There Are Certain People (You Just Keep Coming Back To)
Title: There Are Certain People (You Just Keep Coming Back To)
Pairing: Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez, spare mentions of Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry, Santana Lopez/Brittany
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: A series of kinda-chronological vignettes. Because I felt like it. And also, dramatricks is persuasive. Title from The Fray's "All At Once."
A/N: Before anyone gets all up-in-arms, I still am a diehard Brittana and Faberry shipper-and will always be. But Quinntana kind of strikes a (much smaller) chord in me as well. I wanted to see what writing them as more-than-friends would be like.
1
Quinn Fabray hates Santana Lopez.
She knows she shouldn’t hate another girl in her class-in fact, should not hate anyone, because hate is the Devil’s mark-but she just can’t help it. There is something about Santana that makes her absolutely crazy, and no matter how many batches of deep breaths and ‘count to ten’s she tries, nothing makes that feeling go away.
Her parents don’t understand it. The Lopezes are lovely people, they say, if a little over-the-top with the bearing of children (Quinn doesn’t really get that, but she does get that Santana’s the only ten-year-old she knows with eight siblings; Quinn is not remotely envious of this fact, except in the summer when she sees the whole clan running baseball plays on the diamond behind her house). Anyway, in the eyes of her parents, Santana is a good, church-going girl with a fine head on her shoulders.
In the eyes of Quinn, Santana is hellfire incarnate.
The girl is an absolute menace, all scabbed knees and dirty cheeks. She can’t seem to go a day without pushing over other kids-mostly Noah Puckerman, because he is the only person who actually hits back, and for some reason, Santana seems to like that about him. Quinn can’t remember the last recess period that didn’t involve some blood or bruising, and though she rolls her eyes at them as hard as she can, they never seem to indulge her disapproval.
The last time this happened, Noah actually stood up and dumped a handful of sand over Quinn’s hair, giggling when she shrieked bloody murder. Santana, standing by with arms crossed, only smirked.
On that day, Quinn decided she actually hates them both.
It makes her sick, the way Santana struts around school like she owns the place, mouth set into a tiny determined scowl. It makes her sick, the way teachers fawn over her pronunciations in Spanish (of course she can speak it; her parents are probably from there, or something), the way the other kids cheer when they play kickball and Santana pelts one over the other team’s heads (Quinn, who is usually on the other team, always seems to be the one assigned to chase it down). It makes her sick, the way everyone seems to love or fear Santana Lopez.
Everyone except her.
The day her daddy is late picking her up, then, feels like the worst of her life. She is left outside the school, prim and neat next to none other than the slouching wonder herself. It is silent, which is strange, because Santana is usually the first person to start verbal rallies with the likes of her blonde classmate. She must be tired or something, Quinn thinks, watching the other girl surreptitiously from the corner of her eye. Tired and even grimier than usual, thanks to the mud fight Noah started after lunch today.
It isn’t a great decision, but Quinn finds her mouth opening of its own accord anyway.
“Don’t you ever bathe?”
From the venomous way the small Latina’s eyes flash, Quinn guesses it was less than a not-great decision. They’re alone here, leaning against this gray brick wall, with no one waiting on hand to rescue Quinn should Santana decide to just strangle her once and for all.
“What’s it to you, Fabray?” Santana sneers. Quinn delicately lifts her nose into the air, sniffing haughtily the way she sees her mother do at bridge games.
“I’m worried about you,” she replies as calmly as she can. “Since your mother’s got all those kids, maybe she just doesn’t have time to wash you when you start to stink.”
Santana’s lip curls. “You think you’ve got something on me, Blondie?”
“I think you’re disgusting,” Quinn returns. The dark-haired girl smirks.
“You think I care what you think? You’re just a prissy little brat. I bet you haven’t had a day of fun in your whole lame life.”
“Have too!” Quinn fires back, straightening up and clutching her lunchbox tighter. Santana shakes her head.
“Whatever. You can’t play sports, you don’t throw mud. You don’t even hit people. You’re useless, Goldilocks. No wonder you don’t have any friends.”
“I have friends!” Quinn shrills, spinning to glare at the other girl head-on. Santana laughs.
“You have minions.”
She hates having to ask, because it’s Santana, but Quinn can’t stop her eyebrows from knitting. “What’s a minion?”
“Someone who does whatever you say, whenever you say,” Santana informs her, and Quinn thinks that isn’t so bad. She likes when people do what she says; it makes her feel important, like her daddy.
She’s about to say so when Santana continues, grinning maliciously. “But they don’t stick around because they like you. They only do it because they’re afraid of what you’ll do to them if they say no. Like the hyenas did for Scar.”
She leans forward, her voice dropping to a conspiring whisper. “And you know what happened to Scar.”
One bronze finger draws a quick line across a slender throat. Santana’s eyes sparkle wickedly. Quinn scowls.
“That’s a mean thing to say.”
“Yeah, well.” Santana shrugs, leaning back again and stuffing her hands into the pockets of her ratty jeans. “Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind.”
Quinn rolls her eyes. “What does that even mean?”
To her surprise, the little Latina smiles almost sheepishly. “I dunno,” she says. “I heard it on the radio once.”
They stand in silence for a few minutes, Quinn scanning the street for her father’s shiny black car. Santana stares at her shoes, tracing shapes into the cement with one foot. It is the first time since kindergarten that they have been left alone for this long without screaming at each other-or, more accurately, without Quinn doing the screaming, Santana throwing a rock, and both girls stomping off to opposing corners.
Weirdly, Quinn thinks she doesn’t totally hate it.
“Who you waiting for?” Santana asks abruptly, kicking out at a pebble. Quinn breaks her gaze away from the street.
“My daddy. You?”
“Same,” Santana says guardedly, hands looped behind her head as it tilts back against the wall. “Work must be keeping him late. Mama will be pissed.”
Quinn winces. “That’s a bad word. You’re not supposed to say words like that.”
“Says who?” Santana asks blithely, closing her eyes. Quinn thinks.
“Says every grown-up ever.”
“Ah, grown-ups don’t know their heads from their butts,” the Latina mutters. “All they care about is money and money and beer. And more money. Which is really stupid, because, I mean-it’s just green bits of paper, right?”
Quinn has thought about this a number of times as well, always coming up with that very same assessment. She nods earnestly, forgetting for a minute that this is Santana Lopez, the Jafar to her Jasmine.
“Heck, I could draw some ugly old men on green paper,” Santana goes on, like she doesn’t even realize she’s talking to Quinn anymore. “And then I would be rich, and everyone would have to do what I say. Right?”
“You’d have minions,” Quinn agrees. Santana’s head tilts sideways, dark eyes considering the blonde.
“How do you like it?” she asks. When Quinn gives a perplexed frown, she impatiently wags a hand between them. “Having minions, I mean. Instead of friends. Are they just as good?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn answers honestly, because today is the first time she’s realized she even has minions instead of friends. Santana grunts.
“It might be okay,” she says at last. “I could have a whole army. And I could sic them on Puck.”
She looks positively delighted with the thought. Quinn wrinkles her nose.
“Why do you call him that? It’s a stupid name.”
“Quinn is a stupid name,” Santana retorts, face going cloudy again. Hazel eyes narrow.
“My mom named me.”
“Then I guess your mom is stupid too,” Santana says smoothly, grinning like she’s never been prouder of herself. Quinn’s shoulders go rigid, her hands clamping into small, unwieldy fists.
“Take that back.”
“Mama says never apologize for the truth,” Santana smarms, dropping her backpack and raising her own fists. “Come on, Princess, you wanna go?”
She doesn’t, mostly because her daddy will be so disappointed if he catches his little girl fighting, but the last time she backed down from Santana Lopez, she wound up with pudding in her hair in consequence for “being a baby coward.” She’s getting really tired of stuff finding its way into her braids, frankly, and if standing up for herself means dirtying her nice dress…
Well, there are worse things.
She flings herself at the smaller girl, flailing to grab hold of her hair, or shirt, or neck. Santana flails away with slightly more expertise, laughing maniacally when Quinn barely manages to graze the tips of her fingers across Santana’s cheek.
“You suck!” she announces, swinging a fist up and catching Quinn directly in the center of her left ear. Wincing, Quinn struggles closer, wrapping an arm around Santana’s shoulders and jerking her head down.
“I hate you!” she screeches, fully aware of how wild she sounds as she stomps hard on Santana’s foot. The brunette grunts, lashing out with an elbow.
“Good! I hate you too!”
Ten seconds later, she’s on her back, with Santana sitting on her stomach, fists flying as Quinn grips hold of the feisty girl’s collar and tries to roll them both over. Her face feels heavy and tight, bruises springing up around her eyes, but she’s just a little bit bigger than Santana, and it works to her advantage. She ends up on top, pinning Santana by the shoulders and rocking her whole body forward.
Santana rocks up at the same moment, and their foreheads collide. They both shriek, jerking apart. A large hand closes over the collar of Quinn’s dress, hauling her up and off.
“Quinn Charlotte Fabray!”
Oh great.
“Sorry, Daddy,” she mumbles meekly, clapping a hand to the rising welt on her forehead. Still on the ground, Santana’s face takes on the appropriate meld of fear and guilt.
“Sorry, Mr. Fabray,” she adds when his icy eyes turn on her. Quinn is impressed; this is the first time she has ever seen a Lopez cowed by an adult.
“Fighting,” Russell Fabray begins, “is not proper behavior for young ladies. You know that.”
“Yes, Daddy,” Quinn replies nervously, clasping her hands before her dress. Santana crawls to her feet, thumbs hooked through her belt loops, and stares at the ground.
“So this will…” He trails off, eyebrow raised expectantly. Quinn swallows.
“Never happen again,” she fills in, surprised to hear Santana’s voice miming the words with her. She glances at the smaller girl, almost grateful to have an unlikely ally in the face of her father’s disappointment.
He leads her away with a curt nod, hand heavy upon her stick-thin shoulder, barely bothering to glance back at Santana. Quinn thinks this little misadventure might have undone that mistaken impression her parents have always had of the Latina, which is a small, acceptable blessing. It’s not worth the grounding that will be put into place the minute they enter the Fabray home, but it’s better than nothing at all.
Her father does not look back, but Quinn does, just for a second. Just in time to see Santana slouch back to her wall, arms folded resolutely across her chest, eyes curtained by a sheen of messy hair. Quinn bites her lip.
It’s true that the girl is a beast, obnoxious and violent and the complete opposite of everything Quinn has ever wanted to be, but right now, she looks very small, very quiet, and intolerably vulnerable. It’s almost enough to evoke pity.
Then her eyes meet Quinn’s, hard and dark and angry, and the urge to tear away from her father and jump atop that tiny, frustrating body strikes again. Quinn lifts her head, lips pressed into a thin line.
Yeah. She really hates Santana Lopez.
2 Quinn Fabray likes Santana Lopez.
Okay, not likes her, like wants to be around her all the time, but in small doses? It's true that the girl isn’t bad. Not nearly as bad as she used to be, that’s for sure, although sometimes Quinn will look up and see the exact same spitfire who punched her lights out in fifth grade. Those days are always trying.
But if there is one thing Quinn Fabray excels at, it’s putting her moods aside and behaving exactly as expected. It’s a law of the Fabray land-her father does it, her mother, her sister. Life’s a play, and Quinn knows her part like the pleats of Santana’s cheerleading uniform.
Not that she spends a lot of time looking at Santana’s cheerleading uniform, but sometimes, there isn’t a choice. Like when Coach has them running laps for two full hours after one of the gorilla-brained male Cheerios dumps their smallest and lightest pyramid top right on her head. An overnight trip to the hospital is nothing compared to what most of them have endured at some point or another since signing their high school careers into the hands of Sue Sylvester, but all the same, Quinn cringes at the memory of bone crunching through the girl’s shoulder.
They’ve been running for so long, Quinn has kind of forgotten what it feels like to stay stationary, and yes, she’ll admit it: without Santana Lopez hauling ass at her side, making snarky comments about the other girls with each spare breath, she probably would have passed out by now. Which would only have made everything worse, because if there is one thing Coach hates more than poor form, it’s the sheer weakness of being merely mortal.
“How much longer-,” she puffs out, stumbling on a dirt clod and barely managing to right herself. Santana shoots her a sideways eyeroll.
“Do I look like a mind-reader to you, Fabray?”
Quinn glares back, struggling to filter oxygen into her crushed tin can of a chest. “Don’t…be…a smart-ass…”
“Like I can help that,” Santana taunts, hand darting out to catch the side of Quinn’s top when the blonde very nearly biffs it on the next step. “Will you please stay upright? This is getting pathetic.”
“I’m doing the best I can!” Quinn snaps, regretting it when her lungs scream in retaliation for the wasted air. Santana snorts, moving at her usual steady pace, and Quinn wickedly wonders if the other girl has ever indulged steroids or the like. There’s no other excuse for how easy she seems to have it, for the calm inhale-exhale flow she somehow maintains when everyone else is twenty seconds from dropping like three-toned stones.
Quinn might kind of like the Latina these days, but she certainly doesn’t trust her.
They make short work of another lap, and Quinn realizes she’s completely lost count by now, which might matter if they were running for someone remotely sane. Sylvester, on the other hand, considers numerical tabulation important only while discussing money, trophies, or score cards.
Sometimes, Quinn wonders what it would be like to be so single-minded.
“Little further, Q,” Santana’s voice sounds next to her ear, half-lost in a puff of air, and despite herself, Quinn shivers. It’s weird to hear Santana offering any form of reassurance; she must look worse than she thought, sweating buckets and staggering like a three-legged pup with cataracts.
“One more lap,” Santana encourages, which makes Quinn’s stomach roil in a whole new way-right until the girl adds, “Come on, you slow bitch, push through before Coach snipes us all.”
That sounds more like the Santana Lopez she’s come to tolerate.
When that whistle finally blows, Quinn drops on a dime, knees twisting and giving up on her before she can even reach her water bottle. The grass is soothing against her face, raking lightly back and forth with the breeze.
A low thud echoes beside her, signaling Santana’s decision to flop down as well.
“So,” the Latina says around a deep inhalation. “Let’s not do that again this week.”
Too tired to speak, Quinn nods. Santana gives her arm a sharp poke.
“Come on, Blondie, up and at ‘em. You lay here too long, you’ll sink right into the turf, and Figgins will have to waste some of his precious budget on diggin’ you up.”
“I highly doubt there is any likelihood of that,” Quinn mumbles, rolling just enough to not have to see the Latina’s mouth moving anymore. Something about those lips when she’s this tired is…not what her father would like to hear about his baby girl thinking, that’s for sure.
“Well, how about the likelihood of Sylvester bludgeoning you with her bullhorn until you lose consciousness?” Santana muses above her. “’Cuz, y’know, here she comes.”
Quinn’s on her feet like a shot, limping in the direction of the locker room. Behind her, Santana whoops with laughter and follows.
“You’re a bitch,” she informs the dark-haired girl when they reach their destination, Quinn collapsing immediately upon a bench.
“I’m the bitch who keeps your fat ass in line,” Santana counters, popping Quinn’s locker open (the blonde doesn’t particularly wish to know how the other girl got the combination) before starting on her own. Frowning, Quinn closes her eyes.
“It’s not that fat,” she mumbles. She hears a rustle above her-presumably Santana shifting to peer more closely at the backside in question.
“You’re right,” the girl agrees. “Just got a little chub around the edges.”
By way of punctuation, she reaches out and actually pinches Quinn under her skirt. The blonde jumps.
“I hate you,” she snaps, inching to the edge of the bench. Santana laughs.
“Keep telling yourself that, sister.”
Quinn turns to fix her with a blistering glare, just in time for the Latina’s Cheerio top to flicker down upon her head. She scrambles to push the sweaty garment out of her eyes, scowling. Santana, in her sports bra and cherry-red skirt, grins.
“You look like one of those nuns your dad’s so hell-bent on you becoming.”
“And you look like a stripper,” Quinn fires back. Lifting her arms provocatively above her head, Santana arches her back and adopts a come-hither smile that, annoyingly, makes Quinn’s heart jerk in her chest.
“I could pull it off,” the smaller girl muses, shifting to peer into what, at Sylvester’s beck, boils down to a full mirror wall. “Pump in some salsa, hook up the strobe lights, and watch me work, baby.” She grinds her hips seductively into the air inches from Quinn’s nose, smirking.
Blushing, Quinn looks away. “You’re insufferable.”
“Only eighty-year-old librarians use that word,” Santana informs her, twisting closer. She’s still dancing to the beat inside her head, and Quinn wonders how on earth she’s got the energy for it after the hell they’ve just been through. She shakes her head.
“Whatever, S. Put some clothes on, will you?”
To her shock, a warm, toned body plops down upon her lap, strong arms looping around her neck. Santana cocks her head.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Quinn growls, moving to push the other girl away. Santana doesn’t budge.
“What’s your damage today, Q? You’re all tense and prickly.” A hand smooths down Quinn’s arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “Sylvester can’t have gotten to you that badly. We’ve been putting up with her shit forever.”
“Get off me, Lopez,” Quinn grumbles, shoving ineffectually at Santana as best she can with her arms pinned. The girl shrugs.
“Don’t think so. I’m comfy.”
“I don’t care how comfy you are,” Quinn seethes. “Get. Off. Now.”
It’s a poor choice in phrasing that will have her beating her head against a wall for weeks.
Santana’s face goes dark with the force of its wicked grin. “You know,” she says with embarrassing emphasis, like she’s really thinking about with one finger stroking down her own chin, “that doesn’t sound like a half-bad idea. I mean, these bone-crushing work-outs always do leave me a little…wanting.”
She rolls her hips down forcefully, throwing her head back and moaning softly. Quinn’s eyes widen to bursting point.
“What are you doing?” she hisses, trying to scramble backwards off the bench. Santana’s knees tighten on either side of her lap, pinning her more effectively.
“Exactly what you suggested,” the raven-haired girl replies, letting out a soft oh as she grinds down again and again, setting a slow and steady rhythm. Quinn’s face burns.
“I hate you,” she whispers fervently. “I hate you, I hate you, oh God, Santana, go away.”
“Doesn’t really feel like that’s what you want,” Santana observes, digging her fingers hard into the nape of Quinn’s neck. The blonde’s whole body shivers, struggling in two opposing directions at once as her pelvis threaten to buck up and her mind screams to run away.
“Come on, Q,” a sultry voice husks against her ear. “Live a little. Enjoy yourself, for once. Daddy’s not watching.”
Plump lips wrap around a tender lobe, sucking sweet and fierce, and Quinn’s eyes slip shut. Her arms snake free of Santana’s body, latching onto the girl’s small waist and holding her in place.
“I shouldn’t-“
“No,” Santana agrees, biting down and pulling free to stare into Quinn’s eyes. “But isn’t that the fun part?”
Her exhaustion drains away the second lips crash violently against hers. Santana’s hands seem to be roaming everywhere at once, and by the time one of those hands slips under Quinn’s spanks, she has come to a decision.
Liking Santana Lopez, even a little bit, might be the worst decision she has ever made. Ever.
Fingers curl expertly; something in Quinn’s belly stretches taut and threatens to snap. She groans, head falling forward onto Santana’s shoulder. The Latina smiles evilly, hot breath wafting across Quinn’s skin, pumping in time to the unsteady tide of their semi-destructive relationship. Quinn gasps, eyes closing in desperate self-loathing as she tries to rationalize what is happening.
She doesn’t come up with much. Only that she wishes to God she didn’t like Santana-but it’s not as if the girl hasn’t exactly given her another choice.
She does like Santana--far more than she likes, way beyond the mark of too much. And as much as she can't stand it, as her body shudders and her mouth seeks out the other girl's, she realizes she just can't remember how to stop.
3
Quinn Fabray...doesn’t understand Santana Lopez.
She’s tried. God knows she has. It’s been a battle over a decade in the making, and still, she has to admit (silently, so as to avoid finding herself on the end of the classic smug smirk yet again) defeat where the Latina is concerned.
Nineteen years old, and she still can’t make heads or tails of that girl to save her life.
Sometimes, Santana is just as brutal as she was at ten-cleaner, less inclined to ripped jeans (save for the expensive, specifically tailored variety), but still the same caustic, vibrant personality Quinn first tumbled into loathing over. Other times, Santana reminds her of high school in all its torrid, unpredictable glory. She can be horrifying and blistering one moment, all curse words and derogatory insults, only to segue shockingly into a bout of uncharacteristic tenderness before rocketing right back to sarcasm and lewd gestures.
And sometimes, she is…calm.
Calm is not a word Quinn would ever have appropriated to Santana Lopez before college, before moving into this apartment with the other girl, but it can be pretty apt. Like now.
Quinn herself is seated at their meager kitchen table, knees drawn up to steady her sketchbook as she scratches light lines into the paper. Her eyes are fixed upon Santana, curled upon the nearby couch with a book pressed to her nose. Dark-rimmed glasses jab into caramel skin, black hair skirting into serious eyes as the Latina tilts her head sideways into the cushion. She is, on days like this, the perfect model: quiet, still, apathetic to the notion of being watched.
Theirs is a curious sort of relationship, one Quinn sometimes has more difficulty comprehending than where Santana alone is concerned. They are not together, nor are they apart. They’ve each got their own thing going here in Boston, and half the time, they only cross paths at all because they happen to be sharing rent. Santana has proven to be more of a night owl, now that she has no siblings or Coach to appease, while Quinn thrives in daylight. They can go whole days at a time without even seeing one another, save for the brief crossings of bathroom usage or coffee cravings, and both of them are comfortable with that. Which, in its own right, is not something Quinn has ever expected to live, having grown up in a household that revolved solely around constraining timetables and guarded questions about whereabouts.
She kind of likes it.
They do still sleep together, as they have been doing since high school, but it isn’t what anyone would call monogamous, and Quinn is startled by how that strikes her as normal. She knows Santana’s got her own situation going elsewhere (not so much on the side, even, since their thing isn’t exactly seated in the middle of the table), mostly involving a blonde dancer called Brittany. Quinn has met her a number of times, and likes her pretty well, although she has to admit the young woman is a good deal less intellectual than she usually prefers.
Of course, Quinn’s got someone too-a petite brunette with an enormous wealth of talent (and, if she’s honest, a vast ego to match) from her singular theater class freshman year. Quinn needed all of three days to realize how much she hates set design and monologuing, but she thinks it was kind of worth it to meet Rachel Berry. They aren’t dating either, exactly, but Rachel spends a lot of time over when Santana’s not around. Sometimes, Quinn thinks they’re on the precipice of something. That kind of alarms her.
She’s run that past Santana a bare handful of times, always earning a snort and an eyeroll in response. The first time, it pissed her off so badly, she almost rushed out of the apartment, but Santana’s got this thing about anger-sex…
The things that girl has introduced her to, Quinn thinks with a rueful shake of her head, would make her parents combust on the spot if they knew.
Despite all of this-the sex, and the living together, and the more-than-occasional nights spent cuddled in a singular bed-they are not together, not exclusive, not concrete. But, Quinn has long decided, this does not make them any less real. They get each other, in some horrible, violent, excruciatingly-obnoxious kind of way-and, really, isn't that Santana in a nutshell?
Usually, yes, but not now. Moments like these are all that make sense to Quinn, which in turn serves to confuse her further, because being with someone shouldn’t be so baffling.
She thinks.
Then again, she doesn’t have the greatest role models to play off of.
“What?” the Latina’s voice cuts into her thoughts, raspy from several hours of non-use. Quinn arches an eyebrow, scraping in the outline of the other girl’s jaw.
“Nothing.”
Santana makes a grand show of sighing, but otherwise remains still out of casual deference to Quinn’s work. “It’s never nothing with you, Princess. You’re doing the creepy Jack Bauer stare again.”
‘The creepy Jack Bauer stare’ is Santana’s peculiar brand of affection, marking when she’s particularly concerned, Quinn thinks. Either that, or she’s just unnaturally irritated by Kiefer Sutherland and his fucked-up ears.
“I am not,” Quinn mutters with as much grace as she can muster, shading in a few strands of hair until the shape on the page blatantly resembles the other girl’s bone structure. She likes this, these moments of serenity with her sketchbook and-whatever Santana is. They’re strange, and irresolute, and they make her feel more alive than a lifetime of church hymns and Chastity Balls.
They sit in silence for long moments, Quinn working diligently while Santana watches. The less-than-neat bow of their lives sits haphazardly upon its cautiously-wrapped package, and Quinn thinks it’s good that they never try to peel it open, force it into definition. This is what they do best. They do not discuss, they do not pressure. They simply are, and it is disturbingly beautiful.
Whatever it happens to be.
Half an hour later, the sketch is as complete as it will ever be, and Santana is stretching, standing, padding over with bare feet and a low-watt smirk. She leans against Quinn’s back, peers down, makes a soft scoffing noise.
“That’s me, huh?”
The first time she did this, Quinn thought she might die from the overwhelming sense of criticism, but she’s learned since then. This is Santana’s awe, though she works overtime not to show it, and Quinn appreciates her for that. For caring, genuinely, about the things that matter to Quinn, and for brashly slapping her on the shoulder and wandering away before things get too sappy. Santana Lopez has never been predictable, but her routine isn’t entirely rooted in left field.
“It’s not bad,” the girl adds, her voice low against Quinn’s ear. It’s as much as Santana is ever willing to give, and, despite the near-monosyllabic nature of the compliment, Quinn’s heart soars. She taps the eraser gently against the page, shrugging.
“It’s practice.”
“Good,” is all Santana says, reaching around and flipping the cover down over the drawing. Carefully, she sets the book aside and pulls Quinn from the chair, wrapping strong arms around the blonde’s waist. “Does this mean we can…”
She wriggles her eyebrows and grins teasingly, an expression Quinn can’t help but kiss off her smug face.
"You never think of anything else, do you?"
Something like indignation briefly crosses the darker woman's face. "I'm insulted, Q. You know me better than that."
Quinn tilts her head, smiling wryly until Santana's hands tighten at the small of her back, cheeks flushed with laughter.
"Oh, come on. When do you not want this?"
She gives a crude pelvic thrust, nudging her nose against Quinn's until the frames of her glasses bump into pale skin, grinning when Quinn pushes her playfully away.
This is the sort of thing that makes them them, the sort of thing that doesn't happen with the Brittanys and the Rachels. They don't love each other in the traditional sense, but nor can they survive without one another to fall back on. It's surprising, and confounding, and sometimes downright maddening, but somehow, somewhere along the line, the unthinkable happened. Santana Lopez became the best friend Quinn Fabray has ever and will ever have. It's the sort of event one tends to rail against, the sort of thing no parent ever wishes for their child, and yet Quinn wouldn't undo it for all the sane friends in the world.
She doesn't get her, and she doesn't want to. Santana Lopez is completely fucking crazy sometimes, all threats and shots of whiskey, but she is also strangely sweet, and protective beyond measure, and a hellcat in the sack. Quinn cannot say she loves her in that black-and-white, Disney-romance traditional sense, it's true; Santana will never be her Aladdin, or her Prince Charming, or even her Beast.
But somehow, in her own bizarre way, Santana is hers, regardless of whatever else sits between them on a given day. It may not make even one shred of sense, but it's the truest thing she knows.
Quinn Fabray needs Santana Lopez. And she's pretty sure Santana needs her right back.
That really isn't so bad.
Pairing: Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez, spare mentions of Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry, Santana Lopez/Brittany
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: A series of kinda-chronological vignettes. Because I felt like it. And also, dramatricks is persuasive. Title from The Fray's "All At Once."
A/N: Before anyone gets all up-in-arms, I still am a diehard Brittana and Faberry shipper-and will always be. But Quinntana kind of strikes a (much smaller) chord in me as well. I wanted to see what writing them as more-than-friends would be like.
1
Quinn Fabray hates Santana Lopez.
She knows she shouldn’t hate another girl in her class-in fact, should not hate anyone, because hate is the Devil’s mark-but she just can’t help it. There is something about Santana that makes her absolutely crazy, and no matter how many batches of deep breaths and ‘count to ten’s she tries, nothing makes that feeling go away.
Her parents don’t understand it. The Lopezes are lovely people, they say, if a little over-the-top with the bearing of children (Quinn doesn’t really get that, but she does get that Santana’s the only ten-year-old she knows with eight siblings; Quinn is not remotely envious of this fact, except in the summer when she sees the whole clan running baseball plays on the diamond behind her house). Anyway, in the eyes of her parents, Santana is a good, church-going girl with a fine head on her shoulders.
In the eyes of Quinn, Santana is hellfire incarnate.
The girl is an absolute menace, all scabbed knees and dirty cheeks. She can’t seem to go a day without pushing over other kids-mostly Noah Puckerman, because he is the only person who actually hits back, and for some reason, Santana seems to like that about him. Quinn can’t remember the last recess period that didn’t involve some blood or bruising, and though she rolls her eyes at them as hard as she can, they never seem to indulge her disapproval.
The last time this happened, Noah actually stood up and dumped a handful of sand over Quinn’s hair, giggling when she shrieked bloody murder. Santana, standing by with arms crossed, only smirked.
On that day, Quinn decided she actually hates them both.
It makes her sick, the way Santana struts around school like she owns the place, mouth set into a tiny determined scowl. It makes her sick, the way teachers fawn over her pronunciations in Spanish (of course she can speak it; her parents are probably from there, or something), the way the other kids cheer when they play kickball and Santana pelts one over the other team’s heads (Quinn, who is usually on the other team, always seems to be the one assigned to chase it down). It makes her sick, the way everyone seems to love or fear Santana Lopez.
Everyone except her.
The day her daddy is late picking her up, then, feels like the worst of her life. She is left outside the school, prim and neat next to none other than the slouching wonder herself. It is silent, which is strange, because Santana is usually the first person to start verbal rallies with the likes of her blonde classmate. She must be tired or something, Quinn thinks, watching the other girl surreptitiously from the corner of her eye. Tired and even grimier than usual, thanks to the mud fight Noah started after lunch today.
It isn’t a great decision, but Quinn finds her mouth opening of its own accord anyway.
“Don’t you ever bathe?”
From the venomous way the small Latina’s eyes flash, Quinn guesses it was less than a not-great decision. They’re alone here, leaning against this gray brick wall, with no one waiting on hand to rescue Quinn should Santana decide to just strangle her once and for all.
“What’s it to you, Fabray?” Santana sneers. Quinn delicately lifts her nose into the air, sniffing haughtily the way she sees her mother do at bridge games.
“I’m worried about you,” she replies as calmly as she can. “Since your mother’s got all those kids, maybe she just doesn’t have time to wash you when you start to stink.”
Santana’s lip curls. “You think you’ve got something on me, Blondie?”
“I think you’re disgusting,” Quinn returns. The dark-haired girl smirks.
“You think I care what you think? You’re just a prissy little brat. I bet you haven’t had a day of fun in your whole lame life.”
“Have too!” Quinn fires back, straightening up and clutching her lunchbox tighter. Santana shakes her head.
“Whatever. You can’t play sports, you don’t throw mud. You don’t even hit people. You’re useless, Goldilocks. No wonder you don’t have any friends.”
“I have friends!” Quinn shrills, spinning to glare at the other girl head-on. Santana laughs.
“You have minions.”
She hates having to ask, because it’s Santana, but Quinn can’t stop her eyebrows from knitting. “What’s a minion?”
“Someone who does whatever you say, whenever you say,” Santana informs her, and Quinn thinks that isn’t so bad. She likes when people do what she says; it makes her feel important, like her daddy.
She’s about to say so when Santana continues, grinning maliciously. “But they don’t stick around because they like you. They only do it because they’re afraid of what you’ll do to them if they say no. Like the hyenas did for Scar.”
She leans forward, her voice dropping to a conspiring whisper. “And you know what happened to Scar.”
One bronze finger draws a quick line across a slender throat. Santana’s eyes sparkle wickedly. Quinn scowls.
“That’s a mean thing to say.”
“Yeah, well.” Santana shrugs, leaning back again and stuffing her hands into the pockets of her ratty jeans. “Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind.”
Quinn rolls her eyes. “What does that even mean?”
To her surprise, the little Latina smiles almost sheepishly. “I dunno,” she says. “I heard it on the radio once.”
They stand in silence for a few minutes, Quinn scanning the street for her father’s shiny black car. Santana stares at her shoes, tracing shapes into the cement with one foot. It is the first time since kindergarten that they have been left alone for this long without screaming at each other-or, more accurately, without Quinn doing the screaming, Santana throwing a rock, and both girls stomping off to opposing corners.
Weirdly, Quinn thinks she doesn’t totally hate it.
“Who you waiting for?” Santana asks abruptly, kicking out at a pebble. Quinn breaks her gaze away from the street.
“My daddy. You?”
“Same,” Santana says guardedly, hands looped behind her head as it tilts back against the wall. “Work must be keeping him late. Mama will be pissed.”
Quinn winces. “That’s a bad word. You’re not supposed to say words like that.”
“Says who?” Santana asks blithely, closing her eyes. Quinn thinks.
“Says every grown-up ever.”
“Ah, grown-ups don’t know their heads from their butts,” the Latina mutters. “All they care about is money and money and beer. And more money. Which is really stupid, because, I mean-it’s just green bits of paper, right?”
Quinn has thought about this a number of times as well, always coming up with that very same assessment. She nods earnestly, forgetting for a minute that this is Santana Lopez, the Jafar to her Jasmine.
“Heck, I could draw some ugly old men on green paper,” Santana goes on, like she doesn’t even realize she’s talking to Quinn anymore. “And then I would be rich, and everyone would have to do what I say. Right?”
“You’d have minions,” Quinn agrees. Santana’s head tilts sideways, dark eyes considering the blonde.
“How do you like it?” she asks. When Quinn gives a perplexed frown, she impatiently wags a hand between them. “Having minions, I mean. Instead of friends. Are they just as good?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn answers honestly, because today is the first time she’s realized she even has minions instead of friends. Santana grunts.
“It might be okay,” she says at last. “I could have a whole army. And I could sic them on Puck.”
She looks positively delighted with the thought. Quinn wrinkles her nose.
“Why do you call him that? It’s a stupid name.”
“Quinn is a stupid name,” Santana retorts, face going cloudy again. Hazel eyes narrow.
“My mom named me.”
“Then I guess your mom is stupid too,” Santana says smoothly, grinning like she’s never been prouder of herself. Quinn’s shoulders go rigid, her hands clamping into small, unwieldy fists.
“Take that back.”
“Mama says never apologize for the truth,” Santana smarms, dropping her backpack and raising her own fists. “Come on, Princess, you wanna go?”
She doesn’t, mostly because her daddy will be so disappointed if he catches his little girl fighting, but the last time she backed down from Santana Lopez, she wound up with pudding in her hair in consequence for “being a baby coward.” She’s getting really tired of stuff finding its way into her braids, frankly, and if standing up for herself means dirtying her nice dress…
Well, there are worse things.
She flings herself at the smaller girl, flailing to grab hold of her hair, or shirt, or neck. Santana flails away with slightly more expertise, laughing maniacally when Quinn barely manages to graze the tips of her fingers across Santana’s cheek.
“You suck!” she announces, swinging a fist up and catching Quinn directly in the center of her left ear. Wincing, Quinn struggles closer, wrapping an arm around Santana’s shoulders and jerking her head down.
“I hate you!” she screeches, fully aware of how wild she sounds as she stomps hard on Santana’s foot. The brunette grunts, lashing out with an elbow.
“Good! I hate you too!”
Ten seconds later, she’s on her back, with Santana sitting on her stomach, fists flying as Quinn grips hold of the feisty girl’s collar and tries to roll them both over. Her face feels heavy and tight, bruises springing up around her eyes, but she’s just a little bit bigger than Santana, and it works to her advantage. She ends up on top, pinning Santana by the shoulders and rocking her whole body forward.
Santana rocks up at the same moment, and their foreheads collide. They both shriek, jerking apart. A large hand closes over the collar of Quinn’s dress, hauling her up and off.
“Quinn Charlotte Fabray!”
Oh great.
“Sorry, Daddy,” she mumbles meekly, clapping a hand to the rising welt on her forehead. Still on the ground, Santana’s face takes on the appropriate meld of fear and guilt.
“Sorry, Mr. Fabray,” she adds when his icy eyes turn on her. Quinn is impressed; this is the first time she has ever seen a Lopez cowed by an adult.
“Fighting,” Russell Fabray begins, “is not proper behavior for young ladies. You know that.”
“Yes, Daddy,” Quinn replies nervously, clasping her hands before her dress. Santana crawls to her feet, thumbs hooked through her belt loops, and stares at the ground.
“So this will…” He trails off, eyebrow raised expectantly. Quinn swallows.
“Never happen again,” she fills in, surprised to hear Santana’s voice miming the words with her. She glances at the smaller girl, almost grateful to have an unlikely ally in the face of her father’s disappointment.
He leads her away with a curt nod, hand heavy upon her stick-thin shoulder, barely bothering to glance back at Santana. Quinn thinks this little misadventure might have undone that mistaken impression her parents have always had of the Latina, which is a small, acceptable blessing. It’s not worth the grounding that will be put into place the minute they enter the Fabray home, but it’s better than nothing at all.
Her father does not look back, but Quinn does, just for a second. Just in time to see Santana slouch back to her wall, arms folded resolutely across her chest, eyes curtained by a sheen of messy hair. Quinn bites her lip.
It’s true that the girl is a beast, obnoxious and violent and the complete opposite of everything Quinn has ever wanted to be, but right now, she looks very small, very quiet, and intolerably vulnerable. It’s almost enough to evoke pity.
Then her eyes meet Quinn’s, hard and dark and angry, and the urge to tear away from her father and jump atop that tiny, frustrating body strikes again. Quinn lifts her head, lips pressed into a thin line.
Yeah. She really hates Santana Lopez.
2 Quinn Fabray likes Santana Lopez.
Okay, not likes her, like wants to be around her all the time, but in small doses? It's true that the girl isn’t bad. Not nearly as bad as she used to be, that’s for sure, although sometimes Quinn will look up and see the exact same spitfire who punched her lights out in fifth grade. Those days are always trying.
But if there is one thing Quinn Fabray excels at, it’s putting her moods aside and behaving exactly as expected. It’s a law of the Fabray land-her father does it, her mother, her sister. Life’s a play, and Quinn knows her part like the pleats of Santana’s cheerleading uniform.
Not that she spends a lot of time looking at Santana’s cheerleading uniform, but sometimes, there isn’t a choice. Like when Coach has them running laps for two full hours after one of the gorilla-brained male Cheerios dumps their smallest and lightest pyramid top right on her head. An overnight trip to the hospital is nothing compared to what most of them have endured at some point or another since signing their high school careers into the hands of Sue Sylvester, but all the same, Quinn cringes at the memory of bone crunching through the girl’s shoulder.
They’ve been running for so long, Quinn has kind of forgotten what it feels like to stay stationary, and yes, she’ll admit it: without Santana Lopez hauling ass at her side, making snarky comments about the other girls with each spare breath, she probably would have passed out by now. Which would only have made everything worse, because if there is one thing Coach hates more than poor form, it’s the sheer weakness of being merely mortal.
“How much longer-,” she puffs out, stumbling on a dirt clod and barely managing to right herself. Santana shoots her a sideways eyeroll.
“Do I look like a mind-reader to you, Fabray?”
Quinn glares back, struggling to filter oxygen into her crushed tin can of a chest. “Don’t…be…a smart-ass…”
“Like I can help that,” Santana taunts, hand darting out to catch the side of Quinn’s top when the blonde very nearly biffs it on the next step. “Will you please stay upright? This is getting pathetic.”
“I’m doing the best I can!” Quinn snaps, regretting it when her lungs scream in retaliation for the wasted air. Santana snorts, moving at her usual steady pace, and Quinn wickedly wonders if the other girl has ever indulged steroids or the like. There’s no other excuse for how easy she seems to have it, for the calm inhale-exhale flow she somehow maintains when everyone else is twenty seconds from dropping like three-toned stones.
Quinn might kind of like the Latina these days, but she certainly doesn’t trust her.
They make short work of another lap, and Quinn realizes she’s completely lost count by now, which might matter if they were running for someone remotely sane. Sylvester, on the other hand, considers numerical tabulation important only while discussing money, trophies, or score cards.
Sometimes, Quinn wonders what it would be like to be so single-minded.
“Little further, Q,” Santana’s voice sounds next to her ear, half-lost in a puff of air, and despite herself, Quinn shivers. It’s weird to hear Santana offering any form of reassurance; she must look worse than she thought, sweating buckets and staggering like a three-legged pup with cataracts.
“One more lap,” Santana encourages, which makes Quinn’s stomach roil in a whole new way-right until the girl adds, “Come on, you slow bitch, push through before Coach snipes us all.”
That sounds more like the Santana Lopez she’s come to tolerate.
When that whistle finally blows, Quinn drops on a dime, knees twisting and giving up on her before she can even reach her water bottle. The grass is soothing against her face, raking lightly back and forth with the breeze.
A low thud echoes beside her, signaling Santana’s decision to flop down as well.
“So,” the Latina says around a deep inhalation. “Let’s not do that again this week.”
Too tired to speak, Quinn nods. Santana gives her arm a sharp poke.
“Come on, Blondie, up and at ‘em. You lay here too long, you’ll sink right into the turf, and Figgins will have to waste some of his precious budget on diggin’ you up.”
“I highly doubt there is any likelihood of that,” Quinn mumbles, rolling just enough to not have to see the Latina’s mouth moving anymore. Something about those lips when she’s this tired is…not what her father would like to hear about his baby girl thinking, that’s for sure.
“Well, how about the likelihood of Sylvester bludgeoning you with her bullhorn until you lose consciousness?” Santana muses above her. “’Cuz, y’know, here she comes.”
Quinn’s on her feet like a shot, limping in the direction of the locker room. Behind her, Santana whoops with laughter and follows.
“You’re a bitch,” she informs the dark-haired girl when they reach their destination, Quinn collapsing immediately upon a bench.
“I’m the bitch who keeps your fat ass in line,” Santana counters, popping Quinn’s locker open (the blonde doesn’t particularly wish to know how the other girl got the combination) before starting on her own. Frowning, Quinn closes her eyes.
“It’s not that fat,” she mumbles. She hears a rustle above her-presumably Santana shifting to peer more closely at the backside in question.
“You’re right,” the girl agrees. “Just got a little chub around the edges.”
By way of punctuation, she reaches out and actually pinches Quinn under her skirt. The blonde jumps.
“I hate you,” she snaps, inching to the edge of the bench. Santana laughs.
“Keep telling yourself that, sister.”
Quinn turns to fix her with a blistering glare, just in time for the Latina’s Cheerio top to flicker down upon her head. She scrambles to push the sweaty garment out of her eyes, scowling. Santana, in her sports bra and cherry-red skirt, grins.
“You look like one of those nuns your dad’s so hell-bent on you becoming.”
“And you look like a stripper,” Quinn fires back. Lifting her arms provocatively above her head, Santana arches her back and adopts a come-hither smile that, annoyingly, makes Quinn’s heart jerk in her chest.
“I could pull it off,” the smaller girl muses, shifting to peer into what, at Sylvester’s beck, boils down to a full mirror wall. “Pump in some salsa, hook up the strobe lights, and watch me work, baby.” She grinds her hips seductively into the air inches from Quinn’s nose, smirking.
Blushing, Quinn looks away. “You’re insufferable.”
“Only eighty-year-old librarians use that word,” Santana informs her, twisting closer. She’s still dancing to the beat inside her head, and Quinn wonders how on earth she’s got the energy for it after the hell they’ve just been through. She shakes her head.
“Whatever, S. Put some clothes on, will you?”
To her shock, a warm, toned body plops down upon her lap, strong arms looping around her neck. Santana cocks her head.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Quinn growls, moving to push the other girl away. Santana doesn’t budge.
“What’s your damage today, Q? You’re all tense and prickly.” A hand smooths down Quinn’s arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “Sylvester can’t have gotten to you that badly. We’ve been putting up with her shit forever.”
“Get off me, Lopez,” Quinn grumbles, shoving ineffectually at Santana as best she can with her arms pinned. The girl shrugs.
“Don’t think so. I’m comfy.”
“I don’t care how comfy you are,” Quinn seethes. “Get. Off. Now.”
It’s a poor choice in phrasing that will have her beating her head against a wall for weeks.
Santana’s face goes dark with the force of its wicked grin. “You know,” she says with embarrassing emphasis, like she’s really thinking about with one finger stroking down her own chin, “that doesn’t sound like a half-bad idea. I mean, these bone-crushing work-outs always do leave me a little…wanting.”
She rolls her hips down forcefully, throwing her head back and moaning softly. Quinn’s eyes widen to bursting point.
“What are you doing?” she hisses, trying to scramble backwards off the bench. Santana’s knees tighten on either side of her lap, pinning her more effectively.
“Exactly what you suggested,” the raven-haired girl replies, letting out a soft oh as she grinds down again and again, setting a slow and steady rhythm. Quinn’s face burns.
“I hate you,” she whispers fervently. “I hate you, I hate you, oh God, Santana, go away.”
“Doesn’t really feel like that’s what you want,” Santana observes, digging her fingers hard into the nape of Quinn’s neck. The blonde’s whole body shivers, struggling in two opposing directions at once as her pelvis threaten to buck up and her mind screams to run away.
“Come on, Q,” a sultry voice husks against her ear. “Live a little. Enjoy yourself, for once. Daddy’s not watching.”
Plump lips wrap around a tender lobe, sucking sweet and fierce, and Quinn’s eyes slip shut. Her arms snake free of Santana’s body, latching onto the girl’s small waist and holding her in place.
“I shouldn’t-“
“No,” Santana agrees, biting down and pulling free to stare into Quinn’s eyes. “But isn’t that the fun part?”
Her exhaustion drains away the second lips crash violently against hers. Santana’s hands seem to be roaming everywhere at once, and by the time one of those hands slips under Quinn’s spanks, she has come to a decision.
Liking Santana Lopez, even a little bit, might be the worst decision she has ever made. Ever.
Fingers curl expertly; something in Quinn’s belly stretches taut and threatens to snap. She groans, head falling forward onto Santana’s shoulder. The Latina smiles evilly, hot breath wafting across Quinn’s skin, pumping in time to the unsteady tide of their semi-destructive relationship. Quinn gasps, eyes closing in desperate self-loathing as she tries to rationalize what is happening.
She doesn’t come up with much. Only that she wishes to God she didn’t like Santana-but it’s not as if the girl hasn’t exactly given her another choice.
She does like Santana--far more than she likes, way beyond the mark of too much. And as much as she can't stand it, as her body shudders and her mouth seeks out the other girl's, she realizes she just can't remember how to stop.
3
Quinn Fabray...doesn’t understand Santana Lopez.
She’s tried. God knows she has. It’s been a battle over a decade in the making, and still, she has to admit (silently, so as to avoid finding herself on the end of the classic smug smirk yet again) defeat where the Latina is concerned.
Nineteen years old, and she still can’t make heads or tails of that girl to save her life.
Sometimes, Santana is just as brutal as she was at ten-cleaner, less inclined to ripped jeans (save for the expensive, specifically tailored variety), but still the same caustic, vibrant personality Quinn first tumbled into loathing over. Other times, Santana reminds her of high school in all its torrid, unpredictable glory. She can be horrifying and blistering one moment, all curse words and derogatory insults, only to segue shockingly into a bout of uncharacteristic tenderness before rocketing right back to sarcasm and lewd gestures.
And sometimes, she is…calm.
Calm is not a word Quinn would ever have appropriated to Santana Lopez before college, before moving into this apartment with the other girl, but it can be pretty apt. Like now.
Quinn herself is seated at their meager kitchen table, knees drawn up to steady her sketchbook as she scratches light lines into the paper. Her eyes are fixed upon Santana, curled upon the nearby couch with a book pressed to her nose. Dark-rimmed glasses jab into caramel skin, black hair skirting into serious eyes as the Latina tilts her head sideways into the cushion. She is, on days like this, the perfect model: quiet, still, apathetic to the notion of being watched.
Theirs is a curious sort of relationship, one Quinn sometimes has more difficulty comprehending than where Santana alone is concerned. They are not together, nor are they apart. They’ve each got their own thing going here in Boston, and half the time, they only cross paths at all because they happen to be sharing rent. Santana has proven to be more of a night owl, now that she has no siblings or Coach to appease, while Quinn thrives in daylight. They can go whole days at a time without even seeing one another, save for the brief crossings of bathroom usage or coffee cravings, and both of them are comfortable with that. Which, in its own right, is not something Quinn has ever expected to live, having grown up in a household that revolved solely around constraining timetables and guarded questions about whereabouts.
She kind of likes it.
They do still sleep together, as they have been doing since high school, but it isn’t what anyone would call monogamous, and Quinn is startled by how that strikes her as normal. She knows Santana’s got her own situation going elsewhere (not so much on the side, even, since their thing isn’t exactly seated in the middle of the table), mostly involving a blonde dancer called Brittany. Quinn has met her a number of times, and likes her pretty well, although she has to admit the young woman is a good deal less intellectual than she usually prefers.
Of course, Quinn’s got someone too-a petite brunette with an enormous wealth of talent (and, if she’s honest, a vast ego to match) from her singular theater class freshman year. Quinn needed all of three days to realize how much she hates set design and monologuing, but she thinks it was kind of worth it to meet Rachel Berry. They aren’t dating either, exactly, but Rachel spends a lot of time over when Santana’s not around. Sometimes, Quinn thinks they’re on the precipice of something. That kind of alarms her.
She’s run that past Santana a bare handful of times, always earning a snort and an eyeroll in response. The first time, it pissed her off so badly, she almost rushed out of the apartment, but Santana’s got this thing about anger-sex…
The things that girl has introduced her to, Quinn thinks with a rueful shake of her head, would make her parents combust on the spot if they knew.
Despite all of this-the sex, and the living together, and the more-than-occasional nights spent cuddled in a singular bed-they are not together, not exclusive, not concrete. But, Quinn has long decided, this does not make them any less real. They get each other, in some horrible, violent, excruciatingly-obnoxious kind of way-and, really, isn't that Santana in a nutshell?
Usually, yes, but not now. Moments like these are all that make sense to Quinn, which in turn serves to confuse her further, because being with someone shouldn’t be so baffling.
She thinks.
Then again, she doesn’t have the greatest role models to play off of.
“What?” the Latina’s voice cuts into her thoughts, raspy from several hours of non-use. Quinn arches an eyebrow, scraping in the outline of the other girl’s jaw.
“Nothing.”
Santana makes a grand show of sighing, but otherwise remains still out of casual deference to Quinn’s work. “It’s never nothing with you, Princess. You’re doing the creepy Jack Bauer stare again.”
‘The creepy Jack Bauer stare’ is Santana’s peculiar brand of affection, marking when she’s particularly concerned, Quinn thinks. Either that, or she’s just unnaturally irritated by Kiefer Sutherland and his fucked-up ears.
“I am not,” Quinn mutters with as much grace as she can muster, shading in a few strands of hair until the shape on the page blatantly resembles the other girl’s bone structure. She likes this, these moments of serenity with her sketchbook and-whatever Santana is. They’re strange, and irresolute, and they make her feel more alive than a lifetime of church hymns and Chastity Balls.
They sit in silence for long moments, Quinn working diligently while Santana watches. The less-than-neat bow of their lives sits haphazardly upon its cautiously-wrapped package, and Quinn thinks it’s good that they never try to peel it open, force it into definition. This is what they do best. They do not discuss, they do not pressure. They simply are, and it is disturbingly beautiful.
Whatever it happens to be.
Half an hour later, the sketch is as complete as it will ever be, and Santana is stretching, standing, padding over with bare feet and a low-watt smirk. She leans against Quinn’s back, peers down, makes a soft scoffing noise.
“That’s me, huh?”
The first time she did this, Quinn thought she might die from the overwhelming sense of criticism, but she’s learned since then. This is Santana’s awe, though she works overtime not to show it, and Quinn appreciates her for that. For caring, genuinely, about the things that matter to Quinn, and for brashly slapping her on the shoulder and wandering away before things get too sappy. Santana Lopez has never been predictable, but her routine isn’t entirely rooted in left field.
“It’s not bad,” the girl adds, her voice low against Quinn’s ear. It’s as much as Santana is ever willing to give, and, despite the near-monosyllabic nature of the compliment, Quinn’s heart soars. She taps the eraser gently against the page, shrugging.
“It’s practice.”
“Good,” is all Santana says, reaching around and flipping the cover down over the drawing. Carefully, she sets the book aside and pulls Quinn from the chair, wrapping strong arms around the blonde’s waist. “Does this mean we can…”
She wriggles her eyebrows and grins teasingly, an expression Quinn can’t help but kiss off her smug face.
"You never think of anything else, do you?"
Something like indignation briefly crosses the darker woman's face. "I'm insulted, Q. You know me better than that."
Quinn tilts her head, smiling wryly until Santana's hands tighten at the small of her back, cheeks flushed with laughter.
"Oh, come on. When do you not want this?"
She gives a crude pelvic thrust, nudging her nose against Quinn's until the frames of her glasses bump into pale skin, grinning when Quinn pushes her playfully away.
This is the sort of thing that makes them them, the sort of thing that doesn't happen with the Brittanys and the Rachels. They don't love each other in the traditional sense, but nor can they survive without one another to fall back on. It's surprising, and confounding, and sometimes downright maddening, but somehow, somewhere along the line, the unthinkable happened. Santana Lopez became the best friend Quinn Fabray has ever and will ever have. It's the sort of event one tends to rail against, the sort of thing no parent ever wishes for their child, and yet Quinn wouldn't undo it for all the sane friends in the world.
She doesn't get her, and she doesn't want to. Santana Lopez is completely fucking crazy sometimes, all threats and shots of whiskey, but she is also strangely sweet, and protective beyond measure, and a hellcat in the sack. Quinn cannot say she loves her in that black-and-white, Disney-romance traditional sense, it's true; Santana will never be her Aladdin, or her Prince Charming, or even her Beast.
But somehow, in her own bizarre way, Santana is hers, regardless of whatever else sits between them on a given day. It may not make even one shred of sense, but it's the truest thing she knows.
Quinn Fabray needs Santana Lopez. And she's pretty sure Santana needs her right back.
That really isn't so bad.