Work Text:
It’s finally the end of prom and Quinn is sick of smiling for the cameras. She’s sick of dancing, her feet hurt, and she’s had enough of all these people. It’s easy to slip out while everyone is still staring at Blaine and Kurt, and she holds up her dress with one hand, her shoes in the other, as she closes the door quietly with her hip.
She walks through the empty school until she gets outside and sits on the cold cement steps, leaning her head against the wall, for once uncaring of her hair. She lets her dress drape over her knees.
“Is it easier?” she asks, tipping her head back further and closing her eyes, feeling static from the bricks catch at her hair. She doesn’t flinch when another body sits heavily down on the step next to her.
“Is what easier?” Santana’s already irritated, snappy, and she’s starting to get cold where sweat is drying on her collarbone.
Quinn huffs out a tiny laugh, not really amused at all. “Being gay. Being with girls.”
Santana freezes, her hands tightening into claws on her own knees. “I don’t know what you—“
“Oh come on, Santana. I’m not stupid. I know.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Quinn sighs again and rolls her head across rough bricks until she can look at Santana. “I won’t. I haven’t, have I? I’ve known for year.” She reaches up into her hair and grasps at the tiny pieces of plastic holding her hair up. It’s been giving her a headache all night.
“I swear to God, if you tell anyone about this, I will make your life hell. Don’t think I can’t, Quinn. I will make you regret being born.” Distantly, Santana realises she’s shaking. Just a little. Shivering.
“Whatever. In the last two years I have had a baby, given it away, and today I realized that my boyfriend is still in love with Rachel Berry and I had to take my junior prom picture by myself. There’s nothing worse than that, Santana. I’d like to see you try.” She’s still trying to get at the pins in her hair, dragging her fingers through tangled waves and making frustrated noises whenever she finds more plastic.
“God, Quinn, can’t you do anything? Come here.” Santana pulls her around and starts dragging at her hair herself, pulling roughly through hairspray-sticky strands. “Your hair is ridiculous.”
Quinn winces as Santana pulls particularly hard at a knotted strand and flinches away. She exhales carefully through her nose then slides down a step and to the right, sitting between Santana’s knees. “Is that better?”
Santana puts her fingers in her hair again and gives a small yank, nodding wordlessly like Quinn can see. She keeps going, setting each pin on the floor until she’s amassed a smile pile.
“So? Is it easier?”
Quinn’s eyes are closed and her head is tilted back into Santana’s hands, her neck a white curve. She looks tiny and fragile. Santana could snap her like a twig.
She moves quickly. She drops one hand to Quinn’s bare shoulder and pulls her around just far enough that she can catch her mouth in a kiss.
Quinn’s lipgloss tastes like cherries and her skin is warm in the cool night. She kisses back, just for a second, and her eyes never open.
Santana pulls back.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she says quietly, and goes back inside.