Fic: You Are Not Prepared [Glee, Santana/Brittany, Rachel/Quinn, Puck]
Title: You Are Not Prepared
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Santana/Brittany, Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4k
Summary:It takes her a minute, because it's late and she's coming off a really severe power drink crash, but she finally puts two and two together and realizes that holy shit, her girlfriend is totally playing World of Warcraft right now. Brittany. Her girlfriend. Her girlfriend that doesn't know how to turn a computer on is playing World of Warcraft.
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. I don't have enough money to take on Blizzard.
Notes: I've been playing WoW for years now (it's why I nearly failed out of college my sophomore year) so I just had to include it as part of my nerdverse. If you're not totally familiar with WoW or MMORPGs in general this might be a tad confusing (and by confusing I mean dumb), but if you're a fellow player I hope you enjoy it!
This is set in an alternate universe I created in which Quinn, Puck and Santana are big nerds. This universe is crazy which is why even though they're out of high school they are clearly still playing Wrath of the Lich King. IT WORKS OKAY? TIMELINES ARE FOR PANSIES.
If anyone still plays WoW, I rock out on the Duskwood and Earthen Ring servers these days. We should hang out.
A quick reference guide for those not enlightened: An authenticator is a security item that you use to log into the game. It's a total pain if you lose it. Ventrillo is a voice chat client a lot of people use to be able to talk to their party while playing. Gearscore is a measure of the equipment your character is wearing. DPS stands for "Damage Per Second" and it basically measures how much and how fast your character can deal damage.
It's 3AM when Santana gets back from Puck's apartment. Her eyes are dry and sore from staring at computer screen for hours upon hours but it's the good kind of sore, the kind of sore that reminds her how she, Quinn and Puck totally three-manned Arthus. And without a healer no less. The sense of accomplishment is still running through her veins and if she didn't think Brittany would be pissed to wake up and find her gone, she would have stayed at Puck's all night. His LAN setup was really sweet, no lies, and her new talent spec was absolutely owning on the dps charts.
But, Brittany would be really pissed to wake up to an empty bed (she knows this from much experience) so here she is, at 3AM sneaking into her own damn apartment. The bag on her shoulder, the one holding her laptop, her headphones, a six pack of red bull she hadn't gotten around to drinking and her lucky mouse is heavy on her shoulder.
It's dark and quiet in their apartment and she tries to decide if she should risk trying to put her stuff away in their bedroom. Brittany's not a light sleeper or anything but she has this bizarre sixth sense when it comes to Santana and there's a good chance her girlfriend will wake up at the slightest rustling in their closet.
Deciding that the bedroom is a bad plan, she heads for their office in the back of the apartment. It's a small room with two desks and two computers and a big closet that collects all kinds of junk. She can hide her bag in there for the night and move it tomorrow afternoon when Brittany goes to dance class.
Her feet tread softly on the hardwood floors as she makes her way past the bedroom, crouching down like she's in some stealth ninja movie (she thinks it has something to do with the kung fu films Quinn likes to watch when they're raiding). When she gets to the office door she notices a dim light coming from under it and she tries to remember if she accidentally left the light on when she left earlier. It easily could have been Brittany, the girl is slightly forgetful about stuff like that, but her girlfriend doesn't really frequent this room unless it's to bother Santana or stuff some more useless junk in the closet.
The next thought she has is that an intruder is in the house, stealing her computer tower at this very second to sell it on the black market (it's late at night and she's tired, okay?), so logically, she grips her bag tightly in one hand, letting it dangle by her side like a weapon. She can totally take this guy.
Santana puts her hand on the door nob, gently as she can, and pulls it down slowly, trying her hardest not to make a sound as she pushes the door open. When she sees what's inside, she kind of thinks the midnight computer snatcher was a much more plausible scenario.
But instead, her tall blonde girlfriend is sitting at Santana's desk, the light from the computer screen filling up the room and the unmistakeable sounds of swords clashing and thirteen year olds yelling over Ventrillo is coming out of the speakers. How did she not notice those sounds before?
It takes her a minute, because it's late and she's coming off a really severe power drink crash, but she finally puts two and two together and realizes that holy shit, her girlfriend is totally playing World of Warcraft right now. Brittany. Her girlfriend. Her girlfriend that doesn't know how to turn a computer on is playing World of Warcraft.
This has to be a sign of the apocalypse.
"Britt?" Santana greets, shock making the name come out of her in a high squeak.
Brittany, however, turns around and greets her, a happy smile on her face like it's totally normal for Santana to catch her at 3AM in the office, playing computer games. "Hey San! Where have you been?"
"Out," she answers automatically. "What are you doing?"
"Oh," Brittany replies, turning back to her screen and clicking a few buttons. "Warsong Gulch."
Santana is dreaming. She's sure of it. She passed out at Puck's place from one too many Red Bulls and that fifth hot pocket she devoured and this is all a dream. She'll wake up and be back in reality where things are normal and two plus two equals four instead of negative eighty-five.
Wait, crap, if this is a dream than maybe they didn't actually three-man Arthas.
Santana struggles to gain control of her quickly derailing thought process and focus on the fact that Brittany just told her she's awake at 3AM hanging out in battlegrounds.
"That's World of Warcraft," Santana states, feeling really lame because wow, thanks Captain Obvious.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah," Brittany says, distractedly. Santana watches Brittany maneuver her avatar around on the screen, trying to focus on the details but her vision failing her in the place of complete and total shock.
So she settles for repeating herself in the hopes of some sense coming out of all this. "You're playing World of Warcraft."
"Yes." Brittany turns to look at her again, a furrow in her brow and a look that says aren't I supposed to be the dumb one?
Yeah, she's pretty sure this is all a dream. Because there's just no way this is real. She's the secret ninja geek that steals away to LAN parties and movie marathons at Puck's place. She's the one with two level 80s and a near perfect arena record. Not Brittany. Brittany is the one who can't turn a computer on and who has never seen Star Wars and doesn't know the difference between Bruce Lee and Jet Li.
"Okay," she croaks after a second, wanting rapidly to get out of the room and into her bed where she can fall asleep and wake back up to a world of normalcy. "I'm going to bed. You coming?"
"Yeah, I just want to finish up a few more rounds. I'm really close to my next set piece," Brittany says, excitement coating her voice.
"Right." Santana needs to wake up. "Goodnight," she says before turning out of the room and escaping into their bed. It will all be okay when she wakes up.
She knew she should have checked the expiration on those hot pockets Puck had.
--
She wakes up in the morning and is pleasantly surprised to realize life has returned to normal. Brittany is snuggled up next to her under the comforter, breathing deeply, her fingers clutched around Santana's shirt and she takes a moment to convince herself, yet again, that last night, well earlier that morning, was a dream. There's no way that that was real.
They eat breakfast together and Brittany acts like everything is completely normal and not like she got caught pwning n00bs not more than 8 hours ago. Santana feels her stomach settle in relief.
A little over a week later, however, she finds incontrovertible evidence.
--
It's a Tuesday afternoon and Brittany has a dance workshop down the street from their building. The blonde is rushing around their apartment trying to get all her stuff together because, like always, Brittany is running late.
Santana helps her, grabs stuff she knows Brittany is going to forget, and assists her girlfriend in putting it all in her duffel bag before kissing her goodbye at the door.
"Bye, San. Love you!"
"Bye, babe. Have fun."
She turns back to the apartment, looking forward to the rest of the night. Brittany has a four hour dance workshop usually followed by late drinks with her coworkers and it's normal for the girl not to return to their apartment until late that night.
What this means for Santana is that Tuesday afternoons are optimal raiding time. Normally she'd be kind of miffed that she's being denied quality Brittany time (she's a sap like that sometimes), but once she realized that all this free time means they can add a weekday raid slot, she was okay with the separation. It works out too because Rachel has already left for the theater by early afternoon and Puck has absolutely zero obligations by the time 4PM rolls around. She is so getting that shoulder piece tonight.
She goes to the kitchen first because she needs to prepare for a long play session and rummages around in their cupboards for some good gaming fuel. After a few minutes of scavenging her arms are filled with six cans of Mountain Dew, a bowl of popcorn and three packages of Mexican Hot Pockets (she keeps a microwave in her office for just this reason).
The food is dropped on the desk next to her computer and she pulls her chair out to plop down, plugging her headphones into the audio jack and booting up the game. That's when she sees it. An authenticator sitting next to her right speaker.
It's not just that there's an authenticator there, she has one herself, but she knows this one isn't her's. Even if she weren't currently holding her own authenticator in her left hand, she'd know it wasn't hers anyway. The week she got her authenticator (sent to Puck's house to avoid Brittany's curious package opening habit), he had stolen it from the package and written the words n00b on the back of it with a white-erase pen.
But this authenticator is clean of any white writing and is sitting on her desk like it belongs there. She calls Quinn.
"Q, did you leave your authenticator on my desk?"
"What? I don't even have an actual authenticator."
Santana rolls her eyes at the phone. "Uh, yes you do."
"It's on my cell," Quinn says, flatly.
"It's what?"
"It's on my phone, you moron. Remember that time Rach took it and I couldn't log on for hours until she got home?"
"Why are you under the impression I pay attention to your life, Fabray?"
There's a long pause and Santana can imagine the way Quinn looks, jaw clenched and eyebrow raised in warning. "Is there a reason you're calling?"
"There's an authenticator on my desk and it's not mine."
"I'm sure it's Puck's."
"It's not Puck's."
"Well then you were probably sleep-browsing on blizzard.net again," Quinn continues, impatience obvious in her voice. "Are you logging on or what?"
"I wasn't sleep-browsing. Why are you not concerned about this?"
"Because we have a limited amount of time and I'd really like to one-shot Saurfang tonight."
The mention of that stupid death knight boss shakes the concern about the authenticator right out of Santana. "Bitch, please. That fight's a straight dps race. We will pwn that so hard."
"Yeah, sure, but you kind of have to log on for that to happen," Quinn reminds her.
"Hanging up now."
"Happy about it."
She stores the authenticator in the pocket of her sweatpants and turns her attention back to logging in and hooking up her Ventrillo.
They don't one-shot Saurfang that night but they do defeat him (she even loots an awesome piece for her off-spec set) and she tops Quinn on the dps chart by a wide margin. All in all, it's a pretty satisfying night for Santana. She even finishes with enough time to clean up the office and the kitchen before Brittany gets back.
When Brittany returns, slightly tipsy from one too many vodka cranberries and high from a good afternoon full of dancing, she presses Santana against the refrigerator and kisses her. Hard.
An hour later they're both exhausted and sweaty but finally in bed and Santana's left staring at the ceiling and thinking about how awesome her life is. Seriously. First she gets awesome drops in her raid and then she totally gets laid by her hot blonde girlfriend. Best life ever.
She doesn't think about the authenticator at all.
--
In the morning Brittany beats her out of bed, which is kind of concerning because Brittany never beats her out of bed, but stranger things have happened. She slips her sweats on from where she had the presence of mind to throw them last night and heads to the kitchen, yawning and stretching as walks straight to the coffee pot, kissing Brittany on the head as she walks past her.
"Morning, babe."
Brittany hmms in response but doesn't do anything else to acknowledge Santana's presence. It gives Santana pause because, yeah, Brittany's spacey and flaky and has a lot of really blonde moments but she's not really...distracted. Certainly not when Santana's around, in their kitchen, in only her sweatpants, after an extremely pleasurable night. Where they hell is her morning after lovefest?
She finishes pouring her cup of coffee before walking over to her girlfriend. "You okay, Britt?"
"I lost my authenticator."
Maybe it's because the coffee is really hot and she drinks it too fast, but she's pretty sure it's because she's back to that bizarro world where nothing makes sense because she's choking on her coffee and having a really hard time breathing through it. Brittany didn't just say she lost her authenticator did she?
"Say what?" Santana asks, when her voice returns.
"I lost my authenticator. Are you okay?" Brittany's rubbing circles on her back, concern on her face and it'd be kind of adorable (she likes the attention, okay?) except she's trying to process that thing where her girlfriend is apparently a secret gamer.
She didn't really notice it before, which is kind of weird, but now that Brittany is saying words like authenticator and standing really close to her, the weight of said lost object is heavy and hot in her pocket. Her hand pulls it out before she can think twice about it and presents it to Brittany.
"Oh! You found it! Thanks, baby!" Brittany grabs the little plastic object and kisses Santana in thanks before bounding out of the room rambling about honor points and emblems.
Which leaves Santana in the kitchen, jaw slack and eyes wide, staring at the wall in front of her and trying to blink herself back to reality. She tries it for a good five minutes but when it fails to work she finally accepts the truth.
Brittany plays World of Warcraft.
--
The first thing she does is call Quinn.
"Britt plays WoW," she blurts, foregoing any greeting.
"Santana?"
"Britt plays WoW," she repeats, like if she says it more she'll start to get used to it.
"Do you know what time it is?" There's a rustle of sheets and some mumbling Santana assumes is Rachel.
"It's 10AM why are you still in bed?"
"My girlfriend works in the theater," Quinn whispers harshly. "10AM is like 5AM to them."
"So Berry should be pissed, fine, you should be awake."
"Wait," Quinn says, her voice suddenly clear and loud. "What did you say earlier?" Santana hears a door click shut down the line and assumes Quinn has moved away from eavesdropping ears.
"Britt. Plays. Wow."
"What? No way."
Santana nods to herself. "I know, right?"
"No I mean, seriously. Have you been drinking?"
"Fabray, I'm not drunk. I saw her do it. And that fucking mysterious authenticator? It was her's."
"Wow," Quinn breathes. "Holy crap."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"What does she play?"
"Huh?"
"What character does she play?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? I thought you said you saw her playing."
"It was late, I wasn't paying attention. I was in shock."
"Well is she any good?"
"I don't know. I told you. I just found out."
"Well maybe you should like, go talk to her or something. Now that you both have this hobby in common."
"Ugh, you are so like, the opposite of helpful, just FYI."
"I love you too, Santana," Quinn says before hanging up.
Santana puts her phone down and stares down the hallway to the office. She can almost make out the unmistakable sounds of tavern music filtering down the hall so she takes a deep breath and prepares to fully engage in this weird abnormal reality where Brittany plays a MMORPG.
--
A week later Santana has learned a few things about her girlfriend she didn't know before. One, Brittany has three level 80 characters. Two, Brittany has a better gearscore than Santana on all those characters. And three, Brittany is kind of an achievement whore.
"I'm telling you, she has every single pet in the game. Every one," she emphasizes to Puck. "Do you know how many that is?"
Puck scratches his head as leans back into his chair. "I didn't even know she could count that high."
"I don't get it, how did she get three characters to 80 and not have you notice?" This question is from Quinn.
They're all sitting in Puck's gaming room, computers open and games up and running but they're all turned away from the screens and towards each other.
"I have no fucking clue."
"I think the better question is how the hell she turned on her computer," adds Puck. "Or, shit, how, even if she could turn it on, she knew how to fucking use it."
"Just because she doesn't know how to turn it on doesn't mean she can't use it," says Santana, icily. "Apparently she could only play when I left one of the computers running."
Out of nowhere, Quinn starts laughing. Like, loudly. "Oh my god," she gets out between chuckles. "I just realized," she gasps. "Brittany is better at Warcraft than you!"
Santana's taken aback because, honestly, she hadn't really thought about that. She's still kind of waiting to wake up and realize it's all one bizarre dream caused by that extra spicy curry she ate a few weeks back. She knows Brittany has one more 80 than her, and that yeah, her gearscore was better, and she has way more achievements (damn her and her time-lost proto drake) but she didn't really put that all together.
"No," Santana denies, shaking her head as if mere denial would make it true. "No way, I pwn all of you there is no way that Brittany is better than me."
"She so is, dude," joins Puck, now laughing along with Quinn. "She so is."
"Shut up," she throws at Puck before turning back to her screen. Her two companions follow suit but don't stop laughing.
Puck glances at Santana when he gets the notification that she's logged off. "What the hell are you doing Lopez? We're scheduled for ICC right now."
"I'm re-rolling," she mumbles, squinting at her screen as she decides what race and class to be.
"Dude, we have a fucking raid to get to. This is my week for the damn axe." All the mirth from realizing Santana had been bested by Brittany is gone from his voice and he's all business now. That axe is important.
"You're 0 for 20 on that stupid axe, Puckerman. Chances are you wouldn't get it this week either."
"Santana," says Quinn, trying to mediate between her two friends. They do have a raid to get to and that vanity item she's been lusting for has a .02% drop in this place. "We need your dps this afternoon. You can start a new toon later."
"No, I have to start now."
"Just because Britt is kicking your ass at this game, it doesn't mean you can just abandon your damn guild in their time of need."
Santana doesn't respond, just keeps clicking through her character options and tries to think of an adequate name for her new avatar. Fucking name selection is the hardest part.
"Lopez!" Puck shouts. "I will fucking g-kick you if you don't log on right now."
"Puck you're not guildmaster," Quinn reminds him in a soft voice. He shoots her a threatening glare in response.
"Santana," Quinn says, with an exasperated eye roll to Puck. "I will kick you out of this guild if you do not get ready to raid in the next five minutes."
"Fine," Santana says, after a minute. She stands up and walks out of the room towards the front hall where her bag is.
"Where the hell is she going?" Puck asks, half to himself and half to Quinn.
The dark haired girl returns a minute later holding her spare laptop (the one she brings in case Puck's old piece of tin dies on them in the middle of a fight). "What are you doing?" Quinn asks, eying the new computer.
"Two-boxing. So shut the hell up. Both of you."
Quinn makes a zipping motion across her lips and Puck just shakes his head but they both turn back to their computers and start prepping for the raid.
They're fairly successful, but Puck doesn't get his axe, Quinn doesn't get her vanity item and for the first time in months, Santana fails to top the dps charts. Any normal afternoon she'd be sulky and moody because of it but she can't focus on anything but the idea of Brittany being a better gamer than she is. She can just not let this stand.
She doesn't sleep that night, or the next. If Brittany thinks it's weird that Santana doesn't leave their office the entire time she's in the apartment she doesn't say anything.
Santana thinks she must have set some record for fasting leveling because in the blink of an eye she's got four level 80 characters.
--
It's a month later and everything is still the same. Santana hasn't woken up yet so Brittany is still playing World of Warcraft at all odd hours of the day and even a month later, it's all still so bizarre to Santana.
Part of it's kind of nice, Santana doesn't have to hide the fact that she's this huge loser who spends some of her Saturday nights holed up in a room with no windows, eating hot pockets and chugging mountain dew while she yells at some thirteen year old kid playing a hunter that his dps is for shit. Now she can do that with Brittany sitting at the desk next to her, plugging away silently on her own character.
It makes her smirk too when Brittany calls her in the middle of a raid and she can say "We're two bosses down in ICC," when Brittany asks her where she is. It makes her smirk because Rachel will call Quinn later and seriously, when did Quinn Fabray become so bad at lying. It's kind of depressing really. She thinks it probably happened sometime after Quinn fell for Rachel and decided to trade in her bitch card for her I'm disgustingly in love card. It's all so gross to Santana.
Regardless, she likes the part where before she had to divide her time between Brittany and whatever geeky thing was holding her interest at the time, now they're one in the same. She gets to ride around Azeroth and prop her feet in Brittany's lap while she does it. Then there's that part where Brittany gets a really spectacular achievement or finds a ridiculously rare drop and she gets super giddy, like a shot of adrenaline. The I totally just capped my engineering skill sex is some of the best she's ever had (topped only by make up sex and vodka is so tasty sex).
But part of it is really unsettling. Like the part where Puck decides it would be so awesome if Brittany and Santana dueled each other. Something about settling once and for all which was the better player so Santana could stop being such a whiny bitch and get back to her regular raiding self. Santana figures, yeah, Brittany may have more 80s and better gear and more achievements but she's always been a firm believer in skill over gear.
So she agrees. And it's a disaster.
The worst part is that Brittany doesn't talk at all while she plays. It's probably the reason why Santana never caught her playing before, but it's really weird. She's used to Puck and Quinn and herself who spend most of the game slinging insults at each other and yelling obscenities at the other players (that's more her and Puck, not so much Quinn).
Brittany, however, is silent. She's silent and she's damn good. No, like, really good. Like, Puck suggests they start competing in professional arena matches good.
Santana loses 7 games out of 7.
Brittany doesn't say anything during all the duels, just stares silently at her screen and keeps tapping away at her mouse and keyboard. Santana however, is yelling and hitting stuff and nearly cracks her favorite mouse in the middle of game 5.
She's exhausted and red in the face by the time Quinn commands, "That's enough."
"I don't get it," Santana says. "Brittany. I love you, but really, how are you this good?"
Brittany shrugs. "I don't know." Santana kind of wants to snap at her because her pride has been all stomped on and her fingers hurt from trying to force spells to cooldown faster, but Brittany's face is open and innocent and she knows that Brittany's probably being honest.
But Brittany's lived with Santana for over a decade at this point and Santana probably should have taken that into account. Some things are just bound to rub off. So when Santana turns back to her keyboard to log out and huffs, "I just don't get how you beat me so bad," Brittany plasters a completely evil smile on her face and says in a low voice, "You were not prepared."
Puck and Quinn nearly fall over at the look on Santana's face.
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Santana/Brittany, Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4k
Summary:It takes her a minute, because it's late and she's coming off a really severe power drink crash, but she finally puts two and two together and realizes that holy shit, her girlfriend is totally playing World of Warcraft right now. Brittany. Her girlfriend. Her girlfriend that doesn't know how to turn a computer on is playing World of Warcraft.
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. I don't have enough money to take on Blizzard.
Notes: I've been playing WoW for years now (it's why I nearly failed out of college my sophomore year) so I just had to include it as part of my nerdverse. If you're not totally familiar with WoW or MMORPGs in general this might be a tad confusing (and by confusing I mean dumb), but if you're a fellow player I hope you enjoy it!
This is set in an alternate universe I created in which Quinn, Puck and Santana are big nerds. This universe is crazy which is why even though they're out of high school they are clearly still playing Wrath of the Lich King. IT WORKS OKAY? TIMELINES ARE FOR PANSIES.
If anyone still plays WoW, I rock out on the Duskwood and Earthen Ring servers these days. We should hang out.
A quick reference guide for those not enlightened: An authenticator is a security item that you use to log into the game. It's a total pain if you lose it. Ventrillo is a voice chat client a lot of people use to be able to talk to their party while playing. Gearscore is a measure of the equipment your character is wearing. DPS stands for "Damage Per Second" and it basically measures how much and how fast your character can deal damage.
It's 3AM when Santana gets back from Puck's apartment. Her eyes are dry and sore from staring at computer screen for hours upon hours but it's the good kind of sore, the kind of sore that reminds her how she, Quinn and Puck totally three-manned Arthus. And without a healer no less. The sense of accomplishment is still running through her veins and if she didn't think Brittany would be pissed to wake up and find her gone, she would have stayed at Puck's all night. His LAN setup was really sweet, no lies, and her new talent spec was absolutely owning on the dps charts.
But, Brittany would be really pissed to wake up to an empty bed (she knows this from much experience) so here she is, at 3AM sneaking into her own damn apartment. The bag on her shoulder, the one holding her laptop, her headphones, a six pack of red bull she hadn't gotten around to drinking and her lucky mouse is heavy on her shoulder.
It's dark and quiet in their apartment and she tries to decide if she should risk trying to put her stuff away in their bedroom. Brittany's not a light sleeper or anything but she has this bizarre sixth sense when it comes to Santana and there's a good chance her girlfriend will wake up at the slightest rustling in their closet.
Deciding that the bedroom is a bad plan, she heads for their office in the back of the apartment. It's a small room with two desks and two computers and a big closet that collects all kinds of junk. She can hide her bag in there for the night and move it tomorrow afternoon when Brittany goes to dance class.
Her feet tread softly on the hardwood floors as she makes her way past the bedroom, crouching down like she's in some stealth ninja movie (she thinks it has something to do with the kung fu films Quinn likes to watch when they're raiding). When she gets to the office door she notices a dim light coming from under it and she tries to remember if she accidentally left the light on when she left earlier. It easily could have been Brittany, the girl is slightly forgetful about stuff like that, but her girlfriend doesn't really frequent this room unless it's to bother Santana or stuff some more useless junk in the closet.
The next thought she has is that an intruder is in the house, stealing her computer tower at this very second to sell it on the black market (it's late at night and she's tired, okay?), so logically, she grips her bag tightly in one hand, letting it dangle by her side like a weapon. She can totally take this guy.
Santana puts her hand on the door nob, gently as she can, and pulls it down slowly, trying her hardest not to make a sound as she pushes the door open. When she sees what's inside, she kind of thinks the midnight computer snatcher was a much more plausible scenario.
But instead, her tall blonde girlfriend is sitting at Santana's desk, the light from the computer screen filling up the room and the unmistakeable sounds of swords clashing and thirteen year olds yelling over Ventrillo is coming out of the speakers. How did she not notice those sounds before?
It takes her a minute, because it's late and she's coming off a really severe power drink crash, but she finally puts two and two together and realizes that holy shit, her girlfriend is totally playing World of Warcraft right now. Brittany. Her girlfriend. Her girlfriend that doesn't know how to turn a computer on is playing World of Warcraft.
This has to be a sign of the apocalypse.
"Britt?" Santana greets, shock making the name come out of her in a high squeak.
Brittany, however, turns around and greets her, a happy smile on her face like it's totally normal for Santana to catch her at 3AM in the office, playing computer games. "Hey San! Where have you been?"
"Out," she answers automatically. "What are you doing?"
"Oh," Brittany replies, turning back to her screen and clicking a few buttons. "Warsong Gulch."
Santana is dreaming. She's sure of it. She passed out at Puck's place from one too many Red Bulls and that fifth hot pocket she devoured and this is all a dream. She'll wake up and be back in reality where things are normal and two plus two equals four instead of negative eighty-five.
Wait, crap, if this is a dream than maybe they didn't actually three-man Arthas.
Santana struggles to gain control of her quickly derailing thought process and focus on the fact that Brittany just told her she's awake at 3AM hanging out in battlegrounds.
"That's World of Warcraft," Santana states, feeling really lame because wow, thanks Captain Obvious.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah," Brittany says, distractedly. Santana watches Brittany maneuver her avatar around on the screen, trying to focus on the details but her vision failing her in the place of complete and total shock.
So she settles for repeating herself in the hopes of some sense coming out of all this. "You're playing World of Warcraft."
"Yes." Brittany turns to look at her again, a furrow in her brow and a look that says aren't I supposed to be the dumb one?
Yeah, she's pretty sure this is all a dream. Because there's just no way this is real. She's the secret ninja geek that steals away to LAN parties and movie marathons at Puck's place. She's the one with two level 80s and a near perfect arena record. Not Brittany. Brittany is the one who can't turn a computer on and who has never seen Star Wars and doesn't know the difference between Bruce Lee and Jet Li.
"Okay," she croaks after a second, wanting rapidly to get out of the room and into her bed where she can fall asleep and wake back up to a world of normalcy. "I'm going to bed. You coming?"
"Yeah, I just want to finish up a few more rounds. I'm really close to my next set piece," Brittany says, excitement coating her voice.
"Right." Santana needs to wake up. "Goodnight," she says before turning out of the room and escaping into their bed. It will all be okay when she wakes up.
She knew she should have checked the expiration on those hot pockets Puck had.
--
She wakes up in the morning and is pleasantly surprised to realize life has returned to normal. Brittany is snuggled up next to her under the comforter, breathing deeply, her fingers clutched around Santana's shirt and she takes a moment to convince herself, yet again, that last night, well earlier that morning, was a dream. There's no way that that was real.
They eat breakfast together and Brittany acts like everything is completely normal and not like she got caught pwning n00bs not more than 8 hours ago. Santana feels her stomach settle in relief.
A little over a week later, however, she finds incontrovertible evidence.
--
It's a Tuesday afternoon and Brittany has a dance workshop down the street from their building. The blonde is rushing around their apartment trying to get all her stuff together because, like always, Brittany is running late.
Santana helps her, grabs stuff she knows Brittany is going to forget, and assists her girlfriend in putting it all in her duffel bag before kissing her goodbye at the door.
"Bye, San. Love you!"
"Bye, babe. Have fun."
She turns back to the apartment, looking forward to the rest of the night. Brittany has a four hour dance workshop usually followed by late drinks with her coworkers and it's normal for the girl not to return to their apartment until late that night.
What this means for Santana is that Tuesday afternoons are optimal raiding time. Normally she'd be kind of miffed that she's being denied quality Brittany time (she's a sap like that sometimes), but once she realized that all this free time means they can add a weekday raid slot, she was okay with the separation. It works out too because Rachel has already left for the theater by early afternoon and Puck has absolutely zero obligations by the time 4PM rolls around. She is so getting that shoulder piece tonight.
She goes to the kitchen first because she needs to prepare for a long play session and rummages around in their cupboards for some good gaming fuel. After a few minutes of scavenging her arms are filled with six cans of Mountain Dew, a bowl of popcorn and three packages of Mexican Hot Pockets (she keeps a microwave in her office for just this reason).
The food is dropped on the desk next to her computer and she pulls her chair out to plop down, plugging her headphones into the audio jack and booting up the game. That's when she sees it. An authenticator sitting next to her right speaker.
It's not just that there's an authenticator there, she has one herself, but she knows this one isn't her's. Even if she weren't currently holding her own authenticator in her left hand, she'd know it wasn't hers anyway. The week she got her authenticator (sent to Puck's house to avoid Brittany's curious package opening habit), he had stolen it from the package and written the words n00b on the back of it with a white-erase pen.
But this authenticator is clean of any white writing and is sitting on her desk like it belongs there. She calls Quinn.
"Q, did you leave your authenticator on my desk?"
"What? I don't even have an actual authenticator."
Santana rolls her eyes at the phone. "Uh, yes you do."
"It's on my cell," Quinn says, flatly.
"It's what?"
"It's on my phone, you moron. Remember that time Rach took it and I couldn't log on for hours until she got home?"
"Why are you under the impression I pay attention to your life, Fabray?"
There's a long pause and Santana can imagine the way Quinn looks, jaw clenched and eyebrow raised in warning. "Is there a reason you're calling?"
"There's an authenticator on my desk and it's not mine."
"I'm sure it's Puck's."
"It's not Puck's."
"Well then you were probably sleep-browsing on blizzard.net again," Quinn continues, impatience obvious in her voice. "Are you logging on or what?"
"I wasn't sleep-browsing. Why are you not concerned about this?"
"Because we have a limited amount of time and I'd really like to one-shot Saurfang tonight."
The mention of that stupid death knight boss shakes the concern about the authenticator right out of Santana. "Bitch, please. That fight's a straight dps race. We will pwn that so hard."
"Yeah, sure, but you kind of have to log on for that to happen," Quinn reminds her.
"Hanging up now."
"Happy about it."
She stores the authenticator in the pocket of her sweatpants and turns her attention back to logging in and hooking up her Ventrillo.
They don't one-shot Saurfang that night but they do defeat him (she even loots an awesome piece for her off-spec set) and she tops Quinn on the dps chart by a wide margin. All in all, it's a pretty satisfying night for Santana. She even finishes with enough time to clean up the office and the kitchen before Brittany gets back.
When Brittany returns, slightly tipsy from one too many vodka cranberries and high from a good afternoon full of dancing, she presses Santana against the refrigerator and kisses her. Hard.
An hour later they're both exhausted and sweaty but finally in bed and Santana's left staring at the ceiling and thinking about how awesome her life is. Seriously. First she gets awesome drops in her raid and then she totally gets laid by her hot blonde girlfriend. Best life ever.
She doesn't think about the authenticator at all.
--
In the morning Brittany beats her out of bed, which is kind of concerning because Brittany never beats her out of bed, but stranger things have happened. She slips her sweats on from where she had the presence of mind to throw them last night and heads to the kitchen, yawning and stretching as walks straight to the coffee pot, kissing Brittany on the head as she walks past her.
"Morning, babe."
Brittany hmms in response but doesn't do anything else to acknowledge Santana's presence. It gives Santana pause because, yeah, Brittany's spacey and flaky and has a lot of really blonde moments but she's not really...distracted. Certainly not when Santana's around, in their kitchen, in only her sweatpants, after an extremely pleasurable night. Where they hell is her morning after lovefest?
She finishes pouring her cup of coffee before walking over to her girlfriend. "You okay, Britt?"
"I lost my authenticator."
Maybe it's because the coffee is really hot and she drinks it too fast, but she's pretty sure it's because she's back to that bizarro world where nothing makes sense because she's choking on her coffee and having a really hard time breathing through it. Brittany didn't just say she lost her authenticator did she?
"Say what?" Santana asks, when her voice returns.
"I lost my authenticator. Are you okay?" Brittany's rubbing circles on her back, concern on her face and it'd be kind of adorable (she likes the attention, okay?) except she's trying to process that thing where her girlfriend is apparently a secret gamer.
She didn't really notice it before, which is kind of weird, but now that Brittany is saying words like authenticator and standing really close to her, the weight of said lost object is heavy and hot in her pocket. Her hand pulls it out before she can think twice about it and presents it to Brittany.
"Oh! You found it! Thanks, baby!" Brittany grabs the little plastic object and kisses Santana in thanks before bounding out of the room rambling about honor points and emblems.
Which leaves Santana in the kitchen, jaw slack and eyes wide, staring at the wall in front of her and trying to blink herself back to reality. She tries it for a good five minutes but when it fails to work she finally accepts the truth.
Brittany plays World of Warcraft.
--
The first thing she does is call Quinn.
"Britt plays WoW," she blurts, foregoing any greeting.
"Santana?"
"Britt plays WoW," she repeats, like if she says it more she'll start to get used to it.
"Do you know what time it is?" There's a rustle of sheets and some mumbling Santana assumes is Rachel.
"It's 10AM why are you still in bed?"
"My girlfriend works in the theater," Quinn whispers harshly. "10AM is like 5AM to them."
"So Berry should be pissed, fine, you should be awake."
"Wait," Quinn says, her voice suddenly clear and loud. "What did you say earlier?" Santana hears a door click shut down the line and assumes Quinn has moved away from eavesdropping ears.
"Britt. Plays. Wow."
"What? No way."
Santana nods to herself. "I know, right?"
"No I mean, seriously. Have you been drinking?"
"Fabray, I'm not drunk. I saw her do it. And that fucking mysterious authenticator? It was her's."
"Wow," Quinn breathes. "Holy crap."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"What does she play?"
"Huh?"
"What character does she play?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? I thought you said you saw her playing."
"It was late, I wasn't paying attention. I was in shock."
"Well is she any good?"
"I don't know. I told you. I just found out."
"Well maybe you should like, go talk to her or something. Now that you both have this hobby in common."
"Ugh, you are so like, the opposite of helpful, just FYI."
"I love you too, Santana," Quinn says before hanging up.
Santana puts her phone down and stares down the hallway to the office. She can almost make out the unmistakable sounds of tavern music filtering down the hall so she takes a deep breath and prepares to fully engage in this weird abnormal reality where Brittany plays a MMORPG.
--
A week later Santana has learned a few things about her girlfriend she didn't know before. One, Brittany has three level 80 characters. Two, Brittany has a better gearscore than Santana on all those characters. And three, Brittany is kind of an achievement whore.
"I'm telling you, she has every single pet in the game. Every one," she emphasizes to Puck. "Do you know how many that is?"
Puck scratches his head as leans back into his chair. "I didn't even know she could count that high."
"I don't get it, how did she get three characters to 80 and not have you notice?" This question is from Quinn.
They're all sitting in Puck's gaming room, computers open and games up and running but they're all turned away from the screens and towards each other.
"I have no fucking clue."
"I think the better question is how the hell she turned on her computer," adds Puck. "Or, shit, how, even if she could turn it on, she knew how to fucking use it."
"Just because she doesn't know how to turn it on doesn't mean she can't use it," says Santana, icily. "Apparently she could only play when I left one of the computers running."
Out of nowhere, Quinn starts laughing. Like, loudly. "Oh my god," she gets out between chuckles. "I just realized," she gasps. "Brittany is better at Warcraft than you!"
Santana's taken aback because, honestly, she hadn't really thought about that. She's still kind of waiting to wake up and realize it's all one bizarre dream caused by that extra spicy curry she ate a few weeks back. She knows Brittany has one more 80 than her, and that yeah, her gearscore was better, and she has way more achievements (damn her and her time-lost proto drake) but she didn't really put that all together.
"No," Santana denies, shaking her head as if mere denial would make it true. "No way, I pwn all of you there is no way that Brittany is better than me."
"She so is, dude," joins Puck, now laughing along with Quinn. "She so is."
"Shut up," she throws at Puck before turning back to her screen. Her two companions follow suit but don't stop laughing.
Puck glances at Santana when he gets the notification that she's logged off. "What the hell are you doing Lopez? We're scheduled for ICC right now."
"I'm re-rolling," she mumbles, squinting at her screen as she decides what race and class to be.
"Dude, we have a fucking raid to get to. This is my week for the damn axe." All the mirth from realizing Santana had been bested by Brittany is gone from his voice and he's all business now. That axe is important.
"You're 0 for 20 on that stupid axe, Puckerman. Chances are you wouldn't get it this week either."
"Santana," says Quinn, trying to mediate between her two friends. They do have a raid to get to and that vanity item she's been lusting for has a .02% drop in this place. "We need your dps this afternoon. You can start a new toon later."
"No, I have to start now."
"Just because Britt is kicking your ass at this game, it doesn't mean you can just abandon your damn guild in their time of need."
Santana doesn't respond, just keeps clicking through her character options and tries to think of an adequate name for her new avatar. Fucking name selection is the hardest part.
"Lopez!" Puck shouts. "I will fucking g-kick you if you don't log on right now."
"Puck you're not guildmaster," Quinn reminds him in a soft voice. He shoots her a threatening glare in response.
"Santana," Quinn says, with an exasperated eye roll to Puck. "I will kick you out of this guild if you do not get ready to raid in the next five minutes."
"Fine," Santana says, after a minute. She stands up and walks out of the room towards the front hall where her bag is.
"Where the hell is she going?" Puck asks, half to himself and half to Quinn.
The dark haired girl returns a minute later holding her spare laptop (the one she brings in case Puck's old piece of tin dies on them in the middle of a fight). "What are you doing?" Quinn asks, eying the new computer.
"Two-boxing. So shut the hell up. Both of you."
Quinn makes a zipping motion across her lips and Puck just shakes his head but they both turn back to their computers and start prepping for the raid.
They're fairly successful, but Puck doesn't get his axe, Quinn doesn't get her vanity item and for the first time in months, Santana fails to top the dps charts. Any normal afternoon she'd be sulky and moody because of it but she can't focus on anything but the idea of Brittany being a better gamer than she is. She can just not let this stand.
She doesn't sleep that night, or the next. If Brittany thinks it's weird that Santana doesn't leave their office the entire time she's in the apartment she doesn't say anything.
Santana thinks she must have set some record for fasting leveling because in the blink of an eye she's got four level 80 characters.
--
It's a month later and everything is still the same. Santana hasn't woken up yet so Brittany is still playing World of Warcraft at all odd hours of the day and even a month later, it's all still so bizarre to Santana.
Part of it's kind of nice, Santana doesn't have to hide the fact that she's this huge loser who spends some of her Saturday nights holed up in a room with no windows, eating hot pockets and chugging mountain dew while she yells at some thirteen year old kid playing a hunter that his dps is for shit. Now she can do that with Brittany sitting at the desk next to her, plugging away silently on her own character.
It makes her smirk too when Brittany calls her in the middle of a raid and she can say "We're two bosses down in ICC," when Brittany asks her where she is. It makes her smirk because Rachel will call Quinn later and seriously, when did Quinn Fabray become so bad at lying. It's kind of depressing really. She thinks it probably happened sometime after Quinn fell for Rachel and decided to trade in her bitch card for her I'm disgustingly in love card. It's all so gross to Santana.
Regardless, she likes the part where before she had to divide her time between Brittany and whatever geeky thing was holding her interest at the time, now they're one in the same. She gets to ride around Azeroth and prop her feet in Brittany's lap while she does it. Then there's that part where Brittany gets a really spectacular achievement or finds a ridiculously rare drop and she gets super giddy, like a shot of adrenaline. The I totally just capped my engineering skill sex is some of the best she's ever had (topped only by make up sex and vodka is so tasty sex).
But part of it is really unsettling. Like the part where Puck decides it would be so awesome if Brittany and Santana dueled each other. Something about settling once and for all which was the better player so Santana could stop being such a whiny bitch and get back to her regular raiding self. Santana figures, yeah, Brittany may have more 80s and better gear and more achievements but she's always been a firm believer in skill over gear.
So she agrees. And it's a disaster.
The worst part is that Brittany doesn't talk at all while she plays. It's probably the reason why Santana never caught her playing before, but it's really weird. She's used to Puck and Quinn and herself who spend most of the game slinging insults at each other and yelling obscenities at the other players (that's more her and Puck, not so much Quinn).
Brittany, however, is silent. She's silent and she's damn good. No, like, really good. Like, Puck suggests they start competing in professional arena matches good.
Santana loses 7 games out of 7.
Brittany doesn't say anything during all the duels, just stares silently at her screen and keeps tapping away at her mouse and keyboard. Santana however, is yelling and hitting stuff and nearly cracks her favorite mouse in the middle of game 5.
She's exhausted and red in the face by the time Quinn commands, "That's enough."
"I don't get it," Santana says. "Brittany. I love you, but really, how are you this good?"
Brittany shrugs. "I don't know." Santana kind of wants to snap at her because her pride has been all stomped on and her fingers hurt from trying to force spells to cooldown faster, but Brittany's face is open and innocent and she knows that Brittany's probably being honest.
But Brittany's lived with Santana for over a decade at this point and Santana probably should have taken that into account. Some things are just bound to rub off. So when Santana turns back to her keyboard to log out and huffs, "I just don't get how you beat me so bad," Brittany plasters a completely evil smile on her face and says in a low voice, "You were not prepared."
Puck and Quinn nearly fall over at the look on Santana's face.