Fic: No Wise Words Gonna Stop the Bleeding [Part Three]
Title: No Wise Words Gonna Stop the Bleeding [Part Three]
Rating: NC-17
Words: little over 8k
Notes in Part One
Chapter Note: Sorry this is so late. It should have been up about a week ago but life got in the way of editing/posting. Things should move faster from here on out.
Part One | Part Two
--
“So Brittany’s back,” Rachel says, as they walk up the street towards Santana’s apartment.
Santana had shocked Quinn by calling earlier that evening to invite them over to dinner. To invite them over to dinner with Santana and Brittany. Quinn’s having trouble wrapping her brain around the whole thing.
“Yes,” Quinn answers, readjusting the six packs in her hand and tangling her fingers with Rachel’s.
“And she’s staying in Santana’s apartment,” the brunette continues.
Quinn nods, turning them towards the glass doors of the building entrance. “Yup.”
“Brittany’s back,” Rachel repeats.
“Rach,” Quinn interrupts with a chuckle as they make their way to the elevator. “You need to process this before we get there.”
Rachel looks up at her. “Have you processed it?”
“Processed what?” Quinn asks, letting go of Rachel’s hand to punch the button for Santana’s floor.
“ Brittany’s back,” Rachel emphasizes. “She’s going to be in that apartment when we get there.”
“Yeah,” Quinn says, leaning against the back of the elevator. “I know.”
“Your best friend,” Rachel clarifies. “That you haven’t seen in six months. You’re about to see her.”
That’s about when Quinn realizes she hasn’t really processed what was going on, that when Santana answers the door, Brittany would be there, something she hadn’t experienced in six months. She’s going to see her friend again, their Unholy Trinity will once again be complete and she can feel her eyes widening as shock bleeds through her.
Rachel laughs as the doors ding open. “There it is.”
They step out and Rachel pauses, turns and halts Quinn with a hand on her arm.
“Okay,” the shorter girl says. “You have sixty seconds to deal with this, then we need to reboot and knock on that door.” She points towards a door at the end of the hallway, the one that used to be Santana and Brittany’s then became just Santana’s and now apparently is back to its former self. Sort of.
She lets her gaze linger on the numbers by the door as she tries to imagine what will greet her inside.
“Okay, time’s up,” Rachel chimes, pulling Quinn by the hand towards the door. She stumbles forward with the tug before recovering and walking forward, glaring at Rachel when she starts laughing.
“It’ll be fine,” the brunette says, her fingers warm between Quinn’s as she reaches forward and knocks on the door.
Quinn swallows and opens her mouth to speak but the door opens before she can get any words out, revealing Santana on the other side, staring at her with wide eyes, a similar expression of fear and awe that Quinn imagines is on her face too.
Rachel lets go of Quinn and bypasses Santana, kneeling down to greet the small cocker spaniel that Quinn hasn’t seen in months, Nemo, who’s come to greet them too.
It’s probably comical - the way Quinn and Santana sort of stare at each other for a second in fear - but Quinn’s too busy trying to murder all the stupid butterflies in her stomach to appreciate the humor. She steps forward and wraps her arm around Santana’s shoulder, pulling her in for a quick hug.
“Where is she?” Her voice is soft and full of wonder that she can’t stamp down.
“Kitchen,” Santana replies.
There’s a loud scramble and the two of them turn towards the kitchen, the sounds of Brittany and Rachel greeting each other with high-pitched exclamations reaching their ears.
Quinn rolls her eyes and hands the beer to a chuckling Santana. Her throat feels dry as she walks into the kitchen and sees her wife and one of her oldest friends embracing in jubilation, Nemo jumping up on his hind legs around them and barking.
Honestly, Quinn can’t decide if she wants to laugh or cry.
Brittany notices her and all motion stops, halts for a second, and Quinn is hyperaware of the way Brittany is staring at her, the way Rachel is smiling at her and the way Santana can’t seem to stop looking at Brittany, her expression halfway between affectionate and terrified.
“Quinn,” Brittany breathes, like she can’t believe Quinn’s here.
“Hey, Britt,” she manages to say. “Long time.”
She thinks maybe Rachel chuckles a little under her breath but Brittany strides the few feet towards her and wraps her long arms around Quinn’s neck.
“Yeah,” Brittany agrees, hugging her tightly before letting go.
It’s weird. Really, really weird. Quinn looks to Santana thanks to a lack of anywhere better to stare and they all sort of just stand there. The four of them reunited. The moment feels fleeting and nostalgic and Quinn’s back to that strange place between laughter and tears.
She sees Santana shift uncomfortably before Brittany’s voice cuts through the silence offering them drinks.
Quinn points to the beer Santana had set on the counter barely getting the words, “We brought beer,” out of her mouth before Santana is grabbing a bottle, twisting the cap off and taking a long pull.
Seriously, Quinn’s probably going to need therapy after all this because now Brittany’s admonishing Santana for being rude like they’re still together, like they’re still this one unit that wasn’t ever broken apart. All the awkwardness from before gets washed away and the familiarity of the moment is surprisingly much harder to handle.
Then again, Quinn really shouldn’t be surprised. Brittany was always like that. She didn’t let things get weird; she just cut through all that strangeness like it was nothing.
Santana looks like she’s about to bite Brittany’s head off for chastising her, but the doorbell rings before anything can happen and Brittany bounces off the get their food.
Her friend looks happy, carefree, almost exactly like the old Brittany and it doesn’t even look forced. It’s like she just showed up into her old apartment, her old life and it still fit the same, she just walked in and went back in time.
“She looks good,” Quinn comments absently, grabbing a beer.
Rachel walks up and slides her arm around Quinn’s waist, her head resting for just a moment on Quinn’s shoulder. “Yeah,” she agrees.
Quinn spares a look at Santana and sees the silent contemplation on her face as she takes a long pull of her beer.
--
“I like Santana and Brittany,” Rachel commented as they rode the subway. They were standing near the door, Quinn holding onto a pole overhead and Rachel holding onto Quinn.
They had just left the aforementioned women after a relatively pleasant dinner where, thankfully, Santana was only half the bitch Quinn expected her to be and Brittany was, as always, a delight to be around.
“Yeah?” It felt really juvenile, but harmony between her girlfriend and her two best friends was kind of important to her and while she wasn’t sure if it was a deal breaker, it would definitely be an obstacle to overcome. She really liked Rachel. Like, really liked her and a roadblock this early would put a real damper on her feelings.
“Yeah, they’re really cute together,” she continued, an adorable crinkle to her nose.
“If by cute you mean absolutely sickening to be around, then yes, I totally agree with you,” Quinn answered, gripping the pole above her head tightly as the train zipped through the tunnels.
“They are not,” Rachel retorted, the hands on Quinn’s hips tightening as she swayed with the movement of the train.
“You haven’t been around them for nearly two decades,” Quinn argued, sliding closer to her girlfriend.
“They love each other a lot,” Rachel said. “You can tell.”
Quinn laughed. “Yeah,” she admitted. If there was one ultimate truth in this world it was that Santana and Brittany were pretty much gone on each other. “They’re pretty obvious about it.”
“It’s really romantic,” Rachel gushed. “High school sweethearts, moving to the big city together, all that jazz.”
“Yeah,” Quinn said dryly. “They’re a real fairytale.”
“Quinn,” Rachel chastised exasperatedly.
“Trust me,” Quinn explained. “When you’ve been around them for your entire life, their constant gushing over each other gets old.”
It was Rachel’s turn to laugh at her. “You’d miss it if were gone.”
“It will never be gone,” Quinn said. “I’m pretty much burdened with them for eternity.”
“You love them,” Rachel replied knowingly and Quinn tried to figure out how the hell a girl she had only known for a few months knew her so well already. It sent a warm feeling over her skin and she smiled without meaning to.
“They’re my best friends,” Quinn answered. “It’s my job to be constantly annoyed with them while loving them at the same time.”
Rachel fisted her hands in Quinn’s coat near her hips. “They love you a lot too,” the other girl replied.
Quinn rolled her eyes and leaned closer to Rachel, nearly pressing her up against the train doors. “Why are we talking about Santana and Brittany?”
Rachel tugged at the sides of Quinn’s coat and smiled up at her. “What do you want to talk about instead?”
The train turned abruptly and Quinn bumped into Rachel gently, their faces inches apart. “You want to come over to my place for dessert?” Quinn asked, her lips brushing over Rachel’s lightly.
Her girlfriend swallowed and bit her lip in a way that was entirely appealing. Quinn glanced around the train car quickly to see if anyone was watching them but most of the late night riders had their noses buried in books or their faces pressed to the windows.
Quinn turned her attention back to Rachel who was looking over her shoulder at a subway map of the stations. When she looked back at Quinn she smiled before pressing their lips together.
“My place is closer,” Rachel whispered.
--
Dinner flies by and Quinn only half pays attention to the conversation, struck dumb by the sight of her two friends sitting side by side at their old kitchen table. She has to stop herself from staring outright, but it’s just so strange to see again, to see Santana and look to her right and see Brittany. Like she never left.
It gets to the point where Quinn decides she needs to leave. Now. With the way Santana is acting and the way staring at Brittany is making her feel she kind of needs to get out of the apartment despite half of her feeling like she never wants to leave its comfort.
“Well,” she says, throwing back the rest of her drink and standing. “I’ve got a huge trial to prep for tomorrow so we should get going.”
Rachel takes the hand she offers her as they stand and she absently listens to Rachel and Santana exchange barbs in their caustically affectionate way. They both distractedly kiss Santana goodbye on the cheek and do the same to Brittany.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Quinn says to her friend, looking her in the eye and meaning it.
It’s dumb to say because really, at the end of the day, Brittany being back in the apartment temporarily doesn’t exactly mean she’s back. Santana is about the most insufferably stubborn person on the planet and way too prideful to actually get her shit together and take the chance she wasn’t afforded six months ago.
Brittany will probably be gone again, out into the city and into her other life and Quinn will be left to lick Santana’s wounds once again - a bottle of scotch and a well-worn bar stool as medicine.
She tries not to think about it as they leave. She lets herself pretend like this is all normal, like their lives don’t have this giant Brittany-sized hole in it as she intertwines her fingers with Rachel’s and walks out of their apartment and to the elevators.
Quinn lets her head hit the back of the elevator wall as they descend and watches the numbers tick down on the display.
“Santana’s still in love with her,” Rachel comments, snuggling into Quinn’s side and tugging on her hand.
“Duh,” Quinn says, her eyes not moving.
“Brittany’s still in love with her too,” the other girl continues.
That is probably the worst part of it all. “This sucks,” Quinn admits, finally looking down at her wife. “I feel like nothing good can come of this.”
The doors ding open and Rachel pulls her out into the lobby. “You need to stop seeing the worst in everything, Quinn.”
It’s dark, but blissfully not raining as they step outside and turn to the subway station. “I don’t see any other way to see this.”
Rachel worries her bottom lip between her teeth and brings her other hand over to grip Quinn’s arm. “Brittany’s back.”
“For now,” Quinn says.
They step down into the underground station and Quinn pulls Rachel closer to her side. “You always told me that Brittany and Santana are Brittany and Santana and that was that. That of all the things you believed in that one was a no-brainer.”
The station is mostly empty as they step to the yellow line and wait for the train. Quinn glances around before answering. “Well that was before it all went to hell.”
“Quinn,” Rachel says, pulling at her arm and forcing her to look at her wife. “They had a little bump in the road, they’ll get over it.”
“Six months is not a bump, Rachel,” Quinn hisses actually getting kind of angry now. “It’s a goddamn mountain and they can’t just get over it.”
It’s kind of strange but when Santana and Brittany broke up it was like Quinn lost faith in something really special. It took her a long time to reconcile it all. Santana and Brittany were her rocks - pillars in her life that were supposed to be around forever. She spent her whole life believing in that. Her entire life.
So many people had disappointed her over the years, so many people that weren’t supposed to, but she never lost faith in Santana and Brittany, never thought twice about whether they’d be around or not. When that all fell to shit it broke something fundamental in Quinn and she’s afraid to trust or hope in it again.
“Quinn,” Rachel says again, the sound of an incoming train forcing her to raise her voice.
“Fucking drop it, Rachel,” Quinn orders.
Rachel’s expression darkens. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
The train pulls up and Rachel lets go of her arm and hand to walk onto the train, anger evident in the way she practically stomps onto the car and finds an open seat.
Quinn exhales loudly and pinches the bridge of her nose as she gets on after her and drops into the seat next to her, sliding her arm over the top and turning to face Rachel.
“Baby, don’t be mad,” Quinn pleads softly, letting her fingers play with a piece of Rachel’s hair.
“Don’t ‘baby’ me, Quinn,” Rachel retorts, turning to look at her.
Quinn rolls her eyes, but admits defeat before this argument escalates. “I’m sorry, Rach,” she says. “I’m just off balance about the whole thing.”
Rachel turns in the seat and they’re practically curled up together at this point, Rachel’s knees bumping into hers and her hands coming to play with the lapels of Quinn’s jacket.
“It’s going to be okay,” Rachel whispers.
Quinn gulps. “I hope you’re right.”
“Just believe in it. This could be a really good thing.”
There’s a light in Rachel’s eyes that Quinn desperately wants to dive into. Her heart tightens and she lets out a low breath. She gives up a little part of her, lets a small corner of her brain believe in the hope Rachel’s trying to channel into her and feels a small smile grace her lips.
Rachel’s biting her lip and staring at her and Quinn latches on to the one thing that’s actually stable in her life, the only thing left that she actually does believe in unflinchingly.
“I love you, you know,” she comments, bringing up a finger to tuck hair behind Rachel’s ear.
“So I’ve heard,” Rachel jokes, smiling.
--
Quinn has been convinced since a young age that God hated her. It was pretty evident when she was younger and over the years little things have only served to confirm it.
Like now, and the fact that God has sent Santana Lopez to her door at some crazy hour of the night to drunkenly pound on it like a maniac pretty much proved her point.
Oh and yeah. There’s the part where easily seven times out of ten that Santana showed up, Rachel would have her hand down Quinn pants.
Thus the whole God hated her theory.
And then, because it was probably the seventeen billionth (or maybe, like, the second) time this had happened that week, Rachel started laughing. Uncontrollably.
“It’s not funny,” Quinn groaned. “She’s trying to kill me. It’s like she knows.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Rachel replied with mirth. “That’s my territory.”
The pounding continued and Quinn smacked her head back against the wall of their kitchen. Rachel stood in front of her, her forehead on Quinn’s collarbone and her hand between them.
“You gotta move your hand,” Quinn croaked.
Rachel did. Just in the opposite direction Quinn meant for her to.
“Rachel,” Quinn warned. The pounding grew more frantic and Quinn could hear a muffled, “Fabray!”
“You said move my hand,” Rachel replied innocently.
Quinn glowered down at the brunette and tried to even out her breath. “She’ll break down that door and you know it.”
Laughing, Rachel rolled her eyes, but pulled her hand away and stepped back. She bit her lip and smirked when Quinn practically stumbled forward.
“You are in so much trouble later,” Quinn intoned, making her way towards their front door.
“You could just ignore her, you know,” Rachel said. “Maybe then she’d stop showing up at all odd hours of the night.”
“She’s my best friend,” Quinn said as she rearranged her clothes. “I can’t just ignore her.”
“That’s not why you won’t ignore her.”
Quinn’s head snapped up and her eyes narrowed at her wife. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means the reason she thinks she can just waltz in here all the time,” Rachel answered, hands on her hips. “Is that you have some screwed-up guilt complex that renders you incapable of saying no to her.”
“She’s my best friend,” Quinn repeated. “We have a responsibility to each other. What am I supposed to do? Turn her back out onto the streets when she’s wasted?”
“She’s never going to learn,” Rachel started.
“I don’t want to have this conversation with you,” Quinn interrupted, holding up her hand and pinching the bridge of her nose at the loud noise still coming from their front door. Santana was always persistent.
“Well you should have it with someone,” Rachel replied. “Because Santana’s not getting any better.”
“It’s only been two months,” Quinn argued. “Cut her some slack.”
“And how long is it going to take you to get over it?” Rachel asked, chin lifting.
“It’s only been two months!” Quinn exclaimed again, her voice rising.
“It’s been years, Quinn. Someday you have to stop holding yourself responsible for Santana’s demons.”
They fell silent and stared at each other before Rachel broke first and turned on her heel to stride out of the kitchen.
“I’ll be upstairs,” Rachel threw back at her. “Don’t take too long.”
Quinn waved her off and shook her head, wincing at the constant knocking and yelling she could hear. It was probably waking up the entire damn city at this point.
Because this wasn’t the first time this had happened and Quinn could practically picture the way Santana was all leaned up against the door, glaring and knocking on its surface, Quinn decided to amuse herself. Like usual.
The locks slid out of place and she grabbed the handle, pulling hard and whipping the door open fast.
Santana nearly fell face first into the entryway, failing to do so only because it wasn’t the first time for Santana either and she grabbed Quinn’s shoulders as she flew in.
“Bitch,” Santana mumbled as she straightened and headed for the living room.
“You know what time it is, right?”
“Fuck, I have a watch don’t I?” Santana exclaimed, holding up her wrist and waving it in Quinn’s face as she walked backwards.
Then Santana stopped abruptly, her arm still raised and her eyes wide as she looked Quinn up and down before laughing hysterically.
Quinn rolled her eyes and started to walk towards the living room, heading for the cabinet with the extra pillow and blankets. “What is so funny?”
“I totally cockblocked you, didn’t I?” Santana gasped out. She plopped down on the couch as Quinn set down the extra bedding next to her.
She looked down at her friend and propped her hands on her hips. “That term is both inaccurate and inappropriate.”
Santana gave her a disgusted look. “You’re turning into your little dwarf.”
Quinn let out an annoyed breath but before she could continue Santana burst out into laughter again.
“But I totally did cockblock you.”
“Whatever,” Quinn replied with another eye roll.
Santana hummed and swayed back and forth, her eyes shiny and her face flushed. It would have been amusing but all Quinn could feel was sadness.
“Just how drunk are you right now?”
Her friend held up her hand and squinted her eyes before pushing her thumb and index finger together until they were almost touching.
“I’m awesome,” Santana answered, her gaze intently focused on her own fingers.
With a shake of her head Santana snapped out of it and reached into the inside pocket of her trench coat, pulling a small bottle out from inside and twisting the cap off.
“Don’t puke on the couch,” Quinn warned. She watched Santana sag further into the couch and tip the open bottle against her lips.
“I can handle myself,” Santana said, putting the cap back on the bottle and reaching around Quinn to set it on the coffee table.
Quinn tapped her foot and looked towards the kitchen. Her mini-argument with Rachel made her anxious, but she felt an equally strong pull to the girl on the couch, a need to make sure she was okay that Quinn couldn’t suppress.
“Do you need anything?” Quinn asked, looking back at Santana.
The other girl seemed to contemplate the question for a long, silent minute. Her eyes widened and she stared unsteadily at Quinn’s face. “I don’t know,” Santana answered, the words coming out in a whisper.
Quinn arched an eyebrow and didn’t really know how to respond to that. She chalked it up to the whiskey and cheap beer and the muted scent of menthol cigarettes that was emanating from every pore of Santana’s body. Quinn let out a low breath.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “You know where everything is.”
She turned to walk away, but stopped almost immediately at the low, tortured sigh that escaped Santana’s lips followed by an almost inaudible, “I miss Brittany.”
Pain shot through her at the sound and the uncharacteristic vulnerability she could hear in Santana’s voice. She closed her eyes against the feeling and the tears that immediately sprang up and tried to get herself to breathe steadily.
Turning around, she walked back to the couch and sat down next to her friend silently.
“I know,” Quinn gulped after a long minute of just sitting there. Looking straight ahead, she forced the truth out. “Me too.”
Santana drooped drunkenly to her side, her head hitting Quinn’s shoulder and staying there.
They didn’t say anything else, just sat there together with memories and guilt swirling around them. It wasn’t until hours later when Rachel gently moved Santana off of her and pulled Quinn off the couch that she realized they had fallen asleep like that.
--
A loud pounding shocks Quinn out of sleep and after nearly three decades of knowing Santana Lopez, she recognizes the sound almost immediately.
She lifts her head off of Rachel’s shoulder and checks the time on the clock near the bed. Three in the goddamn morning, of course. Santana always has awesome timing. The one night she actually gets to sleep before two and Santana shows up. Someone upstairs legitimately hates her.
Rachel mumbles in protest against either the loud sound thumping that’s resounding through their house or Quinn getting out of bed. She’s not sure, but she presses a quick kiss to her wife’s temple before she shuffles out of the room.
She tries to put her hair into some kind of order but it doesn’t really obey and stays tangled and messy where it’s piled on top of her head. She plasters on a glare and swings her door open to reveal her best friend, smiling like a complete ass on her doorstep.
“Morning,” Santana greets.
“Do you have any concept of time?”
Santana takes a look at her watch and Quinn rolls her eyes. “Yes,” her friend says. “It’s three in the morning. Is this a test?”
A shuffling of feet behind her signals Rachel’s woken up and come to see what the ruckus is about it and it kind of ticks Quinn off because it’s one thing if Quinn fails to get a good night’s sleep, but thanks to Quinn’s rampant sense of protectiveness, there’s an irrational need in her to make sure Rachel gets one.
“It’s just Santana. Go back to bed, Rach,” she orders, but Rachel disobeys, like she usually does, and makes her way to Quinn’s side, leaning against her sleepily and squinting at Santana.
When Rachel asks what’s wrong and Quinn feels a swell of affection for the way Rachel cares about her friends, Santana responds in full bitch mode. Quinn’s torn between knocking Santana out and hugging her because when Santana is this nasty it usually means something’s really troubling her.
She calms Rachel down and sends her back to bed with a long kiss and a promise to come up soon before turning back to her friend.
“What’s wrong?” Quinn asks.
“I just can’t be in my apartment right now,” Santana answers and Quinn’s eyes go wide with the honesty in the statement. She had expected Santana to shrug the question off, to dance around her feelings for a while, but instead all she sees is her best friend, soaking wet and looking more lost than ever.
She lets her in and follows her to the living room, surprised when Santana refuses the drink she offers her. Santana has two reactions to pain: punching people or getting drunk. If she’s beyond those two remedies Quinn’s kind of out of her element on how to help her.
“You wanna talk about it or something?”
Santana stutters around refusal and keeps looking at the ground looking so un-Santana like that Quinn feels her chest tighten painfully.
Quinn thinks about how it felt to see Brittany back in Santana’s apartment, how it felt to have her around again even for just those brief hours they were together and she tries to imagine how it’s all affecting Santana. To have her back all the time, in her apartment, acting like nothing bad ever happened and Quinn’s heart breaks all over again.
“You know where everything is,” she tells her friend. “Just yell if you need something.”
Santana gives her a small, unsure smile. “Thanks, Q.”
“Anytime, girl,” Quinn replies, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Santana’s neck. She squeezes her in tight, tries to convey all the empathy she possibly can in the hug. “It’s going to be okay.”
Surprisingly, and really it’s more telling than anything else, Santana sags into Quinn’s body, burying her face in Quinn’s neck and wrapping her arms around her back. They stand there in silence for a moment, clinging to each other and Quinn forces herself to be strong for her friend, to let her know that if Santana needs to fall, Quinn’s right there to catch her, even if she’s falling herself.
“Thanks,” Santana says again, her voice hoarse and rough.
She smiles, pulls away and squeezes Santana’s shoulder before turning to walk away.
--
Rachel is sitting up in bed when she gets there, the TV on as she distractedly channel surfs.
“You should be asleep,” Quinn says, pulling off her shirt and sliding between the sheets.
“I wanted to make sure Santana was alright,” Rachel replies, dropping the remote on the bedside table and sliding down next to Quinn.
The TV is stopped on some news channel and the anchor drones on about the state of partisan politics in the country as Rachel cozies up to her side. Quinn listens with one ear as she tries not to think about her friend on the couch downstairs.
“Is she okay?” Rachel asks after Quinn stays silent.
Quinn laughs bitterly. “Do you think she’s okay?”
“Quinn,” Rachel warns, shifting on top of her to settle between the blonde’s thighs, her hands propped up on either side of Quinn’s face. Rachel’s face replaces the sight of the television in Quinn’s line of view and she sighs.
“Sorry,” she breathes.
Rachel purses her lips as she looks down at her and shakes her head. “Maybe you should go back down there and talk to her. You both need to talk about this. It’s eating away at you.”
“I don’t need to talk,” Quinn argues, her hands sliding up Rachel’s sides. “Santana and I don’t do that.”
“You talk all the time,” Rachel disagrees, arching an eyebrow.
“Not about this.”
The t-shirt Rachel’s wearing slides up as Quinn’s hands travel further along her body and Rachel puts on her I am not amused with you expression.
“You can’t distract me every time you don’t want to have a conversation,” Rachel says.
Quinn’s runs her palms up Rachel’s bare back until they settle over the clasp of her bra, plucking at it absently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the one that decided to lie on top of me.”
“We’re not having sex,” Rachel states.
“Yeah,” Quinn agrees. “I noticed.”
“Quinn,” Rachel warns and Quinn spends a moment to wonder how her name somehow became a catchall phrase for Rachel to use.
The bed creaks as Quinn pumps her hips up and over and rolls them so Rachel is on her back, Quinn sliding down to settle a thigh between her legs.
Hands grasp onto Quinn’s cheeks and hold her steady before she can bring her lips down to trail across Rachel’s neck.
“Rach,” Quinn whines.
“You need to deal with this,” Rachel says.
Quinn deflates, dropping forward and rolling off her wife to her back. She lets her eyes settle on the glow of the TV again and watches as the channel flashes pictures of various politicians on the screen.
“If you’re not going to talk to Santana, you can talk to me,” Rachel says gently, propping herself up on an elbow.
“I know,” Quinn breathes. Her eyes move from the television to their ceiling as her jaw clenches. “I just feel like everything is irreparably fucked. What’s talking about it going to do? It’s not going to fix anything.”
“It’s not your responsibility to fix Santana,” Rachel replies, reaching over to the bedside table to grab the remote. “I don’t know how many times I need to say that before you finally get it.”
The television clicks off as Quinn sits up in bed and swings her legs over the side, putting her back to Rachel. “I’m her best friend.”
The sheets move around as Rachel scoots up behind her, smooth legs bracketing her hips. A warm kiss is pressed to her shoulder as Rachel smoothes her palms over Quinn’s stomach, slightly soothing the twisting sensation that’s running wild there.
“The only person that can fix Santana right now is Brittany,” she whispers into the skin of Quinn’s back.
Quinn breathes, closes her eyes and leans back against Rachel. “I know.”
“This is about more than just Santana and Brittany.”
Her jaw clenches and her nails bite into her palms but she doesn’t deny it. “I know,” she repeats.
“You need to stop feeling guilty, Quinn,” Rachel starts but Quinn whips her head to the side and silences her; she doesn’t feel up to hearing a lecture she had already heard a hundred times.
“I can’t just turn that off,” she snaps. “No matter how many times you tell me to.”
A soft, patient breath escapes her wife. “Let’s go to sleep, baby.”
Quinn lets herself be tugged backwards and under the sheets and Rachel stays pressed to her from behind.
It’s raining pretty hard outside. Quinn can hear it beat against their bedroom window as she presses her head into the pillow and Rachel traces her fingers over her abs.
She lies awake for a long while, the dark silence of the room and Rachel’s breathing against her neck comforting her in a small way. She traps Rachel’s hand against her stomach and tangles their fingers together, her palm feeling the hard cut of the diamond ring on Rachel’s fourth finger.
She smiles softly into her pillow and lets sleep overtake her.
--
The next day, Quinn is standing in the kitchen, dressed like she’s going into work and flipping through a thick paper on the kitchen counter.
Rachel walks in, still in shorts and a worn t-shirt and arches an eyebrow at Quinn’s outfit.
“Are you going into work today?”
Quinn shakes her head. “I just need to drop stuff off at the courthouse and go talk to Judge Sylvester.”
Rachel walks up to her and wraps her hand around the loose tie around Quinn’s neck. “That explains the look.”
Quinn shrugs and smiles. “What works, works,” she explains.
Her wife hums in agreement before tugging at the tie and bringing Quinn’s lips down to kiss her good morning. Quinn presses forward, wraps her arm around Rachel’s waist and deepens the kiss for a long moment.
“Thanks for last night,” Quinn whispers. “Sorry I was being a jerk.”
“You weren’t,” Rachel denies, glancing around all of a sudden. “Is Santana still sleeping?”
Quinn reaches across the counter and grabs a sheet of paper laying there. She hands it to Rachel, who lets go of Quinn’s tie to read it over.
“They got a break in Brittany’s case?”
Quinn nods. “Looks like it.”
“That’s great,” Rachel says brightly.
“Hopefully,” Quinn answers.
Rachel rolls her eyes and drops the paper back onto the counter. “You’re such a pessimist. It’s exhausting.”
“I am not!” Quinn denies. “It’s called being pragmatic.”
“Whatever you want to call it,” Rachel says, turning to walk out of the kitchen. “I’m going to shower,” she throws over her shoulder, lifting her shirt up by the hem and pulling it over her head.
Quinn blows out a breath at the sight and looks at her newspaper before looking back at her retreating wife. She looks at her watch and taps her foot up and down, trying to decide how soon she needs to leave.
Santana’s note is stark against their counter and she stares at it for a second before making up her mind. It’s a terrible coping mechanism, and of course it isn’t just a coping mechanism - but it helps. Rachel helps her forget all about that nastiness that normally swirls around her. It helps quell the demons that lurk around every corner and it gets the image of Santana’s devastated face out of her mind.
Rachel’s half undressed by the time she gets to the bedroom and she strides up behind her wife and wraps her arms around her from behind, palms sliding hotly against a bare stomach.
“You smell good,” she whispers into Rachel’s shoulder.
Rachel laughs, settling her hands over Quinn’s on her stomach. “I need a shower.”
“Nah,” Quinn denies, pressing kisses up Rachel’s neck and letting her fingers trace the waistband of Rachel’s shorts.
“Quinn,” Rachel warns. “Don’t you need to get going?”
“I am right where I need to be,” Quinn states, scraping her teeth on the underside of Rachel’s ear.
Rachel spins in her arms and grips her tie again, pulling it out of its knot and throwing it on the bed and starting in on the buttons of Quinn’s shirt.
Quinn grips Rachel’s hips and walks her backward to the bed, lifting her up and throwing her on top of the covers when they get there, her shirt completely unbuttoned and hanging open as she crawls on top of her.
She settles down, their bare stomachs pressing together as Rachel drags her palms over Rachel’s shoulders and pulls Quinn’s shirt off, throwing it over the side of the bed.
A gasp beats out of Rachel’s mouth as Quinn rocks down between her thighs and presses their lips together.
Rachel’s hands slide between them as Quinn lifts up and take purchase on the waistband of Quinn’s slacks before the blonde bats them away and moves down.
“Quinn, what are you-,”
Quinn cuts her off with a hand over her mouth and laughs at the narrowed eyes she gets in return.
“Can you shut up for two minutes?” Quinn jokes and Rachel’s eyes go wide as Quinn removes her hand.
“That’s rude,” Rachel huffs, but lifts her hips so Quinn can slide her shorts off, underwear and all and throws them somewhere near where they dropped Quinn’s shirt.
Quinn runs her lips up Rachel’s leg, pecking soft kisses up smooth skin and Rachel’s breath hitches attractively the higher she gets.
“Take your pants off,” Rachel orders, running her hands through blonde hair.
“No,” Quinn disobeys.
It’s hot; this power struggle between them, and Quinn won’t deny that she totally gets off on it. On the flush that covers Rachel’s body at the hint of a challenge and that glare Rachel wears the entire time.
Quinn fishes around in the sheets for the tie Rachel threw on the bed earlier and wraps her hand around the silk, pulling it towards her and moving up on the bed, her stomach pressed into hot flesh.
Rachel’s eyes widen even further before narrowing as she notices what Quinn’s holding.
“No, no way,” Rachel says. “Do you know how much that tie costs?”
“It’s my tie,” Quinn argues, pressing down between Rachel’s legs and leaning over so their faces are close together.
“I bought it for you,” Rachel retorts, jutting her chin out defiantly.
“Buy me another one,” Quinn says, ignoring the way Rachel glares at her as she grips both of her wife’s wrists and plants them above her head.
Rachel resists, like she always does, and pushes back against Quinn’s hands, arching her back and letting out a hot breath.
But Quinn’s just strong enough at the moment to keep Rachel in her hold as she wraps the silk tie around her wrists and tightens, twisting the other end around the rungs of their headboard.
“Just chill out,” Quinn orders when she’s done with her task.
Rachel squirms and Quinn smiles, arousal curling in her stomach and pooling between her thighs. She watches Rachel lift her hands up and test the bindings so Quinn clucks her tongue at her and shakes her head.
“You don’t want to ruin such a nice tie, do you?”
It makes Rachel drop down defeated but she can see the warning flash in her wife’s eyes, the warning that says Quinn’s in for it good when she gets out of this situation.
Quinn ignores the look and kisses her wife, enjoying the way Rachel’s lips taste and the feel of her tongue curling erotically in her mouth.
She could probably keep kissing Rachel forever and just forget the rest of the world, but her wife squirms again, pressing her hips upward against Quinn’s stomach and she breaks off from their kiss.
Trailing her lips down a long, slender neck, Quinn lets her hands trace down Rachel’s sides before sliding under smooth thighs and lifting up.
She runs her tongue down Rachel’s collarbone and down her chest, swirling around a pert nipple before biting down softly and smiling as Rachel arches off the bed sharply.
Quinn chuckles and Rachel practically growls at her. “Fabray,” her wife warns.
Her mouth slides over and down, teeth scraping over Rachel’s flat abs and traveling further down, pausing for a long, tender moment at her lower stomach.
Hazel eyes slide closed for a second and she breathes in, distracted for a second by the calming sensation she gets from the gesture, before Rachel cants her hips upward in a silent command to move.
Quinn obeys and slides even further, letting her hands hook under Rachel’s knees and pull them over her shoulders before dragging her tongue through wet folds, torturously slow.
It pulls a low groan out of Rachel and Quinn sees her head push back into the pillow and her hands pull against the tie.
“Don’t ruin my tie,” Quinn jokes, pulling away for a moment.
Rachel kicks her heel into Quinn’s back at that and picks her head up to glare at her. The look shoots straight to Quinn’s groin and makes her head swirl.
All of a sudden, the need to drag it out evaporates and all Quinn wants to do is rip a quick, searing orgasm out of her wife, to make her scream out and to put memories in Rachel’s brain that will linger all day long.
She ducks back down and drags her tongue up again, stopping at the top to wrap her lips around Rachel’s clit and suck hard.
It gets the desired result as Rachel’s thighs tighten around her head and her back arches up, pushing her hips towards Quinn’s mouth.
Her fingers dance down Rachel’s thigh until they’re joining her tongue, two of them pushing into heated flesh before pulling back out and thrusting in again.
Rachel thrashes and Quinn sucks harder, pushes in deeper and hums into her wife’s clit, enjoying the deep moan it produces.
Their rhythm is hot and frenzied and it doesn’t take long before she can feel Rachel’s thighs start to shake. She moves her free hand to splay across Rachel’s abs, holding her down. The skin under her palm is tight and coiled and Quinn thrusts in hard at the feeling, lets her tongue flick back and forth against sensitive flesh.
Rachel’s whole body tenses but it’s not enough for Quinn so she bites down softly and curls her fingers, twisting and thrusting until Rachel lets out a scream, Quinn’s name on the tail end of it, as her orgasm rushes through her and she tightens around Quinn’s fingers.
--
Quinn stumbled into her apartment only about half awake and back aching from the bag full of books slung across it. She rolled her head on her shoulders and dropped her bag onto the floor in the entryway, shuffling towards the kitchen. Coffee. She needed coffee. And food. Food would be good.
She had a final in about four hours and she didn’t trust herself to sleep. If she fell asleep now, she’d pass out for her entire final, fail her evidence exam, get kicked out of school, never become a lawyer and not have enough money to buy that diamond necklace she wanted to buy Rachel for their anniversary.
On top of that, her father had called earlier to give her his weekly speech about the importance of grades and Quinn’s life choices and whether or not she’d made up her mind about his job offer or not. The conversation, like all conversations with her father, left her irritable and stressed and she really needed to get her final over and done with so she could sleep for about six hundred hours.
She was running on autopilot, focused solely on her refrigerator and little else, so she didn’t notice that her kitchen lights were on and that there were clanking noises coming throughout the apartment.
Which is why when she stepped into her kitchen and saw Rachel standing at the counter, she nearly had a heart attack.
“Shit!”
Rachel gasped and spun towards her. “Quinn!”
“What the hell?”
It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy to see her girlfriend. She was really happy. It was just that she couldn’t figure out why Rachel was here and she was desperately running dates through her head trying to figure out if they had plans she had forgotten or if it was some holiday she hadn’t remembered. Law school had fried her brain, it wouldn’t have been the first time she had accidentally ditched Rachel.
“Hey,” Rachel said, calmer this time as she took the oven mitt she had on one hand off and threw it on the counter.
That was about the time the smells in the kitchen hit her and her stomach growled loudly. Rachel was cooking. Something delicious by the smell of it and Quinn hadn’t had real food in days. Hot Pockets and Red Bull had been her standard meal in the library. She didn’t have time for anything else.
Rachel walked towards her and Quinn finally let her brain register the sight of her girlfriend, dressed in this pair of short-shorts that Quinn absolutely loved on Rachel and Quinn’s favorite sweatshirt, her school’s logo big and bold on the front. There was a smudge of flour on Rachel’s cheek and her hair was swept up in a messy bun, strands falling all around her face.
She looked gorgeous and perfect and everything Quinn needed to see right now. All that exhaustion from staring at the tiny black words for hours upon hours rushed out of her.
“What are you doing here?” Quinn asked as Rachel stepped in front of her and gave her a quick kiss.
“Making you food,” Rachel answered simply, smiling.
“Making me food?”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “Brittany mentioned that she and Santana had barely seen you these past weeks and you were probably holed up in the library, starving yourself to good grades.”
Quinn nodded slowly and blinked. “So you came over here in the middle of the night to make me food.”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “After watching you go through this twice now, I knew Brittany was absolutely correct in her guess about what you were up to and I realized that the reason you keep showing up to our dates with bags under your eyes and your clothes wrinkled was because you’ve been living in the library.”
“So you made me food,” Quinn repeated, her eyes still wide.
Rachel laughed and the sound settled warmly in Quinn’s stomach. “Yeah,” she murmured, sliding her hands around Quinn’s waist. “You have a final in the morning, right? I figured you’d stop by here first.”
“How long have you been here?” Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel’s neck and pulled their bodies closer.
“Just a few hours,” Rachel answered. “I stopped at that all night grocery down the street and then convinced Hal to let me in.”
Hal was the doorman at Quinn’s building and he and Rachel were constantly locked in a battle of wills. Rachel had been on a campaign to get the older, gruff man to warm up to her while the other man continued to question her presence in Quinn’s apartment and sometimes refused to acknowledge he had seen her before.
Then her brain actually caught up to the conversation and she was able to put two and two together.
“How did you get here?” Quinn asked, pulling away slightly to look down at Rachel.
“I walked,” Rachel replied. “And took the subway. How else?”
“Rachel,” Quinn said darkly. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Rachel removed her arms and pulled away, walking over to the oven and opening it, grabbing her discarded oven mitt as she did it. “So?”
“So,” Quinn responded, watching as Rachel pulled a casserole dish out and set it on the counter. Quinn felt her mouth water at the sight. “You shouldn’t be out by yourself at this time of night.”
Rachel looked at her like she was absurd before walking over to the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of water. “You were,” she argued.
“That’s different.”
“How?” Rachel twisted the cap off the bottle and handed it to Quinn, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms as she observed her.
“It just is,” Quinn said, tipping the bottle against her lips and letting cool liquid slide down her throat.
“They do teach you how to argue in law school, right?” It was said amused and light and Rachel was smiling at her softly.
“Rachel,” Quinn intoned. “You shouldn’t be out this time of night. Especially in your neighborhood.”
“Quinn, I’ve lived in this city for nearly six years, I know what I’m doing.” Rachel pushed off the counter and went to the cabinet, pulling out plates and setting them down.
In her head, she understood what Rachel was saying, she knew she was sounding overly paranoid and protective and it was kind of ridiculous that she would imply Rachel couldn’t handle herself but she couldn’t help it.
She had just spent the whole night reading case after case about young, naïve women on dangerous city streets. About opportunistic killers and rapists that lurk around every corner. About undeserving people in terrible situations. Then Santana, night after night, telling her about whatever poor unsuspecting girl had gotten attacked, mugged, murdered that night.
She didn’t trust this city. Not at all.
“I know that,” she breathed, running a hand over her eyes.
“Come on, baby,” Rachel said, reaching for Quinn’s hand and walking them over to Quinn’s kitchen table. “Let’s eat before this gets cold.”
Quinn gave up. The food smelled really good and Rachel looked fantastic in Quinn’s clothes and she was tired and worried about so many things so she just stopped fighting. She let Rachel take care of her in ways few people ever had.
“Okay,” she said, taking a seat at the table. She set her bottle of water down and surveyed the food Rachel brought over. “Thanks, by the way.”
Rachel smiled and leaned down to kiss her. “You’re welcome,” she whispered before sitting down next to Quinn.
A stomach full of food later and only two hours until her final, Quinn sat on her living room couch, Rachel curled into her side and her evidence textbook open on her lap. The words all blended together at this point but she still made the effort, flipping the pages over and tracing her fingers across highlighted portions.
“You’ll do fine,” Rachel mumbled sleepily, fisting her hands into Quinn’s shirt and cuddling further into her side.
Quinn turned her head and pressed her lips to brown hair, inhaling deeply for a moment and just resting there.
“Thanks for being here,” she said for the fifteenth time that night.
“I love you,” Rachel said. “Where else would I be?”
Quinn chuckled. “I like coming home to you,” she admitted, her palms sweating where they clutched her book.
Rachel lifted her head up and looked at Quinn with sleepy eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Quinn let out. “I don’t ever want to not.”
It had been on her mind for weeks. Rachel practically lived at her place anyway and when she wasn’t there, Quinn was at Rachel’s. It made sense to make this semi-official if Quinn ever stopped being a chickenshit about it but she couldn’t seem to ever get the question out.
It wasn’t the right time anyway. School was crazy and life was crazy and she wanted to feel like she actually deserved it before she and Rachel started building a life together that tangibly. But she needed Rachel to understand the sentiment all the same, needed her to know that it was out there on the horizon.
“Yeah?” Rachel said, this time more awake and staring at Quinn with shiny, wide eyes.
“You still shouldn’t be out at this time of night. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and deflated. “Quinn,” she started.
All of sudden she got desperate out of nowhere. It was probably from being exhausted and nervous about her finals and the gruesome case she had open on her lap, but she couldn’t stop it.
“I couldn’t stand it,” she said fiercely, needing Rachel to understand.
Rachel’s head snapped to attention and they locked eyes, staring at each other for a long moment before Quinn shook her head and tried to get a hold of herself.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m really tired, and worried about my test and I keep thinking about all these terrible things and I just…”
“It’s okay,” Rachel said, running her hand through Quinn’s hair comfortingly. “It’s okay.”
“I’m really glad you’re here,” she finally said, leaning over to press a kiss to Rachel’s forehead.
“Me too,” Rachel murmured. “Me too.”
--
It’s just after noon when Quinn’s cell phone buzzes loudly in her pocket, nearly making her drop the extremely delicious hotdog she’s devouring for lunch.
She flips it open with one hand and manages to keep her lunch balanced in the other. “What?” she barks out.
“Meet me at Rick’s.” Is all Santana says before hanging up.
--
It takes her about thirty minutes to actually get across town and find her way to the bar and when she does she feels guilty for not getting there sooner.
Santana’s got her forehead on the table, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of scotch near her other. All signs that Santana Lopez is having an extremely bad day.
When the first thing Santana does when she arrives is curse her out, Quinn knows something is really wrong. Especially when she gets a look at the massive bruises all over her best friend’s face.
It takes her a second to put it all together but it finally clicks. Alcohol, nicotine, bar fights with Puck. Something happened with Brittany.
“You didn’t sleep with her or anything stupid like that, did you?” Quinn asks, leaning over to look at her friend.
Santana denies it but the truth is all over her face, the way her eyes glaze over at the memory and the choking sound she makes at the question.
But Santana has zero interest in talking about it and when Quinn questions her further her friend gives her an ultimatum. Shut the fuck up or get out.
Quinn takes a long drink of scotch and holds out her hand for a cigarette, happy when her friend smiles and deflates.
She can do this for her at least.
They sit there for a while until her cigarette is burned down to the filter and she stubs it out in the ash tray. If they’re going to be here for a long time, she should probably call her wife.
She gets up from the table and flips her phone open, holds the speed dial down and waits until Rachel picks up.
“Hey, baby!” Rachel exclaims. “Where are you?”
“At Rick’s,” she answers, knowing that would say it all.
“How’s Santana?”
Quinn looks over at her friend, her head rolling on the back of the booth depressingly. “Not good.” She pauses. “She slept with Brittany.”
Rachel gasps. “No way.”
“Yes way,” Quinn laughs.
“That’s great!”
“Not so much,” Quinn denies. “If it was great do you think I’d be at Rick’s with her right now?”
“Right,” Rachel agrees. “Well, when do you think you’re coming home?”
“No idea,” Quinn admits. “I’ll call you if we’re here past dinner.”
“That bad?”
Quinn studies the grooves and cracks in the wall nearby. “I don’t know. She’s in pretty bad shape.”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel breathes.
“Yeah,” Quinn says. She lets out a long breath. She just wants this thing to be over, she wants two seconds of her life to be uncomplicated and easy. “Me too.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thanks. I love you.”
“You too,” Rachel replies and Quinn can practically feel her wife’s smile, feels the answering tug on her own lips.
“Bye,” she lets out before closing the phone and walking back to the table and sliding back in next to Santana.
They get another round of drinks from Joe despite his hesitation and Quinn turns to her friend, gearing up to force Santana to talk about what the hell is going on. They need to deal with this Brittany situation and they need to deal with it now. Santana was always shit at handling her own feelings.
But before she can get any words out, the phone rings on the table and Santana fumbles around trying to reach for it.
Quinn scoops it up before Santana can break any glassware and puts it to her ear, deftly avoiding Santana’s drunken grabs for it.
“Santana Lopez’s phone,” she answers.
“Fabray? It’s Puck.”
“Oh hey, Puck. What’s up?”
“Is Lopez there? Tell her we got another envelope and I’m heading to the station right now,” Puck replies.
“We’re at Rick’s, but I don’t think she’s in any shape to move.”
Santana grabs for the phone but Quinn ducks out of the way. “What are you doing at Rick’s at two in the afternoon?”
“Just come by here first,” Quinn demands, hanging up before Santana can get to the phone.
“Puck’s on his way,” she says to Santana. “You got another envelope.”
Santana falls heavily onto the booth and exhales loudly.
Quinn meets Joe’s eye from across the room and mouths the word water to him and holds up two fingers.
--
Puck arrives not soon after and Quinn watches him greet Joe as he makes his way to the booth, flinging the rain water out of his leather jacket as he moves.
He drops into the booth across from them. After a semi-amusing, but mostly depressing conversation about why Santana is basically drunk off her ass in the middle of the afternoon while a scary mafia mercenary is after Brittany, he slides an envelope across the table in front of them.
“It’s actually good that you’re here,” he says to Quinn and dread hits her like a punch.
The fear spikes through her at the look on Puck’s face. He looks worried and tentative and so not like himself that Quinn wants to throw the envelope right back at him. She doesn’t want it to be good that’s she here if it’s in connection with this ominous envelope Puck’s pushing towards her.
Santana makes a move for it, but fails, predictably, so Quinn shoves her to the side and picks it up off the table, opening it up and sliding the contents out. It’s a black and white photo, and her stomach drops as recognition crosses over her.
What started as an inkling of fear flares up hot and fast in her system as her eyes take in the photo.
She expected Puck’s apprehension to be about Santana. That in the envelope was news about Pike or Brittany or both and that Santana was about to do something ridiculous and it was good Quinn was here to restrain her. It was good because maybe Santana was in trouble and that was what was in the envelope or any other reason except the one staring her in the face.
It’s the worst possible scenario and she isn’t prepared for it at all.
The photo is of Brittany, that much she expected. And there’s Nemo, walking along beside her. She recognizes the street and can almost pinpoint a date but that’s not what’s concerning.
There, next to Brittany and laughing like she doesn’t have a care in the world is Rachel.
Part Four