Description: Santana really wishes they wouldn't get so attached. Quinn wishes Brittany wouldn't go out so late. Brittany wishes Quinn would eat better. And Rachel? Rachel just wants the three of them to stop.

Rating: T (for now)

"I'm like a lizard. I need something warm beneath me or else I can't digest my food."

Prologue

"So that's it? You're just going to walk away from me after that?" the man scoffed in disbelief. Santana was in the middle of putting her shirt back on with her back facing the man lying on his bed still naked.

"Yup," Santana replied simply, now pulling her hair back into a neat ponytail. She had a routine for this. She could get dressed and fully-presentable in under a minute.

"You're going to act like we didn't just do that?" he questioned, becoming incredulous. Santana sent a smirk over her shoulder as she walked toward his door.

"Do what? Have sex? It's really not that big of a deal, so what exactly am I supposed to do about it?" Santana asked, all rhetorical. She heard the man start to protest, but she walked out the door, closing it in the middle of his sentence.

She wondered if he would end up heartbroken. She certainly hoped not, because the heartbroken ones sometimes ended up being… problems. They were the most likely to fall under the delusion that if they begged and tried hard enough that they could get her to come back to them. To start a romance. Santana didn't do romance. She did sex; quite well, she might add. Sex isn't dating, something that she's become rather famous for in her high school.

Santana let out a sigh and walked down the street, wondering if she could even remember the name of the man she'd just slept with.

"Were you out again?" Quinn asked her sister as she walked in their shared bedroom and flopped down on her bed.

"I was hungry," Brittany defended herself, knowing that Quinn didn't like her going out late at night to get something to eat. She claimed that it wasn't safe, but Brittany was convinced she'd be fine and that Quinn was just being a protective sister. The two of them had always watched out for each other in the frequent absence of their parents.

"Would it be so hard for you to just let me know first?" Quinn pleaded.

Brittany picked at her nails, realizing that she would have to paint them again. She must have chipped them when she was picking out her food or something. "Why? Would you want to eat with me?" she asked sarcastically. "I don't usually like to share my food."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "You know that's not what I meant. I just like to know where you are at night."

Brittany shrugged before rolling off her bed to grab some sleep clothes and toothbrush. She left the room leaving Quinn alone in the room to ponder about her sister's habits. Going out that late- she hadn't gotten back until after one in the morning- could really get Brittany hurt. Quinn knew that better than anyone, but Brittany was convinced that she was just paranoid.

Their mom Judy was out of the country- again. She was in Paris with her most recent boy toy. Quinn couldn't actually remember his name, but he'd been around for all of two weeks before their mom decided the two of them needed some "alone time." Apparently when Brittany and Quinn were in school for seven hours a day plus long cheerleading practices wasn't enough alone time for the woman and in order to feel really alone she needed to be on another continent for three weeks.

When Brittany came back, she slid under the covers and turned so she was facing the wall instead of Quinn's side of the room.

"Really, B? You don't need to pull that shit. You know the only reason I even ask is because I don't want you getting hurt," Quinn said. She waited a good minute before Brittany turned to face her.

"I know. But sometimes I think you're just a little biased," Brittany gave in. Quinn gave her a sort of conflicted smile- it was true. "And I'm worried about you too, you know. I haven't really seen you eat much at all recently."

At that, Quinn's defenses flared up. "My eating habits are absolutely none of your business," she shot back.

Brittany's eyes narrowed. "And mine are?"

"Only because you seem to get hungry at the worst time of day," Quinn fired back. The two of them dissolved into sighs and actually laughed a little. "How many times have we had this fight?"

"Too many. Let's go to sleep- we've got cheer practice tomorrow," Brittany suggested. Quinn nodded and closed her eyes, letting herself go to the dreams of a life where she didn't have to fight with Brittany about those things.

Santana got back to her house and stretched out on her sofa. She owned a bed, but she found that she rarely actually used it for sleeping much at all. The sofa seemed safer in a way- it wasn't confining like a bed could be. She could get off a sofa at any point and leave without a second thought, but leaving a bed was an event that she already did far too often. She didn't need to do it in her own like crack-shack-like place.

She knew she had to get some sleep for tomorrow; Mondays brought cheerleading practice with possibly the only person with less of a heart than herself- Sue Sylvester. Santana loved the power that came with being a cheerleader, but the actual practices themselves were absolute hell. The only real highlight to those long and hard practices was seeing Quinn and Brittany.

When Quinn and Brittany moved to town the summer before freshman year, Santana recognized something in the two of them instantly. They were like her in ways that she did not yet understand, but she made it her goal to befriend the two blonde sisters in cheer camp. They ruled the school together, and it was exactly as Santana imagined.

The three of them got closer, learning just about everything about one another and naming themselves the Unholy Trinity. Sometimes they were at odds with each other over various issues but mostly because they all had things in common and people that were similar often found themselves in conflict with one another.

Originally Santana had promised herself that she would be independent and aloof in high school after the disasters that middle school had brought her, but she went against her own plans. But, she reasoned, Brittany and Quinn were the exceptions to her self-made rules because they were like her in ways that other people couldn't even begin to understand.

It was with thoughts of the blonde twins that Santana fell asleep with.

Rachel let out a short puff of air, trying to master her latest breathing exercise. It was much later than her usual bedtime, but her fathers had gone to sleep more than two hours ago and were heavy sleepers, so Rachel was in no danger of being caught. Besides, it's not like she was doing anything bad; she was just practicing her breath control.

Tomorrow would bring Glee practice and she wanted to be able to show off to her peers as much as possible. She did well academically, but she wasn't into any sports or anything that would actually garner her friends or respect, so she attempted to gain both of those through Glee Club. It was partially successful, she reasoned, because she had gained some friends. She considered Kurt, Mercedes, and Tina to be her friends though they did not spend large amounts of time together. They were friendly to her and tolerated her presence, so that was enough. She had failed altogether in gaining respect via Glee Club. If anything, she was targeted even more so as being a loser by being in the club.

Oh well- one day they would be begging for her autograph when she had her EGOT.

She also had met other people through Glee Club. They weren't exactly friends, but they did have interesting interactions with her. Those were the three Cheerios that, for reasons unknown, joined Glee in their sophomore year. Quinn, Santana, and Brittany- three inseparable friends with all the beauty and power any high school kid could ask for.

Rachel wondered why they stooped so low as to join a show choir, but she had to admit that they were good. Not as good as her, but they did have talent nonetheless. Brittany was a phenomenal dancer, probably the best in the group with only Mike as competition in that area and could sing decently. Quinn had a smooth alto voice that was perfect for leading accompaniment parts as well as certain solos and moved really well. Santana had a good leading voice and, like the other two, danced well.

On her worse days, Rachel wondered if those three girls had any flaws.

They didn't exactly use their immense power for good. They were the leading bullies in many respects at McKinley, but they rarely did any of the dirty deeds themselves. No, they were more known for stating an opinion of someone and consequently that person would find themselves covered in slushie by a jock that wanted to get in the Unholy Trinity's good graces.

Rachel shook her head at the futility of it all. It was doubtful that those three would remain in Lima for very much longer, and everyone was trying so hard to impress them. It was their senior year, only a few months left, so the countless attempts of the student body to impress the cheerleaders were pretty much in vain. The blonde sisters and Santana had their tickets out of Ohio- they were talented and good-looking, and she knew that each of them was smart in their own way.

Quinn was the only person in class that managed to out-do Rachel. Santana knew her way around life and the streets. And Brittany knew people like no one else. Brittany might not be the brightest in school- Rachel was fairly certain that she wouldn't be passing any of her classes if Santana and Quinn didn't help her cheat- but she could read people like open books.

She gave up on her breathing exercise as she found that her irritation at the Unholy Trinity was causing an affect on her breathing, and she went to sleep.

"Hello?" Brittany answered her phone groggily.

"Hey. I just wanted to check in on you two." Brittany recognized the voice as her mother's. She sighed into the phone.

"Mom, it's two in the morning. I was sleeping," Brittany reminded Judy.

"Oh, that's right. I always forget about the time difference. Well, I'll let you sleep… as long as you tell me how you and Quinnie are," her mom said playfully. Brittany smiled, knowing that Quinn would kill their mom for calling her by that nickname.

"We're fine. Quinn got mad at me because I went out late for a snack, but she's asleep now. That's why I'm whispering," Brittany answered.

"Good, I'm glad to hear you're okay. Sleep well," Judy said before hanging up.

Brittany put her cell phone back under her pillow and was just about to close her eyes once again and return to sleeping when she noticed hazel eyes staring at her from across the room.

"She never calls me," Quinn whispered. Brittany swallowed, knowing that while that statement was not altogether true, it almost was. Brittany was usually the one to get any calls from their mother. After last year's events, Quinn and Judy had a bit of a falling out. They'd made up since then, but their bond wasn't nearly as close as it had once been.

"I'm sorry," Brittany whispered back honestly. She wished that everything would be perfect, that they could have a happy little family of three plus whoever their mom was with at the time. But it just didn't work that way and hadn't for a long time. Actually, if Brittany was honest, it really hadn't ever worked that way. "Go to sleep."

Quinn sighed and did just that only to be joined in sleep shortly by her sister. Quinn ignored her growling stomach, knowing that Brittany was right about her eating habits.

He sat at his desk in the middle of the night, thinking hard about the information that had just been presented to him by the trembling man in front of him.

"And you're sure about her?" he asked the sniveling man. Sometimes he hated the fact that he had to rely on insignificants fools like this for his job.

"Positive," the mess of a man replied.

"Leave," he said coldly. The other man could not be happier to oblige.

That left him alone in his office to stare down at the growing file in front of him with a picture paper clipped to the front of it. A picture of a young Latina girl that he'd been hunting down for three and a half years.

"Santana Lopez… I've found you, pequeño demonio," he muttered to himself, stroking the picture lightly. It was about time that he sat that girl down and had a nice long conversation. Or short if she didn't behave.

A/N: This story is quite obviously very AU and I haven't yet decided just how much of the canon I'm actually working with. In case you didn't catch the details, this is how it stands so far: Quinn and Brittany are sisters with an absentee mom that moved to McKinley before freshman year when they met and befriended Santana. It is set in senior year. Besides that, canon may stay or change.