Diclaimer: Do not own Glee.
A/N - This is just a little idea that popped into my mind whilst waiting for the long summer break to be over and the start of season 3. No idea where I'm going with it but I hope you like it. Rated T (subject to possible change) for bad language and some adult themes.
Thanks.
"Santana?"
The hairs on the back of Santana's neck stood up on end as a familiar call echoed through the apartment followed by the slamming of the front door.
She exhaled slowly and nonchalantly licked the tip of her middle finger before flipping the page of the trashy magazine she was reading. The kind of magazine that takes the most unflattering pictures of celebrities and then highlights their cellulite with fluorescent yellow circles and then points to aforementioned circles with huge, pink arrows. Just in case you missed it.
"Santana?"
Footsteps could be heard clomping down the corridor towards where the Latina was currently situated on the ramshackle couch in the small living room. Over the top of the glossy pages of her magazine Santana could see movement in front of her.
"Santana?"
In a well practised motion, Santana rolled her eyes before slowly raising them. She was met with a pair of legs clad in knee high socks and an obscenely short plaid skirt. Rising even higher, she travelled over a hideous sweater decorated with various woollen bobbles and up to the nervous face of her roommate, who was chewing her bottom lip lightly under Santana's discerning glare.
"What is it Berry?"
Santana Lopez had answered Rachel Berry's advertisement for a roommate almost six months ago. Not a day had gone by where at some point in those twenty four hours she really wished she hadn't. It may have been the only place she could afford due to the fact that she was only required to pay a third of the rent and her other option had been a fold down bed in her best friend's older sister's dingy garage but sometimes she wondered whether meeting Rachel Berry had destroyed what was left of her sanity.
Rachel wasn't exactly the easiest person to live with. The girl was short, ridiculously ambitious and had the most unfortunate dress sense. Three traits that Santana just so happened to find extremely annoying.
Not to mention she also had the tendency to get up at six in the morning to practice her vocal exercises and forced Santana to eat strange vegan foods which often looked and tasted a little like cat vomit.
"Rachel." Santana spoke harshly, jolting the girl out of her nervous reverie. "What the hell do you want? Can't you see that I'm busy?"
"Sorry Santana." Rachel apologised. "But I wanted to consult with you about something."
"Go on then." Santana waved her hand dismissively. "Spit it out hobbit!"
"Well, you know that I have been volunteering at that animal sanctuary for approximately two months and five days now..."
Santana rolled her eyes. Yes, she bloody well knew all about the damned animal sanctuary Rachel had been working at for two months and five days. The girl had been banging on and on about how great it was that she was able to fit in voluntary work around her busy school schedule. Rachel was currently a student at Juilliard in preparation for becoming the biggest Broadway star to ever grace the face of the earth. Or so she said.
"Yes Rachel. I know about sac." Santana chuckled at the centre's dreadful acronym.
"Please Santana; I thought I told you not to call it that. It's Schuester's Animal Centre."
"Yeah." The Latina shrugged. "S-A-C. Sac."
It was Rachel's turn to roll her eyes at the belligerent girl in front of her as she shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. She and Santana had never really seen eye to eye ever since they first met but Rachel had needed a roommate to make up the extra rent and utilities money that she needed to prove to her fathers' that she was independent enough to live away from home. They themselves had been keen on her staying at home until she finished her time at Juilliard but Rachel thought it far more pertinent to experience the world through the eyes of a normal university student rather than a budding Broadway star.
The drawback of this however was the fact that whilst her fathers had never objected to her early morning workout routine and vocal exercises, Santana Lopez did not approve. In fact, her level of disapproval was such that she had threatened to throw Rachel's bedazzled hairbrush out of the window on several separate occasions.
"Well..." Rachel continued with a small stutter, unsure of how the feisty Latina would react to her request. "We've recently had rather a bad shortage of volunteers. Mr. Figgins' wife, who was the volunteers' coordinator, has retired so we aren't getting as many in. And the man that used to work in the cafe with me, Mr. Kidney, was fired."
"For what?" Santana cocked a perfectly plucked eyebrow, choosing to focus on this rather than the impending sense of doom that was blossoming in the pit of her stomach brought about by Rachel's line of questioning.
"Something about a teapot full of vodka." Rachel furrowed her eyebrows in disapproving belief. "There was always something very suspicious about him. He kind of reminded me of a man I met in New York the first time I visited. He tried to charge me for theatre tickets by swiping my credit card through his butt crack."
Santana's other eyebrow rose as she snorted with laughter.
"Okay Berry. Spit it out for reals this time. What do you really want? And make it fast because I wants to get my trashy magazine time on."
"You know Santana, speaking like that really doesn't do you any favours. I, for one, know that you are a very intelligent, well-educated and articulate young woman and by -."
"Rachel!"
Rachel sighed and took a seat beside the Latina on the old grey couch, laying a hand on the brunette's forearm, which was promptly removed as Santana edged away from the shorter girl until she was pressed uncomfortably into the armrest.
"You can look Berry, but do. Not. Touch."
Rachel let out another small sigh. It would appear that Santana was not in the most malleable mood today, which would be just her luck.
"Schuester's Animal Centre is in desperate need of new volunteers. Mr. Schuester himself has been onsite speaking to the other staff members in order to try and muster up some new people and er, I may have told him that..." She trailed off, looking guiltily at her white socks.
"Told him what Berry?" Santana all but growled.
"I may have told him that I knew a lovely young woman who works as a bartender in Manhattan and doesn't have to be at work most days until the evening time." Rachel spoke the entire sentence in one breath and Santana would have been mildly impressed if not for the implications of the other brunette's words.
"You. Did. Not." Santana spoke very slowly and quietly, her voice almost a threatening whisper as Rachel drew back, seemingly prepared for some kind of physical attack to take place.
"If you are going to punch me please avoid my nose." She told the snarling Latina, who let out a dangerous chuckle.
"Look Berry, I am only going to say this once and once only."
Rachel shifted even further away as Santana leaned in unnervingly close to her.
"Santana fuckin' Lopez does not do charity."
"I can't believe I'm actually doing this." Santana was frowning deeply as she was sat slumped in the passenger seat of Rachel's Prius. "How the fuck did you talk me into this Berry? You know what? No. No one makes Santana Lopez do charity. I'm getting the fuck out this car right now."
Even though the car was still moving Santana turned to grab the handle before she began tugging on it violently. It didn't budge.
She turned to Rachel, sat calmly in the driver's seat.
"The fuck Berry?" She raised her eyebrows in an aggressive manner.
"I had the forethought to ask my father to install a child lock on the passenger's side just in case a certain someone was stupid enough to try and escape my presence by jumping out of a moving vehicle."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Santana exclaimed before turning back to the door and trying to pry it open with sheer brute force.
"I must ask you stop pulling on that handle Santana. I was thinking of jazzing it up a little when I have a moment in my busy schedule to whip out my bedazzler."
"Oh. My. God." Santana allowed her head to fall forward and bash against the window. "Why the hell did I let you talk me into this?"
"Because I promised to wait another hour before doing my vocal exercises in the morning. I also permitted you to eat non-vegan foodstuffs in my presence and agreed to go out on Friday night so that you and Noah can have that guitar hero marathon he keeps going on about." Rachel was as literal as ever. "But secretly I truly believe that you are doing this because you have a good heart behind all of that mean-spirited bravado."
"Dream on Berry." Santana snorted. "And Puck's coming to play Mariokart. Guitar hero was last week."
"I really don't get your obsession with these games." Rachel commented, trundling slowly along the busy road.
"Are we nearly there yet?" Santana ignored her completely, still staring grumpily out of her window.
"I would say that our estimated time of arrival is approximately seven and a half minutes."
Santana simply shook her head in exasperation as she glanced at the speed dial on the dash.
"Jesus Christ Rachel!" She threw her hands up in total vexation. "You drive like Grandma Berry."
"Grandma Berry can't drive."
"Exactly." Santana smirked as an irritated clucking noise sounded from Rachel's throat. She knew how to get under the shorter brunette's skin just as much as Rachel seemingly inadvertently got under hers.
The rest of the journey was filled with slightly tense silence as Santana continued to lightly thump her head against the window and Rachel, in between each rhythmic thud, proceeded to make more of her chicken noises.
"We're here." Rachel broke the silence as she made a sharp right, the car's tyres bumping along the gravelly road surface of what appeared to be a small parking lot.
Santana stopped banging her head against the window long enough to look out of it, taking in a few other parked cars and a large sign that read: Schuester's Animal Centre. The signpost was, rather predictably in Santana's personal opinion, decorated with infantile drawings of kitten, puppies, ducklings and all other manner of animals that could be found in almost every animated Disney movie ever made.
"Mr. Schuester's kids designed it." Rachel told her, following Santana's gaze.
"How cute." The Latina's tone indicated that she found it anything but.
Rachel sighed but opened her door and clambered out, her smaller than average legs making the task more difficult than it should be and Santana snickered as she stumbled a little.
"Can you bring the milk?" Rachel ignored her mocking laughter.
"I don't see why they can't supply their own fucking milk." Santana rolled her eyes, whilst grabbing the handles of the cool bag by her feet.
"Santana." Rachel started sternly, reaching into the back seat for the vegan cookies she had baked that morning. "As we have previously discussed," Santana snorted at the terminology. She wouldn't call Rachel's hour long lecture complete with PowerPoint presentation on the rules of being a volunteer a discussion. "This is a place frequented by young children. Once we pass through those gates I would please implore that you keep such coarse language to an absolute minimum."
"What the fuck ever Berry." At Rachel's glare, she shrugged. "We're fucking not past the fucking gates are we?"
Rachel turned away from her, muttering under her breath. Santana was pretty sure she heard the words 'infuriating' and pig-headed' thrown in there somewhere.
"Come the fuck on then." The Latina jerked her head towards the concrete pathway that led to a set of big blue, wooden gates. "This milk is fucking heavy."
Rachel just shook her head and moved towards the pathway, strutting along as fast as her little legs would carry her. Santana didn't even bother to try and catch up. She was smart enough to recognise when Rachel was executing her patented diva storm off. After all, she'd seen it often enough in the last six months.
"We have to stop off at reception first to sign in." Rachel had come to a halt just before the gates. "Oh! And collect your name tag!" Her face lit up as though it was the most exciting thing ever.
Santana grimaced, still wondering why she'd agreed to this in the first place. She's had plenty of time to back out when filling out that stupid thirty question long application form. What was wrong with her? Was she really about to do charity? This was so wrong. She hated charity. She had even been known to refuse to give thirty cents change to a man in a wheelchair outside Walmart that was missing every extremity. So why the hell was she here?
"Come on then!" Rachel's enthusiastic tone grated Santana's last nerve and she almost turned on her heel and dashed away. Thanks to Puck, she knew how to hotwire a car and she was sure Rachel could get a lift home from one of her do-gooder friends. Not that she cared anyway.
"Don't." A small hand wrapped around her wrist and she was suddenly looking into the stern, knowing eyes of Rachel Berry, who was standing way too close for her liking.
"How many times dwarf? No. Touching. No me gusta!" Santana gesticulated wildly, throwing Rachel's hand from her in the process.
"And people call me dramatic." Rachel mumbled, almost inaudibly.
"Right. That's it!" Santana turned on the heel of her worn sneakers and began to stalk away.
"Wait!" Rachel chased after her desperately. "Santana, please, be reasonable. Just one day. Just give it a try for one day and if you absolutely loath and abhor it you can quit."
"I already loath and abhor it!" Santana mimicked Rachel's words. "Just the thought of it is making me break out in hives. And I think I can smell dog shit from here."
"It's an animal shelter Santana." Rachel replied, rubbing her forehead irritably. "Of course dog faeces will be present."
"Faeces? What are you Berry? Eighty?" Santana yelled back. "It's shit! S-H-I-T, shit!"
Santana noticed that Rachel's face had paled considerably as she looked at something over Santana's shoulder. The Latina turned around to find a stout middle aged woman clutching tightly to the hand of a small child.
"I am so sorry." Rachel murmured as the woman rushed past them, a horrified expression on her lined face. "See what you did?" She asked a snickering Santana reproachfully.
"What?" The Latina merely shrugged, faking innocence.
"Do I need to make a PowerPoint about appropriate vocabulary for the workplace?" Rachel put her hands on her hips, trying to look the picture of stern.
"Oh, hell no." Santana pushed past her and marched determinedly towards the totally uninviting gates.
'Here goes.' She thought to herself. 'It's just charity. It can't be that bad. Right?'
Thanks for reading.
Like any fanfic writer, I'd love some feedback. So if you can spare a couple of minutes to tell me what you think, I'd be very grateful. If not, don't sweat it. Hope you enjoyed it regardless.