Author's note: This is fairly old. I wrote this after the airing of "Mash Off" (season 3, y'all!) and completely forgot about it. It completely left my until I stumbled upon it just now. It's quick and short. Enjoy.
Things were not going well for Santana Lopez. After what she thought was her best verbal smackdown yet against Finn, she found herself caught up in Finn's retaliatory onslaught. He snapped back and it caught her off guard. She had to hand it to him; she didn't expect him to go there. There were numerous insults he could have dished out, but he decided to hit a bit closer to home. Finn had outed her and like all gossip in high school, it spread like wildfire. The only thing that was missing was a front page story from Ben Israel.
Although Santana had a flair for the dramatic (nowhere near Rachel's level), it was hard for her to keep a poker face and stop the tears from coming as she walked away from Finn. She was suddenly in the spotlight, all eyes were on her. Even worse, some nobody bitch had to run and blab to her father who just happen to be in the running for Congress. Just her luck. And in what turned out to be an unexpected twist, all of Lima now knew her secret. A secret that she had yet to completely come to terms with. Her parents were bound to have questions, and if her parents her had questions, that meant her grandmother would have questions. However, she wasn't quite sure if she was ready to give answers.
Later on, in what she thought could have been an episode ripped from "Intervention", she later found herself in Coach Sylvester's office surrounded by Schuester and Kurt's dad. They offered their help in her "time of need", but all she could do was play back the campaign ad in her head on a loop. Santana wasn't in need of help. What she wanted most was to get the hell out of Lima, Ohio. That was completely out of the picture, so she settled for the next best thing.
As she looked up from her cup of mocha latte that was hardly touched, she caught a familiar face ordering at the the counter. Kurt Hummel. She was surprised to see that Blaine wasn't attached to his hip as he normally was. Ever since Blaine transferred from Dalton Academy, the two had been inseparable. It was a mystery how they managed not to get tired of each other. Santana had her moments with Brittany, but they both knew when to give each other their personal space. Otherwise she probably would have thrown herself off the nearest cliff.
"Santana." Kurt called after her as he grabbed his drink. Her legs told her to move, but decided against it. As much as she wanted to leave and not deal with anyone, where exactly was she going to go? Home didn't even register on her list and hanging out on school grounds after hours reeked of being pathetic. Talking and spilling her guts out wasn't on her list of things to do today, either. She just wanted to sit alone sipping her coffee, pretending to do something worthwhile much like the hipsters who gathered here after school. Instead, she decided to make the best of the situation.
"Well, well. If it isn't the Princess of Equestria herself." Santana gave Kurt her attention, flashing a pearly white grin. "I see your butt buddy, Alfalfa, isn't with you today. Lover's quarrel?"
"Nice to see you too, Santana. Blaine is visiting his friends at Dalton." Kurt thought about her "princess" comment, but chose not to take offense to it. He had heard his fair share of comments from "princess" to "Judy Garland". The Judy Garland one made him laugh because if they knew enough about Judy Garland to use it as a slur to belittle him, what did that make them? "Princess of Equestria? I don't get it..."
Santana sighed. "It's nothing. Just some silly show Brittany watches. Unicorns, rainbows, and horses. Some crap like that." Santana waved her hand dismissively at the chair, offering Kurt to take a seat.
"Sounds interesting." Kurt didn't know whether or not to laugh. Instead, he took a sip of his drink. He was hoping Santana would start the conversation, but he was pretty damn sure that wasn't going to happen. Besides, this was Santana he was talking to. "What brings you here? I figured after the whole fiasco you'd want to lay low."
"It's Lima, Kurt. Outside of school, there's only two places people hang out at: here and Breadstix. You'd think they were the only two things Lima has to offer. And I still have an hour until their unlimited breadsticks offer goes in effect so I decided to kill some time."
Santana had a knack for shifting the topic of interest or manipulating her way out of any given situation, such as the time back in elementary school when she managed to swindle her classmates out their lunch money and allowances for an "emergency leg surgery" for her dog, Oreo. Unknown to them, Oreo was simply a stuffed animal whose legs were coming apart at the seams, but she left out that minor detail. She put on such a dramatic performance that her teacher called her mother to take her home because she was "too distraught" to focus on classwork.
Two birds with one stone. Of course her parents made her give back the money and apologize to the class, but her grandmother high-fived her in secret over ice cream and mentioned how that would be a valuable skill later in life. Now, Santana didn't have much energy to even try to steer the conversation into a different topic. This was Kurt she was talking to and she knew how persistent he could be. Plus, he annoyed her less than some of their other Glee Club members. Not that she would mention that fact to his face.
"Can we talk about the giant elephant in the room?" Kurt asked after a drink from his cup.
"My sexuality?"
"What about home?" Kurt chose not to dance around the subject and decided get straight to the point.
"What about home, Twinkletoes?" She sat in silence for a few moments, pondering on the word "home". "I don't even know how the parental units are going to react." Her parents have never revealed their displeasure regarding gay relationships. They've always been the type to trust her in making her own decisions as long as she didn't hurt herself or others in the process. "My mom will probably throw out a few 'ay dios mios' before having a coronary. Dad will probably drink himself into coma. Then I'd be an orphan and have to shack up in a dilapidated house with some day-shift hookers all while pulling a graveyard shift at a Denny's."
Kurt frowned feeling as if he had overstepped some boundary. He wasn't sure of Santana's home life and knew that not everyone had supporting parents. As naïve as it was to think, home was supposed to be that one place everyone felt safe going to.
"My abeula will probably get to me first and have my head stuffed and mounted once I sit down with her."
Her grandmother on the other hand had expressed scolding judgment due to her living in a time where all of this was taboo and frowned upon. Then again, she always expressed hatred at most things. The government, Tyler Perry, riverdancing. Santana didn't look too much into those things because she figured her grandmother was bitter for the sake of being bitter. Though you never could tell how one would react in a certain situation until they found themselves in the middle of said situation.
"Sorry." Kurt fiddled with his cup, thinking about the bundle of nerves that plagued him when he finally decided to come clean about his sexuality to his dad. Fortunately, he already had a clue and that lifted some of the burden, but the same might not have rang true for Santana.
"Nothing to be sorry about."
The reality of everything seemed to have finally caught up to her once the words left her mouth. She knew that she had to nip this in the bud as soon as possible. It was going to be hard, but it would have been worse hearing it from a mud slinging campaign of a complete stranger than out of her own mouth.
"If worse comes to worse, and I hope that it doesn't, I'm pretty sure my dad wouldn't mind helping you out in any way he can. Not to get all preachy, but it's not easy. It's a bitch to deal with. Not only do you have to spend the time and build up the courage to admit that these feelings are real and that this is who you are, you have to do the same thing all over again when and if you decide to come out."
Santana chugged the rest of her drink. "And we have your lovely step-brother, Lurch, to thank for that." The comment was met with her signature roll of the eyes. Just thinking of Finn brought back the moment in the hallway then the slap that found its place along his face. The only she regretted about that was not slapping him harder. She would have to answer for that one later on, but at the time it made her feel somewhat better. However, she knew it wouldn't erase what had been done.
Kurt reached across the table and grabbed her free hand and rested it inside his. He expected her to jerk away, but was surprised when she allowed him to hold her hand for longer than a second. No words were exchanged between them for that brief moment as he allowed to her stared out of the window, looking at everything and nothing.
After a few minutes passed, Kurt decided to speak up. "Don't worry about Finn. He's going to get an earful once I get a hold of him. Not only from me, but from dad and Carol. We've had our fair share of bouts over this so he of all people should know better."
"Look, if you mention this conversation to anyone, I will deny it and I will glitterbomb you for the rest of your natural born life." Santana finally pulled her hand away, but not with the level of annoyance that Kurt expected. She leaned back into the chair and folded her arms across her chest. "I mean, I guess I should thank for being here and being chatty."
Kurt beamed at her excuse for a compliment, but he was going to take it any way he could. "It is what I do best. And I do owe you for the whole thing with Karofsky." A troubling experience if there ever was one. Even if the reasons for standing up to Karofsky were selfish on Santana's part, such an act meant a lot to him.
"Yeah, well. That's how we do it in Lima Heights Adjacent. We take care of our own."
Kurt pulled his fingers across lips as if he were sealing them. "I heard nothing." The two smiled at each other over their little conversation because as different as they were, they were still high school students who had to deal with the same issues: the drama, the gossip, and most of all just being accepted for who they are.