AN: Set after "Hold on to Sixteen". I chose Rachel and Santana as the two defining characters, but I really just like to think about this as a little group scene like the ones the show is so good at. I had to get Rory and Sugar out of the way, because this needs more like S2 dynamics. Hope you enjoy.

Rachel was standing at the piano straightening the sheet music for the twentieth time, looking at the clock. Where was Mr Schuester? Glee Club was supposed to start ten minutes ago and she had prepared a very inspirational mash-up of Broadway classics that celebrated the underdog. She had talked some members of the A/V club into preparing the auditorium and Rory and Sugar were there supervising the final touches. But she had to take over from Mr Schue here, explain her upcoming number and get everybody over there, change into her costume and then actually give her fifteen minute peptalk performance. Maybe Mr Schuester didn't deserve her genius. Rachel cleared her throat, trying to get the attention of the others. "Guys." A second try, louder. No one even blinked in her direction, they were all lost in their own little conversations. Even Finn seemed very intrigued by something Sam had to say. "Guys! A-and girls", she added hastily when the first response was a look of annoyance by Mercedes. "Please listen, I have a surprise for all of you. Although I think only Kurt will truly appreciate the work tha-"

"Please don't drag me into one of your crazy schemes without giving me a heads up first", Kurt deadpanned. He had forgiven Rachel for stuffing the ballot, since she took the blame for her actions, but he wasn't tired of teasing her about it yet.

"There is no scheming", she defended herself standing up a bit straighter. "And no singing part for you either, even though you will beg me after the first two minutes."

"Rachel is singing? Was there an assignment already? I don't see a word written on the white board yet." Puck sported his trademark dog-ate-my-homework look on his face.

"So these weekly assignments really are a regular thing and not just a prolonged joke to rile me up as the new kid?" Blaine mumbled to Kurt, he had hoped that after Sectionals and the Glee clubs getting back together he would finally see the real work ethics of New Directions.

"Focus, Noah. It's Monday, the week has just started. I simply prepared a nu-"

"Shouldn't we wait for Mr. Schue?", Tina asked.

Rachel threw her hands up in frustration and let out a growl. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. He isn't here, but my schedule is rather tight. That's why I'd like to start without him, so you could benefit from my choice of encouraging lyrics that…"

"But where are the others?" Mike interjected.

"Oh, Sugar and Rory are already in the auditorium. Unlike you they don't question my vast knowledge of the effects the right song can ha-"

"Santana surely does more than question you", Quinn snorted. "Is she helping you too?"

Rachel blinked. She stopped counting how rudely she was cut off within the past two minutes and looked around. "No… where is she? And Brittany. I haven't even noticed their absence." She sighed, maybe over the last weeks she had gotten accustomed to the fact that there were no snarky retorts in this room.

"Mercedes, they are back with us, it wasn't just for show the other day, right?" Artie seemed truly concerned.

"Oh, they are in, Santana promised me to stand beside me during our next diva off." She winked at Rachel to ease some of the tension that had slowly built up in the room. "Maybe Coach Sylvester is making them doing some extra laps again. Happened a couple of times during Trou… it happened."

"Oh, they are getting some extra exercise, all right." Puck raised a hand for a high five, but no one was willing to go there.

"Not cool, bro." Finn took his wrist to move his hand down.

"Come on, you know when the Lopez' train boards you don't get off that easily."

Finn felt his ears turning a deep shade of red, he lowered his head, but his eyes were trying to get a glimpse of Rachel. She had already crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Noah, would you please not bring up any kind of previous sexual encounters my boyfriend has had with persons that were not me? I know this club is really big on th-"

"Sorry, Rach. I didn't mean to offend, I was just making an assumption where our two lovely cheerleading friends might be right now." The spark in his eye showed exactly what he was thinking about and the others shuffled in their seats. Puck stopped with showing off big words. "Hey, I'm not the only one who ever has made out with them. Or at least one of them." He looked at everyone in turn, seeking some kind of agreement.

"Don't look at me", Blaine said raising his hands in a defensive gesture. "Besides Kurt I only kissed Rachel and that is as far as I want to walk along the incestuous flirtations of this club."

Kurt put a hand on Blaine's knee and squeezed it tight with a hushed aww-sound.

"Yeah, you're new to the game. You'll get the hang of it, sooner or later." Puck still didn't want to give up. "Sam, what about you? You had them both."

Sam's eyes went wide.

"Can we please stop talking about the kissing habits of Santana and Brittany?" Rachel rolled her eyes. "So Noah can make his peace, let's make this quick. Who here has never kissed either of them?" She put up a hand and watched Blaine doing the same. Everyone else suddenly seemed rather interested in the floor or the ceiling. "What?" Rachel slowly let her arm down. "Tina!"

The mentioned girl flinched. "It was one time. My freshman year. Even before Artie and I were together…"

"Artie and Tina were together?", Blaine whispered to Kurt who shushed him, intrigued by this new piece of information. In fact everyone was all eyes and ears. "It was a party down at the asian center. Mike even was the one who brought Brittany as a date."

"Oh, I remember that. She talked about dating everyone from the football team equally so nobody would feel left out."

"We ended up next to each other on a couch, she even said hi to me, remembering me from Glee club. I thought that was nice of her, so we had some small talk and all of a sudden she asked me if there was a difference in what asian boys and girls tasted like. I-I was… surprised. I mean… you know Brittany, she is just…"

"Brittany." Everyone intoned in unison.

Tina twiddled with the laces of her skirt while going on. "I said I wouldn't know, she asked if she could try and without knowing what I was agreeing to she kissed me."

Mike took Tina's hand into his, realizing how nervous she was for confessing, but he just smiled at her. "Now it makes sense that afterwards she said something about an experiment with unclear findings."

Tina tried a sheepish grin. "We kissed her the same night?"

"We kissed her the same night."

They pressed their noses together and the rest of the group finally looked away, giving the couple a bit of a private moment. Only Artie seemed a little upset by that story. It was one thing that Santana and Brittany always had their thing going on even while he was dating the blonde girl. But that that said girl had kissed his first girlfriend before him started to feel like some kind of messed up karma. Before anybody else could catch on to this string of coincidence he turned to Quinn, who was sitting next to him. "Were you at that party, too, Quinn?"

Puck's grin widened.

"I will not share any kind of smut with you. There really is none. Before we three joined the celibacy club", Quinn put a lot of emphasis into her words to remind the others that despite her pregnancy she wasn't the easy type, "we had a sleepover once and it involved talking about boys and how to learn kissing in general. Completely normal and harmless."

Quinn crossed her legs, put her hands around her knee and was clearly finished with spilling her beans. "Maybe that's how they got to Mercedes now as well", she added before Puck could put anything into words his mind surely imagined about such a sleepover.

"What? Sleepover? Me and those two? Hell no. Why are you even looking at me so surprised? You all were there." Nobody responded and Mercedes had to clarify. "Last year. Rachel's party. Spin the bottle. Ring any bell yet?"

"Right, spin the bottle. That's what you meant, right?" Sam finally remembered why Puck would mention him having both and nudged him on the shoulder. "Yes, Brittany gave Mercedes a peck, because she couldn't stop laughing and then we shared a smooch."

"Oh yes and Santana wasn't too happy about that." Mercedes had to hold back a laugh just now, because the scene flared up in her mind, but in a slightly different context. Maybe it hadn't been those Steven Tyler lips she was after that night. Sam's mind worked on its own already. Yes, Santana had been all over him the whole evening, even before the alcohol was added. But after spin the bottle she murmured something about the taste of his lips rather than their shape for once. It must have taken a while for Brittany's chapstick to wear off. But he smiled at Mercedes and shrugged it off. That was the past.

"So you all really have kissed at least Brittany or Santana at one point?" Rachel stumbled backwards to sit on Brad's chair. He was already waiting in the auditorium, but the work she had put into the music for today took a backseat to this really odd conversation.

Blaine looked quizzically at Kurt. "Even you?"

"It was just a miserable attempt of getting closer to my Dad. I had a Mellencamp phase and made out with Brittany, yes."

"I will let it slide that you kissed Brittany but gave me hell for what happened with Rachel, but… Mellencamp?"

"We all have our moments of regret."

"Are you talking about that abomination on your chest you call a sweater?" Santana's voice cut into the conversation like a knife. Nobody said a word for fear what she might have heard. "Gosh, tough crowd today? Sorry we are late, Sue caught us in the hall and made us do push-ups just for the kicks of it."

"Caught you doing what?" Puck blurted out.

"You're a pig, Puckerman." Santana stayed rather calm. Maybe because her pinky was safely linked with Brittany's or because there was more truth to Puck's statement if Brittany's trace of a smirk was any indication. "Where is Mr Schue? Has the vest police taken him into custody?"

"No idea", Finn said. He had tried to stay quiet the whole time and was welcoming the change of topic. "Rachel wanted to say something about it… I guess."

Normally this would have been her queue to - finally - explain what she had planned all along, but Rachel just sat there and looked from one Cheerio to the other, slightly shaking her head.

"I don't understand. If this is some kind of sport for you what a cruel joke is it to leave me out of it? Everyone else, but not me. It seems very deliberate. And harsh. It's simply unjust, because I'm the captain, I should experience what the others… experience."

Santana rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"What have you done to Berry now?"

The others shrugged their shoulders and were once again concentrating on the very fascinating patterns on the choir room walls while Rachel stammered on.

"For crying out loud", Blaine snapped. "Rachel is upset because apparently you two made out with everyone else of the original New Directions members."

Santana squinted. "Did you just say…" Blaine nodded. "So you had nothing better to do than to talk about Britt's and my… my…" She wanted to say something sassy, but for once she felt that any words she formerly used to describe make out sessions with her various conquests were downgrading what she had with Brittany. Luckily Mercedes chimed in.

"No, we weren't discussing you two, more like everybody else."

"Except for me", Rachel reminded them. "Of course I have two gay Dads. So maybe you thought…"

Brittany didn't listen to her and turned to whisper to Santana.

"Honey, I know how fast Rachel gets on your nerves, so if you want to I could shut her up real quick. You know I have totally abandoned my score card and I won't cross off Rachel of my kissing list, it would just be the fastest way to end this."

Santana smiled. Oh, she definitely wouldn't be jealous if Brittany went for that, but the way she described it sounded too good to pass up.

"Actually, would you mind, if I? Shutting Rachel Berry up sounds like something that could improve my day. It could give us full ten minutes of silence."

Brittany smiled back. "I bet if you use some tongue she won't come up with anything for half an hour."

"… so, now can we please focus on this?" Rachel held up the sheet music. "I don't want any more interruptions. You all cut me off as soon as I men-"

And it happened again. Rachel felt something pressing on her lips. Other lips. Santana's lips. She was too surprised to brush the girl off that leaned down to kiss her. It was like that moment during prom when Quinn had slapped her. Rachel knew she should be upset about it, but the dramatic tone of the gesture was intriguing. And… was that tongue? A hand cupped her cheek to hold her perfectly in place and the paper slipped from her hand. Only after her mouth was released did she notice her eyes were closed.

"That's how we do it in Lima Heights", Santana whispered before turning around, taking Brittany's hand and sitting down.