[this is a post-Frenemies (and absolutely does not incorporate anything from Trio) gen fix-it fic that i want to take elsewhere later, but for now just want to try to make them friends again.]
...
An alarm going off and a pounding headache wake her.
It takes Santana at least a minute of staring blearily at the ceiling to work out the two aren't connected. She doesn't even recognize her alarm; for the last six months she's been woken up by Rachel's vocal warm-ups at six am and—
That's not happening this morning. The apartment is just quiet.
The headache? Well, crying always did leave her dehydrated. It's been a while; she'd forgotten.
She's just so tired. She was tired before; exhausted from the, what? Thrill? Yeah, no. But the fight with Rachel, the immediate surge of that old instinct to go for the jugular, after so long without having to really drag Snix out, had left her drained, and completely at the mercy of Rachel's greatest diva storm out to date.
She can't even bring herself to be embarrassed about how she cried on Kurt's shoulder. She must have really been in a state for Kurt to ignore the mascara and eyeliner and even a smudge of lipstick she'd left on his Paul Smith shirt. The lipstick technically belonged to Rachel—technically in the sense that Rachel paid for it, though Santana had commandeered it the second she saw Rachel applying the freshly opened tube one morning, with a, "Nu uh. That is not a very Berry shade,"—and that had set her off all over again. She really isn't a good friend.
Isn't a friend at all. Probably isn't even capable of it. That's what everyone's always said; Brittany could say she was really a good person until she was blue in the face, but Brittany isn't here right now, which—
She lies on the couch until there's almost no chance she'll make it to rehearsal on time. Kurt's quietly snoring in his bed now; he's probably as exhausted as she is, since he was awake as late as she was, and comforting Santana was probably as tiring as being Santana. But she'll be damned if she's late on her second day. Not when Rachel will be there, waiting to point out all the reasons she shouldn't have gotten this role.
Everywhere she looks, as she gets ready to leave, there are gaps in the apartment, and she wonders at the way Rachel's so neatly extracted herself from every little corner of the space. Even her boxes of tea are gone, and somehow that's what pisses her off, because she steals some every morning and now she can't and her voice is going to sound awful if she has to sing today.
That pisses her off enough to stop crying over this.
…
She lets that carry her through her shower, where she glares at the cracked and peeling wall that's been revealed now that Rachel's Monday/Wednesday/Friday shampoo is no longer in front of it; through her subway ride, where Rachel always stops at the newsstand at the top of the stairs they always take to change from the L to the 1—which Santana hates, because that tunnel is disgusting and they could just walk the extra block from the 53rd Street B/D stop, but she still finds herself on the 1—before she remembers she needs to be at the theater, not the diner. She lets it carry her up out of the subway and into the middle of Times Square.
She's not above taking her aggression out on dumbass tourists, or locals for that matter. The guy shilling comedy tickets on the corner of 42nd looks like he might actually cry by the time she starts screaming that, "for the record, the only sister you'll have, by one mister or any other, will be yourself when I'm done removing your testicles."
There's a couple of cops lingering nearby, and one of them gives her a little clap as she stomps around the corner and towards the theater.
The sign outside the St. James says FUNNY GIRL in huge letters, but above it also says INTRODUCING RACHEL BERRY AS. It's almost as much of a slap in the face as the actual slap she'd received two days ago. It's the reminder she doesn't want, but probably needs right now: Rachel is the star here.
As if she'd ever forgotten.
Santana is just the understudy. How ironic that apparently Rachel needs the reminder more than Santana, when she's been hell bent on letting everyone know it for as long as Santana has known her.
But Santana can be the best little understudy the world's ever seen, and Rachel can choke on her own tongue for all Santana cares. With a breath, she straightens her dress, grips her makeup case a little tighter, and shoves the stage door open.
...
Yesterday had been all about the real reason she was there—and, Santana suspects, a final test, even if no one said so—but today they have her slotting into the regular pace of rehearsals and she spends the morning hopping from office—she can't be paid if they don't have her bank details—to rehearsal space—everything she learns one day with Rachel she does the next day with the other understudies—to vocal rehearsal, to wardrobe, where she's told she's too thin, until everyone breaks for lunch and she wants to lie down under a rack of clothes and take a nap.
Yeast-i-stat commercial and two high school musicals aside, she's not ignorant to the fact that she's really new to all this. Being in New Directions certainly didn't do anything to prepare her for a single damn thing in the entire universe, and working at Coyote Ugly wasn't much more than moving her hips while she sprayed guys with soda water. But she's got the talent, and everything else is just a matter of being shown the ropes.
She hopes.
If anything, the schedule and preparation more closely resemble Cheerios training than any other thing in her life, and nine months without Coach Sue yelling at her to move "as if Hitler himself were chasing her pink-triangle-branded, genetically-predetermined-to-eventually-explode, ass" isn't long enough for her to have gone soft yet, so she hauls herself up to the top floor, to theupstairs bathroom, which is really more of a communal dressing room, and grabs her stuff.
She texts Dani as she makes her way back down, letting her know she's coming by the diner, and she makes a mental note to just not wear heels here anymore because she's going to fall and break her neck and she'd rather not give Rachel the satisfaction. Who, speaking of, is just coming out of her own dressing room.
That sick feeling she thought was from all the crying she's pretending she didn't do and has been ignoring since she woke up can no longer be ignored.
She hasn't seen Rachel all morning. She hasn't wanted to see Rachel all morning. She could quite happily go the rest of her life never again seeing Rachel in the morning, or at any other time of the day. From the look Rachel gives her before retreating back into the room, the feeling is decidedly mutual.
Her stomach roils as she turns to leave, but it's been hours since breakfast and she's probably hungry.
Santana wonders if Rachel and her private dressing room are having a really good time together. If she also wonders where Rachel slept last night, well, as Rachel's non-friend, that's none of her business.
…
"So how are we all doing today? Sunshine and kitty cats, right?"
They've been called into Rupert's office, both she and Rachel. Santana's full of the free basket of fries Dani smuggled her for lunch at the diner—"you told me not to give you any burgers this week, but you look like you need about five"—where she made the right noises of support—knowing Santana's burger level was definitely a part of that-but mostly just tried to stay neutral.
Rachel looks like she's full of lemons she ate from an old shoe.
"Wait, did you just call us pussies?"
"I thought it was rainbows and puppies."
Rupert glares at them both.
"Whatever it is, it better be happy. Ecstatic. Over the moon to be two friends cast in the same Broadway Adam Hetrick is coming to this afternoon's rehearsal, and we are all going to be on our best, most friendly behavior. He's got a camera crew with him and they're going to film some of rehearsal and then do a quick chat with both of you to put up online."
"Together?" Santana can practically hear Rachel's teeth grind.
"Yes, together. The story is about both of you." The condescending way he directs this at Rachel is almost enjoyable. "Twice as famous, remember."
"Well," Rachel says casually, standing to leave. "Santana should be accustomed to having footage online, what with her sex tape and all."
Call her stupid, and naive, and a babe in the woods, but she's actually stunned that Rachel would stoop so low. That— video's existence is something she spends almost no time thinking about and very limited amounts of time being terrified over in a way that nothing has terrified her since before she came out to her family. So she'd forgotten that amongst all the things they know about each other, all the little bits and pieces of ammunition they have to use against each other, Rachel actually has something that could ruin her career before it has a chance to begin. And she'd gone for it almost immediately.
"Well at least somebody would want to see my sex tape," she hears herself say, and then she checks out while she runs at the mouth and lets Rachel's returned volleys wash over her.
"Ladies! That's enough," Rupert finally intervenes, as Santana's getting in a few jabs about the sounds Rachel makes when she's having sex and Rachel's accusing her of getting off on them. "Santana, is this true?"
"What, that Rachel sounds like a dying chicken when she has a big O? Yes, it's true." At Rupert's glare, she rolls her eyes, mostly at herself, because if she's going out she's going out swinging. "It's not... exactly as bad as it sounds. It's mostly just a video of my ex-girlfriend's cat doing the dishes, but you may also see my boobs."
Rupert just nods. "Okay, that's fine."
Santana's face goes slack, and she can practically feel the way Rachel snaps to attention beside her. She was expecting to be told to get her things and get out.
"Look," Rupert continues, "we can probably work with that. It's a good video right? You look like you're make a good sex tape."
Okay, ew, and she hears Rachel echo her thought. If this guy asks to see it she's going to punch him.
"Anyway, send it to PR, they'll check it out, but unless it's something freaky or unattractive, it's probably fine. But tell me more about this girlfriend business, because… How do you two—" he gestures at her and Rachel—"feel about a PR romance in a few months time?"
...
They are not fake dating.
She really hopes that between the two of them, they made that incredibly clear. What even would they have to do? Show up at events together, be seen in public together. Hold hands? Oh god, would she have to kiss Rachel? There's no way she's getting paid enough for that. How would that even work, with Rachel's nose and general personality getting in the way?
Anyway: not happening.
They would have to be talking for that to be happening, which they are also not doing, which suits Santana fine. Right now it's her job to just watch, and wait for them to figure out the scene blocking; no talking to Rachel required.
The reporter from Playbill is sitting beside her in the stalls, far enough back that they can chat but close enough that they can still follow what's happening on stage. Rachel and Rupert are running through 'I'm the Greatest Star', Rachel doing the beginning monologue and moving about the stage as if there were other actors to interact with even though it's just her.
"No," Santana finally says in response to Adam's question. "We weren't always friends."
Santana just doesn't get it. It was Rachel who went out of her way to become Santana's friend. Rachel who came to her and made her do that stupid song for Finn and Brittany. Rachel who said she should move to New York. Rachel who said she believed in Santana, years ago when everyone thought she was a traitor to the glee club and weeks ago when she was all over the place about where she wanted to take her life.
They were competing with each other through all of that. Actually competing, not whatever the hell Rachel has going on in her pretty little head in the clouds right now. She knows Rachel's ego is the size of Uranus, but she's actually gone insane.
It should be awesome; it's her very first interview about her very first role. This guy, who she quickly googled because, okay she knows what is but it's not like it's her homepage in Chrome or anything. It's not even a link on her Speed Dial shortcuts; she's not Rachel, who once spent an hour monologuing about where she would like her first interview with Susan Blackwell to take place. (A day spa, before they ride around Central Park in a horseless carriage.)
The point is, she gets that this is important and therefore awesome. She does.
"So what were the two of you like together in high school?" Adam asks her. "Competitive?"
They're running the same verse over and over. There's not much to it, but Rachel pauses midstride at one point, does this little shuffle… thing, on an overstuffed line in the song, and then lands her foot on the next beat.
Why she's repeating this one verse again and again, Santana doesn't know, and the jaunty trill of music is starting to grate on her nerves. She can feel the urge to just blurt out something about Rachel's weird walk or her nose causing her to overbalance rising up inside her, but— this is her job. It isn't sitting in the risers during glee club, saying whatever she felt like saying just because she was having a bad day. She's better than that. Now, anyway. And she's—
God, she doesn't want that to be the way this plays out. She could go and go and go, until Rachel snaps, or snaps at Santana, and one of them is so far gone neither of them can walk this back to anything resembling friendship.
For that alone she can swallow it all down.
"Yeah, I guess," she says, watching Rachel move back to her mark to start again even though they've done it at least ten times now. "We were in the school musical together." She doesn't want to mention the Troubletones, or New Directions, or dodgeball or Finn or being Coach's spy. The musical is one of the few memories she has of high school where things weren't a constant fight. "It was West Side Story. Rachel was Maria, I was Anita."
"So she's always been the lead?"
"Yeah," Santana says, even less focused on Adam than before, watching as Rachel steps about the stage. "She's always been the lead."
It should grate. In fact it should burn her like crazy. But it's like saying the sky is blue, or Breadstix is the greatest restaurant on the planet, or that scissoring is overrated unless you and your partner are incredibly flexible and enjoy a certain level of frustration, and to say otherwise would make Santana the crazy one here. She's never wanted to deny Rachel her due, she's just wanted her own. She thought Rachel understood that. How else could they be friends if she didn't?
Rachel does the little shuffle again on the next run-through, but she holds it longer and steps after the beat, sending herself staggering into the next line. It's the only difference Santana spots from the previous run, but somehow it has the whole thing working— better. Santana has no idea why, it just is, and Rachel nods as if to confirm Santana's assessment and they move on to the next part.
"She's…" There's this knot of sadness trying to twist her stomach inside out. "If you don't want what's hers, she's the biggest cheerleader you'll ever have. It's ironic, because I was a cheerleader and we all hated Rachel for most of high school."
They watch Rachel on stage in silence for a moment, and then Adam asks "And now?"
"She's the reason I'm even here."
Rupert waves her up on stage then, and she leaps out of her seat and leaves Adam behind. She'd rather stand closer to Rachel's frostiness than answer any more of these questions.
…
There's no one home when she gets in. There's no Kurt, and— What else was she even expecting? There's no one home.
She emails the woman from PR. She accidentally opens the preview while she's looking for the file, and there it is in all its glory, and she slaps at the spacebar because Lord Tubbington with a feather duster tied to his tail is the last thing she needs after the day she's had.
She thinks about calling Brittany. Then she thinks about calling Quinn—and that's an association she's going to have to work on breaking. But neither of them are neutral observers, and neither of them were here when Rachel nearly burned down the apartment and they sat outside while the fire department confirmed that it was mostly smoke, eating popsicles from the bodega even though it was still nearly freezing, just because they could. Neither of them were here when Santana had the flu and Rachel wore one of those face masks Chinese people wear but still brought her juice and tea and was generally less annoying for a few days. Neither of them were here when Rachel thought she was pregnant and Brody turned out to be a gigolo. Neither of them were here when Finn died.
Neither of them will believe what Santana is trying not to doubt. It had been so easy to throw Rachel's words back at her in the moment, but. They are friends. No matter what Rachel said. No matter what she said.
"You should totally move here," Rachel said, months ago now. Well, here she is, and Rachel was drunk when she'd said that.
It's not even 10pm but she sets up her place on the couch and wills herself to sleep, Rachel's bed left unmade and empty behind Rachel's curtain, in Rachel's room.
...
...
She wakes up to Kurt quietly making tea ten feet from her head.
"Morning," he says when he notices she's awake. "Tea will be done in a minute."
"Thanks," she croaks out, wondering if he bought the same tea Rachel drinks. Maybe Kurt used to steal it, too. "I didn't hear you come in last night."
Kurt pours two mugs of tea, adds sugar to Santana's and brings them both over to set on the table, sitting before he responds. "I went to talk to Rachel."
Of course he did.
She sips from her cup, and it's not the same as Rachel's tea but it will do.
"Where'd she go last night?" she eventually asks.
"She wouldn't say. She barely said anything." Kurt sighs tiredly. "Honestly, I have no idea what's going on with her right now."
They quietly drink their tea, both at a loss for anything else to say. There's nothing they can do about this until Rachel sees reason. They've both known Rachel for years now; they might be waiting a while.
Out of nowhere Kurt says, "I'm not going to ask you to leave so she comes back."
That hadn't even occurred to her, but now that she thinks about it, it probably should have.
"You're my friend, too, Santana," Kurt says, reading her mind. "And look, even if I don't want to take sides here, Rachel's made it clear that… well, she's made nothing clear, but this isn't—" Kurt rubs his face tiredly. "She'll get over it eventually."
"Thanks," she says, though what she's thanking him for is unclear. "So she's really not coming back? Did she say anything at all?"
"Not until you apologize for what you did," Kurt says, shrugging his disagreement. "We're going to have to put the band on hold until we sort this out."
"I didn't do anything," she says. "I don't want to put anything on hold."
"I know," Kurt says, and reaches out to pats her hand. "I don't think I ever said, by the way. But congratulations."
It takes her a second to work out what he's talking about, and for the first time since Rupert called her she actually smiles about the fact that she just landed her first role on Broadway.
...
In all the drama, she hasn't even told her parents.
They've been pretty supportive of the whole dropping out of college thing. Her mom had suggested she not mention the go-go dancing or the bar to her father, but other than that they both just want her to be happy, and it's so fucking weird that this is how they've turned out to be in her adult life.
She calls them as she walks to the subway. Her dad is ecstatic that he can stop telling people she was in that commercial. Her mom is in turns over the moon for her, mad as hell at Rachel, and so excited she actually curses, which makes everything else almost worth it.
Still, she finds herself defending Rachel halfheartedly.
"Mami, don't be mad at Rachel, okay. She's just... being Rachel."
"I don't care," Maribel says. "You won that roll fair and square."
It itches, because— she did, but there's still that whole joined at the hip, twice as famous, besides being incredibly talented thing.
…
…
Their profile on goes up on Friday.
It's been so easy to avoid each other. They don't arrive together. They don't really rehearse together. They don't work the same shifts at the diner. They don't go home together. They don't live together.
Instead, she spends hours of her day watching Rachel because that's her job, and tries not to imagine how different this could be. How much fun they could be having, instead of this horrible silent-filled stalemate where Rachel acts as if she doesn't exist, and Santana pretends that's perfectly fine.
She has other friends. The chorus girls talk to her on breaks, at least.
"Nice piece, but obviously bullshit. She's kind of a bitch," one of the girls says as they're warming up, someone's laptop open on the floor with the profile up on the screen, and Santana rolls her eyes because seriously, bitch is the best they can come up with?
"Serious diva," chorus girl number two says. Santana's snort of derision grabs their attention. "Hey new girl, what's she really like? Give it up already."
Santana's not sure what they all actually envision her and Rachel's history as, but if it's based on how they've been behaving all week, it's probably completely wrong.
Actually, given their long-term history, it's probably completely right.
…
They have a few scenes to rehearse, so Rachel doesn't disappear once she's done with a scene like she has been all week.
It's a hell of a lot easier to pretend someone's not ignoring you when you're keeping far away from each other, but now they're standing side by side on stage while Rupert talks to Paolo and it's impossible not to notice that Rachel won't even look at her.
Rachel runs a scene, and then they switch her out for Santana. Now that she's had a chance to work through it with the other understudies, and even with Rachel glaring at her from the edge of the stage, she feels like she's finally settling into this beyond her ability to mimic Rachel's performance. Which is great, but when Rupert likes her line reading in the scene where Fanny and Nick are fighting for the first time, Rachel visibly clenches at the praise.
They're waiting at the side of the stage while Rupert and Paolo and his understudy discuss something, and she can't just stand there in silence anymore.
"So, listen—"
"No."
And that's it. This is how it's gonna be.
…
The pair have been side by side through most of high school, despite being at odds thanks to a rivalry between Berry's glee club and Lopez's cheerleading team.
Then Lopez crossed the floor, joining glee club and helping them to Nationals and then a National championship, despite a brief period in another glee club.
After high school, the pair went their separate ways; Berry to NYADA, Lopez to, of all places, the University of Kentucky. But a bad breakup, and Berry's encouragement to come to New York had Santana packing her bags and heading for the big city.
"Rachel's always been the lead," Lopez says of their history. "She's the reason I'm even here."
Berry's a lot more circumspect about her involvement in Lopez's rise. "Santana's good at spotting an opportunity."
When asked whether they each thought the other would end up at this point, both of them answered decisively. "Of course."
…
Rachel quits the diner.
Gunter tells her when she arrives that night, and Santana wishes she were at all surprised.
Santana's pissed, because she would have to have done it right after rehearsal, and Santana's stuck covering both their shifts at once, because Friday night with a staff of performers means no one's answering their phone and by the time she gets home she's filthy, tired, and just—
The diner's practically their private life, in comparison to the show, and the fact that it's their last tie outside the show, and something that Santana had done to help out Rachel, is the last straw for Santana.
It's like her resistance slowly sinks under the weight of Rachel's obvious rejection, and she trudges through the apartment in the just-rising sunlight, grabs her bedding, strips to her underwear and collapses onto the unmade bed wrapped in her quilt.