Author's Note:
This is an AU in which Brittana didn't meet until they were both in college :-)
The story below is based on this post ( : / / lilyvandersteen. tumblr post/ 156352278479/ whitebear-ofthe-watertribe-angryfishtrap) and dedicated to a-simple-rainbow because apparently, it's her birthday!
Never Seen You With Your Clothes On
After delivering two plates of burgers and fries, a milkshake and a coke to Table 8, Santana checked her watch and yelped.
"Gunther, I need to get going!" she yelled, and stormed off to the back room for her coat and purse.
Minutes later, she was waiting on the subway platform for her train to arrive, her foot tapping.
Why was the train delayed just now that she was already late? Madre de Dios!
When the train finally arrived, Santana plopped down on the first free seat she saw. An old woman carrying a tiny dolled-up dog tutted at her, but Santana just shot her a glare.
Who's been running around waiting tables for hours and hours? Not you!
Santana's back was hurting, her feet were hurting and her head felt ready to burst. Not to mention her throat was sore from belting out songs for the customers. Thank heavens her second job was more relaxing.
She'd stumbled onto it by chance, really. Mandy, a girl from her marketing class, was telling her friend that she'd been asking the assistant director of her dorm what kind of student jobs she could do, and summed up what the options were. Most of them were boring. Filing and manning the desk in the lobby and the like. But then… "And apparently, there's a life drawing class in Block D from 8 to 10 PM, and they need models for that. But that's… like… nude, so… No way!"
Santana had rolled her eyes, and when the class was over, she'd asked Mandy what dorm she lived in, and then headed straight to Weinstein Hall to ask the assistant director how she could sign up as a model for the drawing lessons.
Five weeks later, and the modelling had become Santana's favourite job ever. The rest of her life was beyond hectic. She was taking a full load at NYU, and on top of that, she waited tables and worked as a dog walker. Her mind and her body never got enough rest. Only when she sat on her red padded stool in the art room, she could unwind, as long as she kept up the requested pose.
Santana's stop was announced over the speaker, and she hurried towards the doors, eager to be the first to slip through. When the doors opened, another girl proved faster, though, walking onto the platform with a skip in her step, humming under her breath, her long blonde hair swishing left to right.
Santana raked her eyes over the girl's figure appreciatively, and then remembered she had places to be and scurried away.
She arrived at the art room five minutes late, and whispered a short apology to the instructor while hurriedly taking her boots and her coat off.
While stripping, she noticed that the three faulty space heaters that usually stood around her, but had only crackled and sputtered the weeks before, without giving off any heat, had finally been replaced by new ones.
As soon as she sat down on the stool, she felt the difference. This time, her ass and her boobs wouldn't freeze off. It was toasty warm all around her, the warmest she'd felt in over a month, since her dorm room was draughty and cold.
She put one arm under her boobs and stretched her right leg out, as instructed, and then closed her eyes happily. Nothing to do in the next fifteen minutes but relax and soak up all that glorious heat.
The murmurs of the art students and the instructors quickly lulled her into a dreamlike state. She drifted in and out of consciousness, moving on autopilot when the instructor would tell her to change into a different position.
And then, all of a sudden, there was a loud babble of voices echoing through her head. Santana blinked her eyes open and saw concerned faces looking down at her - the instructor and half of the students, one of them the blonde beauty from the subway.
What's happened? Oh… I'm… I'm lying down. I fell asleep, didn't I? I fell asleep. Ugh.
"Are you all right?" the instructor asked, hands fluttering helplessly, clearly wanting to reach out to help Santana up but not daring because she was naked. "Can we… Is there a dressing gown or coat she could… Ah, thank you!"
The beautiful blonde had torn the sheet down from the backdrop and now draped it over Santana, before offering her a hand to help her stand up.
"Thanks," Santana croaked.
The blonde smiled at her sunnily. "You're welcome! Did you faint because you were hungry? 'Cause I have a KitKat in my bag. Wait, I'll go fetch it for you."
Moments later, Santana sat on the stool again, munching on a KitKat and then on an apple she got from another student, while the artist were diligently drawing her again.
Instead of the near-silence she was used to, though, the students were taking turns talking to her, so that she wouldn't fall asleep again. It was nice, Santana decided. She hadn't known any of them before - had hardly even noticed them in the room, closing her eyes as soon as she'd struck the required pose. Now, they were all introducing themselves, and telling her why exactly they were taking this life drawing class.
Santana nodded and smiled more than she had in years, especially when it was the beautiful blonde's turn, whose name proved to be Brittany. She was taking the art class because her cat, Lord Tubbington, had asked her to, apparently. He wanted a portrait of himself, and needed Brittany to practice until she could draw him well enough to make a lifelike portrait.
Santana, though bemused, hummed in understanding, her smile stretching from ear to ear when Brittany beamed at her.
She went home quite smitten, and very much looking forward to next week's lesson.
The next day, though, she was walking to the cafeteria after her statistics class when Brittany skipped past her, humming again, and then stopped and did a double-take. "Santana! It IS you! Sorry, I didn't recognise you at first, I've never seen you with your clothes on!"
Santana heard a few passers-by snicker, but paid them no attention. "Brittany, hey! Are you going to the cafeteria too? Come, I'll buy you lunch. I owe you for that KitKat!"
