This week because I've been sick I've been catching up with some TV shows and putting my Netflix account to good use. One of my new favorite shows is Boardwalk Empire, and a movie I watched this week was the Baz Luhrman version of Romeo and Juliet. These two combined with my favorite Glee pairing and my meds produced this little piece of work. Rating is for language and future sexual content, because a good Brittana fic needs a good sex scene, I believe :)
Review if you like it and think I should continue.
Disclaimer: Don't own, no profit.
Chapter One
It's a chilly night, and the city is quiet. It's a night of waiting, and Santana hates waiting.
Santana Lopez's plan is always 1. Think 2. Decide, and 3. Act. All in quick succession, with little time in between the steps. See the problem, fix the problem. That simple.
That, apparently, is not how this is going to work.
It's 1932. The economy is in the crapper, people are homeless, jobless, and hungry. But thanks to Prohibition, Santana has a very good job. Her father, the notorious crime lord Doctor Lopez, has sent Santana Lopez to confirm a potential lucrative business deal that would allow their organization to bring large amounts of cheap alcohol into the city. Santana and her father knew how good this would be for the business, and that's why she was sent to secure the deal. She was the only one he trusted to get the details straight, and Santana knew it.
Santana herself was a rarity, and she knew it. She defied her gender in her clothing, her mannerisms, her personality, and her status in the organization. Women just didn't do this. They got married; they stayed at home and popped out babies. But not Santana, she marched to the beat of no one's drummer but her own. She wore pants and vests, fedoras and belts when she worked, and no one blinked an eye. She didn't mind sporting a dress or a skirt on occasion, but it was always easier to work in men's clothes.
But she's smart. Smarter than her brothers, the useless pendejos, and she knows how to use a revolver. She has an eye for business, and she's an excellent judge of character. Her gender, therefore, became of no issue to her father, with whom she has always been close. Though not really an official member of the organization (her mother would never allow such a thing), her father often refers to her as his ace-in-the-hole.
Which is why she is here, sitting in a dark car near the train station, waiting for their potential business partners to arrive so that they can arrange their first meeting.
She turns to her wingman, a man named Noah Puckerman, who went by Puck. "Got a smoke?"
Santana pulls her lighter from her pants pocket and lights a cigarette to try to calm her nerves. She doesn't really smoke, but it's at least something to do when all there is to do is to sit and wait. She inhales deeply, then exhales a long plume of smoke into the cold night air. It helps.
"Nah," she responds nonchalantly and hands the pack back to her partner. Despite his constant come-ons and tendency to snap at the most trivial annoyances, she actually got along with Puck, and they worked well together. He motions for her lighter and lights a cigarette of his own.
"They're late," Santana says.
"Yeah," is Puck's response. "Keep your panties on, though. Unless," he cocks an eyebrow, letting the comment trail off suggestively.
"Sorry, I'm trying to stay disease-free," is Santana's quick reply and Puck laughs in response. They smoke their cigarettes in silence for a few moments before Puck chimes in again.
"Speaking of rolling in the hay, I heard you got caught again with that waitress from Ernie's. What was her name again?"
Santana can only chuckle. "That would be Rosie."
Santana smiles in fond remembrance. Rosie, her flame-haired on-again off-again girlfriend got a real thrill from having sex with the possibility of discovery, and Santana was never one to say no to a pretty lady. Her prowess in business was only surpassed by appetite for the fairer sex. It was yet another aspect of her that made her unique.
Santana's mother was mortified by her desire for other women, while her father and brothers found it quite amusing. She tells Puck about last week, when she had gone to Ernie's for a drink, and Rosie was working. They got into a big fight over some trivial thing, then went to the back room for some angry sex, where one of the bartenders saw Santana with her head between Rosie's legs. Then they fought some more and broke up. Such was Santana's love life.
Puck shakes his head in disbelief. "Man, little Lopez, for a girl you sure are quite the ladies' man."
After regaling each other with stories of romantic exploits, a few games of five card draw, and more than two hours of total waiting time, they see two black cars round the corner and stop at the end of the street. She and Puck turn to each other and nod gravely, put their guns into their respective holders and get out of their car. Santana counts the men that exit the vehicles. Six.
"Gentlemen," she greets politely. "So nice of you to come, if so late."
The group eyes the pair with a cautious gaze. They will all be armed, of course, though it would be bad manners to bring them out on a potential business meeting.
"You're a girl," one of the men, wearing a hat too large for his head, comments incredulously. "He sent a girl. Why on earth would we want to talk with a fucking girl and a little boy?"
She feels Puck tense beside her, sees his fingers twitch by his gun, but she lays a hand on his shoulder.
"If you want to talk to a man, go to the police station. But I represent the Lopez organization here and I have full authority from the Doctor to close this."
The man in the gray coat, obviously the one in charge based on his position at the front of the pack, finally speaks.
"Is the Doc serious?" he asks gravely.
"If you want to make money, and I mean real money, then get over yourselves and let's make a deal. With our connections and your supply both our profits could double or even triple."
The man in the hat scoffs. "And how do you know how much supply we have, little girl?"
Santana smiles slyly. "I might be a girl, but I've got friends with very keen eyes."
The man in the gray coat nods. "When can we meet with the Doc to hammer out details?"
"The Doc holds a poker night in the abandoned meat factory on Sanders street on Friday evenings. He said he would love to make it a business affair."
After what seems like a millennium of conference between the men, the one in the gray coat turns towards them.
"I look forward to meeting the Doc. Send my regards."
And just like that, the deal is done. The men all pile back into the two cars speed off into the night.
"Dammit, that went too well," Puck claps Santana on the back heartily, nearly knocking her off her feet. "You sure do have a way with words, you know that, Lopez?"
Santana lights another cigarette. "And you bet your ass I know it, Puckerman. I say this call for a celebration."
"A good stiff drink!" Puck howls into the cool night air.
Then, they hear a noise. Santana turns. It's a truck, barreling towards them, swerving back and forth across the pavement. She hears drunken cheering, and sees bottles hanging from the hands dangling out the window.
"Just a bunch of drunks," Puck comments, but his voice has a bit of concern in it. Something's not right, and he senses it.
The truck screeches to a halt just behind ahead of their position. Five guys stumble out of the vehicle, stinking of rum and cigars. They are all dressed in suits, nice sits, expensive suits, and then a realization hits her.
She's seen these people before, she recognizes the faces.
Pierces.
The Pierce family was the only other crime organization in the city, which made them the mortal enemies of the Lopez's. Thomas Pierce was their unanimous leader, and he hated Santana's father with a fiery passion, and the feeling was mutual. They had once worked together, but when prohibition was passed all good feelings soured and the city was quickly divided in two. Downtown and the eastern district belonged to Pierce, the rest to the Lopez's. It had been this way for a decade now. They two sides were in constant warfare, and right now Santana and Puck were severely outnumbered. At her best, Santana could handle a full-grown man. Enough, at least, to get away safely from serious harm. She has a decent right hook (thanks to the tutelage of her eldest brother, Mario), but she and Puck are extremely outnumbered here, and therefore, fucked.
"God damn it," she cusses to herself under her breath.
"Where you guys going?" one guys slurs. "I think I recognize you." Santana's heartbeat quickens, adrenaline begins to flood her body.
"Hey, it's the Lopez girl."
"What the hell is she wearing?"
"Hey Puckerman, why are socializing with the tomboy?"
Puck's short fuse is close to going off, and Santana is starting to see red as well. The five circle the two, laughing and jeering. Puck's fists are tightly clenched; every muscle in Santana's body is taught and ready to react.
"Fucking bitch."
Something within Santana breaks, and suddenly she's whaling on the nearest person with a strong right cross. After a few good punches she lands a knockout blow on the guy's nose, causing a fountain of blood to spurt from it.
She tries to rise to her feet but is caught in the stomach wiwth a sharp kick that drives the air from her lungs. When he swings his foot forward again, she catches it, and then swings her foot into his groin. He lets out a scream that is very satisfying to her ears, and then she's on her feet, kicking him like he kicked her.
It's all happening so fast. She glances over for just a moment to see Puck very capably fighting off two of the biggest of the gang members.
Then Santana sees the flash of a blade, and then feels a sharp pain in her shoulder, and looks at the knife protruding from her arm with disbelief. Puck comes to her aid and clocks the last assailant on the chin, knocking him out cold. She can only pull out the knife with a grimace and watch the blood stain her shirt.
"Fuck," Santana bellows angrily, kicking the man in the ribs a few times for good measure. "Fuck you!"
Two of the men are struggling to their feet.
"Come on!" Puck yells and pulls her good arm, shaking her from her reverie. "Let's get the hell out of here."
They take off down the alley at a full sprint, and wind their way through the tightly packed buildings, ducking and weaving. Santana thinks that she's starting to hear the footsteps of their attackers fading into the distance, but doesn't dare to stop and check. Santana can feel her wound bleeding, the warm liquid trickles down her left side and every movement of her upper body is punctuated by pain. Thankfully, after ten minutes or so of running and hiding, they can no longer hear or see their assailants.
They emerge from under the bridge, and Santana feels an immense sense of relief. They are back in Lopez territory, and out of the oven for now.
"Shit," Puck is sporting a badly cut lip, and he spits blood onto the pavement. "That was too fucking close."
Santana touches her cheek gingerly. There's going to be a nice bruised lump there tomorrow, but her still-bleeding shoulder is more worrying at this point. "You okay?" she asks.
"I'll live. How's the shoulder?" he replies.
"It's fine," she manages." Can you go back and get the car, though?"
"I don't think I should leave you alone though…"
"Go," she urges Puck. "I'll be fine."
He nods, pops his collar to hide his face, then turns on his heel to make his way down the street. "Get that shoulder looked at, ok?"
She smiles wanly. "I'm fine."
Puck waves goodbye and jogs off down the street.
She's not fine. The knife wound is fairly deep, deeper than she thought it was, and she's lost mobility in her left arm. She discards her long coat in the nearest trashcan and realizes she's lost way too much blood. Spots start edging her vision, the darkness growing with each passing moment. Shit, she curses to herself. Her stomach hurts, and she leans forward and pitches what little is in her stomach onto the pavement. When she feels a little better, she walks forward, placing one foot in front of the other in a concerted effort to move her towards safety. Her body, however, seems to have a hard time obeying her. She stops to regain her breath.
Then she hears something, but she has having a hard time focusing on the sound. Clicks. Rhythmic clicks. Footsteps? She looks up from the pavement, her limited vision darkening every passing moment.
A figure. A person. It stops. For what seems like eternity, it stands before her, stock still, taking inventory of the mess in front of it. Santana can't help herself when she says sarcastically,
"Can I help you?"
She tries to focus on the person's face, but everything swirls in front of eyes. But she can focus on the eyes. Green. Beautiful green eyes.
"Oh my God. You're bleeding."
Despite Santana's wooziness, she has to bite back another sarcastic remark. She tries to take a few steps back from the figure, the woman, but only stumbles back into the hard brick of the building behind her.
Her knees buckle.
The world goes black.
So what do you think? Any ideas on direction? Who was the mysterious lady? Review!