Crowd Surf Off A Cliff (1/13)
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.
[Part 2]
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.
[Part 2]