mimed gagging death fits.

Her friends are not lacking in strangeness.

“I cannot imagine what one gets out of these classes,” Rachel comments, flicking haphazardly
through the book. “Death and gore and doom. You might as well be reading a horror novel.”

“Not all history’s that bad,” the blonde replies, smiling when Rachel, coming across a particularly
hideous page, grimaces and slams the book shut entirely. “Besides, there’s that whole adage
about learning from past mistakes. The more you know, the better off society’s future will be.”

“I hardly think upgrading to nuclear weaponry and suicide bombers qualifies as ‘better’, Quinn,”
Rachel sniffs. “There is equally as much genocide now as there was a few hundred years ago.
Those residing in categorical minorities are not much better off, what with bigotry and violence.
Persecution and warfare…these continue to be human qualities through and through, regardless
of how much knowledge we possess.”

“Since when are you of the ominous, cynical sort?” Quinn questions, only half-amused. There is
something in Rachel’s eyes she does not like, a sort of heavy shadow she feels unaccustomed to
noticing. When Rachel does not reply instantly, Quinn reaches across the short distance between
them and lays a hand upon the smaller girl’s arm.

“My dad,” Rachel says at last, shrugging a little and covering Quinn’s hand instinctively with her
own. “He’s facing something of a minor inquiry at work. Nothing serious, really, but…someone
found out. Again. And now there are questions. Small accusations. They won’t go through, of
course; this is not the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it be the last, but it always…”
“Sucks,” Quinn fills in bitterly. Mr. Berry, she knows, is a pediatrician—and apparently, not all
parents in Lima are keen on placing the health of their children in homosexual hands. It should,
by all rights, be a non-issue; few doctors are as compassionate and dedicated as Richard Berry,
who has striven harder than Quinn can possibly imagine to top off his field. But where there are
good, honest men, there will always follow suspicion and questions. Quinn knows this better than
anyone; she wouldn’t be particularly astounded to find her own father leading the torch-wielding
masses on such a subject.

“Yes, Quinn,” Rachel replies softly, eyes burning holes into her bare feet. “It sucks.”

Their hands are still joined, Quinn notes, resting almost casually upon the soft skin of Rachel’s
arm. Even under the burden of the girl’s melancholia, the connection is nothing short of electric.
The hair upon the back of Quinn’s neck stands stiffly at alert, her skin prickling all over. She
swallows.

“Rach.”

Brown eyes lift to meet hers, curious and hopeful in some way Quinn is able only to pray over.
“We’re at nickname level now?” the girl asks, sounding perfectly delighted at the prospect. Quinn
smiles.

“More than, I’d hope.” She brushes a rogue lock of hair out of her eyes impatiently, rocking up
onto her knees and staring Rachel down. She probably looks too intense for the circumstances,
but damn it, she has to do this now. If she loses her nerve—as she has a hundred times over, it
seems—Santana will never allow her to live it down. And then, naturally, the girl will allow New
Hottie to slip through her own fingers, and this whole thing will be a big, ugly mess.

She’s doing this. Tonight. Terror and indescribable potential for failure be damned.

“Rach, I wanted to tell you something,” she says, hurried and breathless. Rachel is already
cocking her head, her thumb moving in unconscious strokes over the back of Quinn’s hand. It’s
almost enough to remove her nerve entirely.

“Is it a secret?” the dark-haired girl asks, teasing. Quinn’s smile falters.

“Kind of. No. Just…you know, just to you. For you.”

She can tell by the way Rachel’s head tilts further towards her own shoulder the girl does not get
where she’s going with this. Sucking in a deep breath, she squares her shoulders and evens her
chin defiantly.

“Rachel Berry, I’m…I’m kind of in love with you.”

It is exactly as direct as she has always imagined, though the violent quaver behind the words
makes the whole thing decidedly less romantic. Still, she holds fast to Rachel’s arm and gaze,
praying with everything she’s worth that the next thing she feels is not a slap.

She can’t decide if the girl’s hand stilling upon her own is better or worse than expected.

“You’re who now?” Rachel asks, mouth slipping open. Quinn winces at the sheer skepticism.

“I’m in love with you,” she repeats, feeling rather stupid about it under the fire of Rachel’s stare.
“Kind of madly. Kind of since we were kids. Kind of thought it was time you knew.”

“You’re…” Rachel shakes her head, retracting her hand completely. Quinn’s heart sinks faster
than she’d thought possible. “You’re…in love. With me.”

“Yes.” Maybe this whole thing was a pathetic idea. Maybe she should have waited even longer—
or done it differently. Not in Rachel’s room, on Rachel’s turf, for instance. And not so simply.
Perhaps she should have factored in rose petals, or a small mariachi band, or hell, even her own
guitar.

Why the fuck did I not think of the guitar?

Rachel pulls herself to a standing position, hands on her hips. Instantly, Quinn feels all of two feet
tall, staring meekly back up.

“You’re in love,” Rachel says slowly, “with me. With the girl who can barely hold down a singular
friendship, who can’t avoid morning sugar baths, who has to meet weekly with Ms. Pillsbury to
discuss ‘a prolonged and irregular obsession’ with Patti Lupone? You. Are in love. With me?”

“I really don’t feel like it’s that difficult to believe,” Quinn begins, startled when Rachel throws up
one hand in a gesture for silence.

“Quinn Fabray,” she says sharply, having the full audacity to sound kind of pissed about the
whole thing. “This is quite possibly the cruelest thing I have ever heard of.”

“What?” Quinn asks stupidly, blinking. Abruptly, Rachel flings both hands above her head and
casts a desperate glance heavenward.

“I knew you were friends with the likes of Santana Lopez,” she grumbles. “I knew there was some
potential for malevolence in you, but I never thought you would be so vile as to try to trick a
person into thinking you loved them. I mean, really, Quinn, are you that utterly bored already?
The school year’s barely begun; surely you could have come up with something less…awful to
expend energy upon.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Quinn protests, completely puzzled and kind of annoyed
about it. She scrambles to her feet, stepping as close as she dares. “Who’s tricking anyone? I’m
in love with you, Rachel. Seriously. I wouldn’t kid about something like that.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Rachel demands, striding forward and jabbing an accusatory finger into the taller
girl’s face. “Look at me, Quinn. Rachel Berry: Laughingstock of McKinley High. Nerds are too cool
to give me the time of day. I practically have to bribe even the teachers into speaking with me
after class. You can’t honestly believe I would think you, of all people—with your gorgeous eyes
and your perfect bone structure and the most astonishingly superlative rear end I have ever laid
eyes on—could love me. I mean, that’s…” She sputters for a second, clearly at a loss for words.
(Quinn takes that beat to glance over her own shoulder, curiously inspecting her ass.) “That’s
absurd.”

Quinn opens and closes her mouth several times, stunned. “Rach, I—“

“I think maybe it’s time for you to go,” the brunette says softly, averting her eyes at last. “I’ll get
more work done without you here.”

Taken aback, Quinn bends to obediently gather her things, watching Rachel chew her own lip
uneasily. This is all wrong, she thinks unhappily. This is not how it should have gone, not in any
imagining. Rachel should have been swept away, or embarrassed, or angry, but not disbelieving.
Not when Quinn’s never done anything to give her reason to distrust her intentions.

She’s halfway to the door when it hits her how unfair this is. How ridiculously over the top Rachel
is being. It’s stupid, and it’s inane, and frankly, she’s come too far these last few weeks to let this
be the end of it.

She barely registers the slam of books upon the ground, or the squeak Rachel lets out when
strong hands coil around her tiny waist. She barely registers how it feels to back Rachel against
the desk, or how wide the girl’s eyes have gone. All she has become is this need—mad and
fervent and wholly out of control—to prove herself true.

Quinn Fabray, Champion of Truth and Love, is not so easily averted.

“I love you,” she breathes, as Rachel’s eyes flicker up and down her face. “I love you, and fuck it,
Rach, I’m gonna make you believe it.”

It’s so totally the lamest thing she could have said (she can practically hear Santana’s sneering
cackle in her head), but before Rachel can muster a rebuttal, Quinn angles her head down and
snares the girl in the most searing of first kisses. She can feel years of desire welling, snaking
around her heart and holding firm, spurred on by the gasp Rachel emits when the blonde’s
tongue nudges her lips open and sleeks its way inside.

The rest of it—the telling, the argument—was not what she’s spent so many hours dreaming of,
but this is. Bending Rachel backwards over the desk, supporting her with tender hands, stealing
her every suspicion and doing away with her self-doubt with the power of a kiss—this is what
she’s been waiting for.

And from the way Rachel’s small hands curl around her neck, cupping the back of her skull as
she kisses back, it seems the feeling is pretty damn mutual.

“This is crazy,” Rachel gasps against her lips when they break for air.

“I’ve never been much of a proponent for sanity,” Quinn remarks, pressing a happy kiss against
the girl’s jaw. “I mean, fuck, I hang out with Puck.”

“I’ve never understood him,” Rachel agrees, arching until her neck is flush against Quinn’s
searching lips. “God. God, you’re good at that.”

The idea that she is finally here, in Rachel’s room, nipping at her throat while the brunette moans
beneath her, is almost more intoxicating than the act itself. Quinn shivers.

“I’ve been dreaming,” she murmurs, taking a bit of skin between her teeth and sucking until
Rachel whimpers, “of doing this for so long. You don’t even know.”

“You never told me,” Rachel points out. “You barely spoke to me, and when you did, it was
always in those perplexing choppy—uhh—sentences. I always just thought you were—oh my
God—making fun of me.”

“Never,” Quinn swears, burying her face against the girl’s collarbone and biting down lightly.
Rachel squirms, hips bucking erratically as her hands spread across Quinn’s shoulders. “Well. I
mean, maybe when we were like six. But I also liked Blue’s Clues and tuna back then. Things
change.”

“I just never thought you might actually—“ Trailing off, Rachel gives a mewling gasp that fires
straight to Quinn’s soul. The blonde growls with satisfaction, teasing her tongue along tan flesh,
kissing every inch she can reach. “I thought you were a pipe dream, you know? A fantasy.
Something to keep me burning on cold nights, an image to pleasure me when I was at my
loneliest. It was almost like you weren’t real.”

The idea of Rachel spending any night at all pleasuring herself to thoughts of Quinn is almost too
much. The blonde dips her tongue slowly beneath the strap of the smaller girl’s tank top, relishing
the heave of Rachel’s breasts in response.

“You thought of me?” she asks softly, tickling a thin trail down the girl’s shoulder. Rachel moves
fluidly, hands seeking skin under Quinn’s t-shirt, her back bowing off of the desk. It’s all Quinn
can do not to crush her down atop papers and laptop cords and claim her in the next heartbeat.

Barely told the girl a thing, and already you’re itching to fuck her senseless. Real romantic,
Fabray. Lopez would be so proud.

Rachel doesn’t seem to mind, however, which makes the whole thing less guilt-inducing. Instead
of looking displeased, the diminutive girl is wearing an expression that falls somewhere between
shy and coy, touching a hand to her cheek.

“Often,” she confides quietly, trailing that hand slowly down her neck until her fingers are toying
with the collar of her top. Quinn’s mouth is suddenly desert dry. “You have no idea how many
nights I've spent on that bed…legs spread open, stroking myself…mm, imagining it was your
hand…”

A little quick on the draw, but hot damn, who’s minding here?

Rachel seems to realize all at once what has just left her mouth; her face goes pink, her hand
dropping to her side. “My God,” she mumbles, “I actually just said that.”

“Fuck yeah, you did,” Quinn growls, surging forward and planting her palms upon the desktop.
Rachel, sufficiently pinned, loses that mortified flare almost immediately.

“You don’t mind?” she asks, moaning throatily when Quinn’s lips collide again with her skin.
“You’re not—mm—put off?”

“Fuck no, I’m not.” She’s standing between Rachel’s legs, the desk supporting the smaller girl
almost entirely as she rocks her hips forward. Dark eyes flicker.

“You curse a lot,” she observes, casting her head back with the next thrust of Quinn’s hips.

“Sorry,” Quinn says, snagging the tank’s material with her teeth and pulling. She bows her head
until her mouth covers one concealed breast, sucking harder to the rhythm of Rachel's cries.

“No apologies,” the brunette gasps when she can speak again around heaving breaths. Quinn
rolls her tongue, flattens it out and strokes boldly across the nipple revealing itself so pointedly
through the garment. “It’s so very hot.”

Pale fingers dig into Rachel’s waist, pulling her in against the push of Quinn’s pelvis. She bites
down gently, pleased when one small hand cradles the back of her head and urges her to
continue.

“Keep doing that,” Rachel commands rather bossily, groaning when Quinn acquiesces. “Fuck.
Keep…keep doing that, and touch me.”

Quinn’s hand is sandwiched between their bodies before the sentence is complete, hot against
the front of scandalously short red shorts. Rachel whimpers into her ear, head bent so she can
hiss demands softly.

“Harder, Quinn. You’re not going to break me. I need to…I need to feel you. On me, on my skin, I
need you to—oh.”
Practically shivering with ancipation, Quinn curls her fingers into damp underwear, startled to find
smooth skin coated slickly all over. She groans, using her other hand to push the tank top up over
the smaller girl’s breasts, and nuzzles between them desperately.

“I didn’t expect to go this fast,” she insists, even as Rachel rubs herself frantically into her willing
hand. “I thought maybe…dinner, a movie…some light petting to start off.”

“If you stop now, Quinn Fabray,” Rachel threatens, “I will—oh fucking God, yes.”

She does not care to know what it is Rachel will do, because the idea of stopping is both
ludicrous and painful. She focuses her full attention on dragging a nail lightly across Rachel’s
heat, on the pitch-perfect cry Rachel utters. Grasping at the hand not currently digging its nails
into her skin, she guides Rachel down the front of her jeans and cants furiously in an effort to
catch up.

“I need, I want, I,” Rachel babbles, clumsily caressing Quinn in return. “I’m so, I’m so close, I’m so
—“

Rachel would be a talker during sex, Quinn thinks rather smugly as she gives a perfectly-timed
pinch and watches the small girl curve up into her body. Rachel would also be disturbingly
capable of riding out an orgasm while frenetically guiding Quinn to one of her own. She’s just that
kind of over-achiever, and frankly, Quinn’s never been happier about that fact.

She collapses forward, feeling Rachel’s arms come around to cradle her close. It’s not exactly
comfortable, what with Rachel sprawled gasping upon her desk and Quinn using the girl’s
quivering, spread legs as a center for her own balance, but she certainly can’t complain.

“Eventful study session,” she observes when breathing comes more easily. Rachel’s hand drifts
down the back of her head, stroking her hair complacently; she nearly purrs in ecstasy.

“Are you going to be sarcastic about it, or are you going to finish the job?”

Lifting her head, Quinn blinks in confusion. “But you…” She hesitates, uncertain. “I mean, you did,
right? I saw you. There was moaning, and I think you scratched the shit out of my back.”

Dark eyes twinkle. “I was talking about something a little less lust-oriented, Quinn. Like making
this official?”

Quinn thinks her face might shatter if she keeps smiling this broadly, and how fun would that be
to explain at school?

“For the record,” Rachel says, brushing her hand against Quinn’s cheek and smiling charmingly.
“The answer is yes. Naturally. I’m not the sort of girl who can…do that, and not expect a follow-up
of more romantic proportions.”

Now that she’s come down from her high, she looks more than a little embarrassed. Quinn thinks
she has never looked so beautiful.

“So you wanna?” she asks, thumbing Rachel’s bottom lip hopefully. The brunette wraps her legs
around Quinn’s waist.

“I wanna,” she says, rather more adoringly than Quinn expects. The blonde beams, hooking her
hands under deceptively strong thighs and lifting the girl off the desk.

They’re halfway to the bed when Rachel leans down and kisses her hard enough to nearly send
them both tumbling down. Quinn is sure she’s about to shatter into a million Rachel-loving pieces.
She has never been happier in her life.