from what i've tasted of desire (pg-13, quinn/santana)
Title: from what i've tasted of desire
Author: intobrakelights/ definexfreedom
Pairing: Quinn/Santana
Rating: pg-13
Length: ~2000
Spoilers: Kind of nothing. References primarily to s1.
Warnings: Swearing, mostly.
Summary: A response to the following prompt: season 1 quinntana. when quinn finds out that brittany and santana have been messing around, she doesn’t expect her first reaction to be jealousy. for anonymous.
Author's Notes: I haven't written much fic in ages, so then this happened. Idk, hopefully it isn't the worst?
When Quinn finds Brittany and Santana half-naked and pressed against the lockers, Quinn knows immediately her first reaction should be horror. Horror and offense, no doubt, because the very placement of Santana’s hand violates everything she’s ever known.
But what strikes her most-what halts her in the doorway and leaves her breathless and stricken and nauseous-is the overwhelming jealousy.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hisses, violently, when she remembers how to speak through the painful twisting in the pit of her stomach.
Quinn doesn’t miss the moment of wide-eyed horror on Santana’s face before she disguises it hastily with an easy combination of irritation and mockery.
“Quinn!” Brittany says, with an immediate smile that comes just as easily, as Quinn stands in the doorway and stares at the spaces between their bodies and thinks vindictively (justly, she might say, in the sight of a God who could not abide the immorality of Santana’s mouth trailing hot kisses promisingly down Brittany’s abdomen, the way her tongue-her tongue-) that she was the cause of it.
“This is wrong,” she says, but it’s not her first reaction.
*
When she prays at night, she means to pray that the immoral interactions of her two best friends (largely Santana-Quinn’s fairly certain Brittany would follow anywhere Santana led, at this point) be cleansed-maybe in part because she knows how much it would piss Santana off-but there’s this churning somewhere in her stomach that makes her stumble over the words.
“Them” turns to “me,” and Quinn Fabray curls up beneath the covers feeling weak and nauseous and strange.
*
The next day, of course, she uses it to her own benefit-tells Santana that if she catches them again she could have her kicked off the Cheerios. Implies that everyone in the school might be exposed to her…Sapphic tendencies, if she isn’t careful.
Santana rolls her eyes and inspects her fingernails, already bored. “It’s not like I’m gay, Q. Britts and I make out at parties all the time. Everyone knows it. It’s hot.”
Despite the fact that the words sound as if she intended them to be heard by a five year old audience, Quinn arches an eyebrow. “I didn’t see any boys.”
Santana just shrugs. “Puck wasn’t around, I needed to blow off some steam. Jesus, Fabray, that stick up your ass ever gonna get sanded down or what? Don’t know how you manage to hobble around.”
Still, Quinn never again catches them in the lockerroom, no matter how many hours have lapsed since practice, and she knows Santana was listening.
But obedience cannot come without a price, and Santana seems to think flustering Quinn is the payment she is owed. It is a payment that comes in the package of obscene make-out sessions with Puck against Quinn’s locker, and it is tied together with a lovely red and white and pleated ribbon that consists of Santana stepping into Quinn’s personal bubble as often as she can possibly manage.
“So when you were sitting in church yesterday,” she whispers into Quinn’s ear one Monday morning, before Quinn has time to react, “how much time did you spend paying attention to the praise the divine, unwashed hobo bullshit and how much time did you spend thinking about my tits? You know, if you were going for an average breakdown.”
Quinn raises her head and doesn’t say a word, like deigning to acknowledge the very nature of the words is beneath her. Sometimes she can’t quite keep the color from her cheeks, and there’s also the one time it leads to a sharp exchange of insults and a physical throwdown in the middle of the hallway-but she knows Santana’s simply trying to catch her off-guard. She knows there’s no actual evidence to support the absurd claims spewing from her mouth.
(No evidence except the words at night that she doesn’t say aloud, and the violent twist in her chest she cannot name.)
*
A month passes.
It means everything should be relatively normal, again. It means Santana has decided whispering innuendos, raspy and low, into Quinn’s ear isn’t fun enough, anymore.
(But it doesn’t mean that every sight she catches of their linked pinkies makes her feel alone and nauseous and stupid. It doesn’t mean that sometimes, before she falls asleep, there’s a dull ache in her chest. It doesn’t mean she wants.)
*
How long? reads the text she doesn’t mean to send, until she does.
Did you mean to send this to the bf? Unfortunately for him, proportional to the three year old levels of intelligence and not the jolly green giant’s actual height.
Quinn rolls her eyes, because why should she be surprised? (And, in any case, Quinn knows that Santana’s never actually seen her boyfriend’s-you know. Anything. So whatever.) You and Brittany. How long.
Why, got some formula for the amount of time I’m gonna be burning in hell? Get over it, Fabray. We’re just messing around.
Fine. When did you start…messing around?
Freshman year, at some asshole’s party. We squared away, or are you texting for the details? This your way of getting all the porn you’re too lame to google yourself? I got some good shit I can send you, if you’re really desperate.
Quinn doesn’t respond.
*
A week later, she texts her again.
Why?
The cryptic messages are cute, Q, but if you want to tell me how me how much you want my body, just go ahead and say it.
She definitely doesn’t respond to that.
*
Two weeks later, there’s a message from Santana.
What the fuck is up with you, Fabray?
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Um, you? During cheerios practice? Even for you you’re going all power-tripping bitch. And I thought that stick couldn’t go up any further, but it looks like you shoved it in another few feet.
Santana never gets an answer.
*
Why did you start messing around with Brittany?
Because we had an audience of drunk, horny teenage boys and she’s better with her tongue than most of the idiots around here.
That’s it?
Oh wait did I forget to mention the part where I’m a total lesbo? And then, Jesus fucking Christ, Q. That’s it.
Quinn doesn’t ask why Brittany? She doesn’t want the answer.
(She needs it not to matter.)
*
“You’re in love with Santana,” Brittany says to her in the hallway, nearly a month later.
Quinn starts, turns, opens her mouth, doesn’t say a word.
“It’s okay,” she assures. “Santana’s awesome. She was totally Madonna in a past life.”
“But Madonna’s still alive,” she says, because it’s the only thing that will come out of her mouth. There’s a beat, two, and then, “Brittany, I don’t-what?”
“She showed me the texts you sent her because she wants to know why you were getting all-um, ‘Batestastic,’ on her. Which she told me wasn’t a brand of butter. But-I told her you were into her, and she wouldn’t believe me. So now you can tell her.”
Quinn shakes her head and laughs too loud. “No way in hell. Sorry, B, she’s-really not my type.”
*
It’s a Tuesday when Santana shows up outside Quinn’s door.
“Okay, Fabray, you wanna tell me what the fuck is going on with you? Because I think you just one-upped Coach Sylvester out there, Virgin Mary-style. Seriously, a prayer circle at the end of practice? You-”
“Coach Sylvester was happy with it,” she says with a smile, too friendly to be anywhere in the vicinity of genuine.
“Yeah, because that was some serious cruciatus shit on our asses. You’ve got-”
Quinn smirks, lifts her head. “Did you just reference Harry Potter?”
“You really think this is where it ends, Fabray?” she asks sharply, without answering the question. “Because next time the Lima Heights Express shows up at the door, it’s gonna be with a special delivery. You can’t keep this up forever. Better shave off the Stalin handlebar, ‘cause your reign as dictator is coming to an end.”
Quinn watches her walk away and all she can hear is Brittany’s voice, echoing and echoing and echoing.
She doesn’t laugh, this time.
*
Do you like messing around with her more than Puck?
Santana doesn’t respond.
*
They’re in glee club together when Quinn shows up at Santana’s doorstep.
“Let me in,” she says-and then, with a barely-raised eyebrow, adds, “or else I might get mugged.” It’s pointedly dry, considering, for all the noise Santana makes about Lima Heights Adjacent, the most remarkable display of graffiti she’s seen anywhere around was one endorsing a presidential campaign-and the closest thing to gangs the seven year olds that scooter around the nearby cul-de-sac.
“Really think you’re safer in here, Q?” she asks with a smirk, as she steps aside. “Gots myself some razor blades in the top drawer over there I’ve been dying to try out. Their specialty is uptight virgins. Weird, right?”
“Are you still…well-with Brittany?”
Santana gives her a long, disbelieving look-but Quinn thinks maybe there’s nervousness at the edge, there, in the quick clench of her jaw and the fleeting glance downward. “You still on about this? You’re starting to sound obsessed. That mean it’s ninety-five percent my tits, five percent the immaculate conception when you hit up those sermons now?”
“Just answer the question, Santana.”
“Am I still fucking Brittany?” she says, low in her throat, eyes dark and predatory. It’s too much, it’s too close, and Quinn doesn’t know what insanity could have possibly pushed her into this. “Is that what you’re asking?”
Quinn swallows, but doesn’t look away. “…yes.”
“Sure. When we feel like it. Why, you just been aching for some threesome action, lately?”
Quinn looks up at her, sharply, and then she closes her eyes. Takes a steadying breath. “Can’t you ever just turn it off?”
“Can’t you ever stop fucking asking questions?” Santana hisses, and this time Quinn’s sure she sees it. The vulnerability, barely-in the tightness of Santana’s shoulders, and the set of her jaw, and the smallest tremble of her lips. It hardly exists at all, but it sounds like a scream. Violent and desperate and afraid.
It’s not Quinn who erases the space between them and presses their lips together. It’s not Quinn who reaches her hand up to cup Santana’s jaw. It’s not Quinn who presses in a little closer and traces her tongue across Santana’s lips.
And it’s definitely not Quinn who Santana backs against the wall, who feels hot, open-mouthed kisses trailing down her neck, whose gut twists painfully and delightfully when she feels Santana’s hand slipping underneath the hem of her top. Just barely.
Hours later, she will think about it and tell herself none of it could have happened, because that is not a Quinn Fabray she has ever met. That is not a Quinn Fabray who exists.
“You do want me,” Santana says, pulling away (but barely, because their lips are almost touching and her hand is curling in the hair at the back of Quinn’s neck). She’s smirking, and bold, but that comes a second later. That comes after the surprise she desperately tries to hide.
It makes not-Quinn lean into her, just enough to kiss her again. “You’re not straight,” she says, after a moment.
They kiss to erase the intersection of their truths, and they kiss to prove each other right.
*
Quinn expects her first reaction to be regret, but there’s warmth everywhere, and it’s under her skin, and she presses a stupid smile into her pillow, and she aches.
In between the moments of fear and denial and horror, maybe she’ll have this, sometimes.
(She rolls her eyes and fists her hand in her pillow and smiles and smiles and smiles until it hurts.
She wonders if she’s really stupid enough for this to be happiness.)
Author: intobrakelights/ definexfreedom
Pairing: Quinn/Santana
Rating: pg-13
Length: ~2000
Spoilers: Kind of nothing. References primarily to s1.
Warnings: Swearing, mostly.
Summary: A response to the following prompt: season 1 quinntana. when quinn finds out that brittany and santana have been messing around, she doesn’t expect her first reaction to be jealousy. for anonymous.
Author's Notes: I haven't written much fic in ages, so then this happened. Idk, hopefully it isn't the worst?
When Quinn finds Brittany and Santana half-naked and pressed against the lockers, Quinn knows immediately her first reaction should be horror. Horror and offense, no doubt, because the very placement of Santana’s hand violates everything she’s ever known.
But what strikes her most-what halts her in the doorway and leaves her breathless and stricken and nauseous-is the overwhelming jealousy.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hisses, violently, when she remembers how to speak through the painful twisting in the pit of her stomach.
Quinn doesn’t miss the moment of wide-eyed horror on Santana’s face before she disguises it hastily with an easy combination of irritation and mockery.
“Quinn!” Brittany says, with an immediate smile that comes just as easily, as Quinn stands in the doorway and stares at the spaces between their bodies and thinks vindictively (justly, she might say, in the sight of a God who could not abide the immorality of Santana’s mouth trailing hot kisses promisingly down Brittany’s abdomen, the way her tongue-her tongue-) that she was the cause of it.
“This is wrong,” she says, but it’s not her first reaction.
*
When she prays at night, she means to pray that the immoral interactions of her two best friends (largely Santana-Quinn’s fairly certain Brittany would follow anywhere Santana led, at this point) be cleansed-maybe in part because she knows how much it would piss Santana off-but there’s this churning somewhere in her stomach that makes her stumble over the words.
“Them” turns to “me,” and Quinn Fabray curls up beneath the covers feeling weak and nauseous and strange.
*
The next day, of course, she uses it to her own benefit-tells Santana that if she catches them again she could have her kicked off the Cheerios. Implies that everyone in the school might be exposed to her…Sapphic tendencies, if she isn’t careful.
Santana rolls her eyes and inspects her fingernails, already bored. “It’s not like I’m gay, Q. Britts and I make out at parties all the time. Everyone knows it. It’s hot.”
Despite the fact that the words sound as if she intended them to be heard by a five year old audience, Quinn arches an eyebrow. “I didn’t see any boys.”
Santana just shrugs. “Puck wasn’t around, I needed to blow off some steam. Jesus, Fabray, that stick up your ass ever gonna get sanded down or what? Don’t know how you manage to hobble around.”
Still, Quinn never again catches them in the lockerroom, no matter how many hours have lapsed since practice, and she knows Santana was listening.
But obedience cannot come without a price, and Santana seems to think flustering Quinn is the payment she is owed. It is a payment that comes in the package of obscene make-out sessions with Puck against Quinn’s locker, and it is tied together with a lovely red and white and pleated ribbon that consists of Santana stepping into Quinn’s personal bubble as often as she can possibly manage.
“So when you were sitting in church yesterday,” she whispers into Quinn’s ear one Monday morning, before Quinn has time to react, “how much time did you spend paying attention to the praise the divine, unwashed hobo bullshit and how much time did you spend thinking about my tits? You know, if you were going for an average breakdown.”
Quinn raises her head and doesn’t say a word, like deigning to acknowledge the very nature of the words is beneath her. Sometimes she can’t quite keep the color from her cheeks, and there’s also the one time it leads to a sharp exchange of insults and a physical throwdown in the middle of the hallway-but she knows Santana’s simply trying to catch her off-guard. She knows there’s no actual evidence to support the absurd claims spewing from her mouth.
(No evidence except the words at night that she doesn’t say aloud, and the violent twist in her chest she cannot name.)
*
A month passes.
It means everything should be relatively normal, again. It means Santana has decided whispering innuendos, raspy and low, into Quinn’s ear isn’t fun enough, anymore.
(But it doesn’t mean that every sight she catches of their linked pinkies makes her feel alone and nauseous and stupid. It doesn’t mean that sometimes, before she falls asleep, there’s a dull ache in her chest. It doesn’t mean she wants.)
*
How long? reads the text she doesn’t mean to send, until she does.
Did you mean to send this to the bf? Unfortunately for him, proportional to the three year old levels of intelligence and not the jolly green giant’s actual height.
Quinn rolls her eyes, because why should she be surprised? (And, in any case, Quinn knows that Santana’s never actually seen her boyfriend’s-you know. Anything. So whatever.) You and Brittany. How long.
Why, got some formula for the amount of time I’m gonna be burning in hell? Get over it, Fabray. We’re just messing around.
Fine. When did you start…messing around?
Freshman year, at some asshole’s party. We squared away, or are you texting for the details? This your way of getting all the porn you’re too lame to google yourself? I got some good shit I can send you, if you’re really desperate.
Quinn doesn’t respond.
*
A week later, she texts her again.
Why?
The cryptic messages are cute, Q, but if you want to tell me how me how much you want my body, just go ahead and say it.
She definitely doesn’t respond to that.
*
Two weeks later, there’s a message from Santana.
What the fuck is up with you, Fabray?
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Um, you? During cheerios practice? Even for you you’re going all power-tripping bitch. And I thought that stick couldn’t go up any further, but it looks like you shoved it in another few feet.
Santana never gets an answer.
*
Why did you start messing around with Brittany?
Because we had an audience of drunk, horny teenage boys and she’s better with her tongue than most of the idiots around here.
That’s it?
Oh wait did I forget to mention the part where I’m a total lesbo? And then, Jesus fucking Christ, Q. That’s it.
Quinn doesn’t ask why Brittany? She doesn’t want the answer.
(She needs it not to matter.)
*
“You’re in love with Santana,” Brittany says to her in the hallway, nearly a month later.
Quinn starts, turns, opens her mouth, doesn’t say a word.
“It’s okay,” she assures. “Santana’s awesome. She was totally Madonna in a past life.”
“But Madonna’s still alive,” she says, because it’s the only thing that will come out of her mouth. There’s a beat, two, and then, “Brittany, I don’t-what?”
“She showed me the texts you sent her because she wants to know why you were getting all-um, ‘Batestastic,’ on her. Which she told me wasn’t a brand of butter. But-I told her you were into her, and she wouldn’t believe me. So now you can tell her.”
Quinn shakes her head and laughs too loud. “No way in hell. Sorry, B, she’s-really not my type.”
*
It’s a Tuesday when Santana shows up outside Quinn’s door.
“Okay, Fabray, you wanna tell me what the fuck is going on with you? Because I think you just one-upped Coach Sylvester out there, Virgin Mary-style. Seriously, a prayer circle at the end of practice? You-”
“Coach Sylvester was happy with it,” she says with a smile, too friendly to be anywhere in the vicinity of genuine.
“Yeah, because that was some serious cruciatus shit on our asses. You’ve got-”
Quinn smirks, lifts her head. “Did you just reference Harry Potter?”
“You really think this is where it ends, Fabray?” she asks sharply, without answering the question. “Because next time the Lima Heights Express shows up at the door, it’s gonna be with a special delivery. You can’t keep this up forever. Better shave off the Stalin handlebar, ‘cause your reign as dictator is coming to an end.”
Quinn watches her walk away and all she can hear is Brittany’s voice, echoing and echoing and echoing.
She doesn’t laugh, this time.
*
Do you like messing around with her more than Puck?
Santana doesn’t respond.
*
They’re in glee club together when Quinn shows up at Santana’s doorstep.
“Let me in,” she says-and then, with a barely-raised eyebrow, adds, “or else I might get mugged.” It’s pointedly dry, considering, for all the noise Santana makes about Lima Heights Adjacent, the most remarkable display of graffiti she’s seen anywhere around was one endorsing a presidential campaign-and the closest thing to gangs the seven year olds that scooter around the nearby cul-de-sac.
“Really think you’re safer in here, Q?” she asks with a smirk, as she steps aside. “Gots myself some razor blades in the top drawer over there I’ve been dying to try out. Their specialty is uptight virgins. Weird, right?”
“Are you still…well-with Brittany?”
Santana gives her a long, disbelieving look-but Quinn thinks maybe there’s nervousness at the edge, there, in the quick clench of her jaw and the fleeting glance downward. “You still on about this? You’re starting to sound obsessed. That mean it’s ninety-five percent my tits, five percent the immaculate conception when you hit up those sermons now?”
“Just answer the question, Santana.”
“Am I still fucking Brittany?” she says, low in her throat, eyes dark and predatory. It’s too much, it’s too close, and Quinn doesn’t know what insanity could have possibly pushed her into this. “Is that what you’re asking?”
Quinn swallows, but doesn’t look away. “…yes.”
“Sure. When we feel like it. Why, you just been aching for some threesome action, lately?”
Quinn looks up at her, sharply, and then she closes her eyes. Takes a steadying breath. “Can’t you ever just turn it off?”
“Can’t you ever stop fucking asking questions?” Santana hisses, and this time Quinn’s sure she sees it. The vulnerability, barely-in the tightness of Santana’s shoulders, and the set of her jaw, and the smallest tremble of her lips. It hardly exists at all, but it sounds like a scream. Violent and desperate and afraid.
It’s not Quinn who erases the space between them and presses their lips together. It’s not Quinn who reaches her hand up to cup Santana’s jaw. It’s not Quinn who presses in a little closer and traces her tongue across Santana’s lips.
And it’s definitely not Quinn who Santana backs against the wall, who feels hot, open-mouthed kisses trailing down her neck, whose gut twists painfully and delightfully when she feels Santana’s hand slipping underneath the hem of her top. Just barely.
Hours later, she will think about it and tell herself none of it could have happened, because that is not a Quinn Fabray she has ever met. That is not a Quinn Fabray who exists.
“You do want me,” Santana says, pulling away (but barely, because their lips are almost touching and her hand is curling in the hair at the back of Quinn’s neck). She’s smirking, and bold, but that comes a second later. That comes after the surprise she desperately tries to hide.
It makes not-Quinn lean into her, just enough to kiss her again. “You’re not straight,” she says, after a moment.
They kiss to erase the intersection of their truths, and they kiss to prove each other right.
*
Quinn expects her first reaction to be regret, but there’s warmth everywhere, and it’s under her skin, and she presses a stupid smile into her pillow, and she aches.
In between the moments of fear and denial and horror, maybe she’ll have this, sometimes.
(She rolls her eyes and fists her hand in her pillow and smiles and smiles and smiles until it hurts.
She wonders if she’s really stupid enough for this to be happiness.)