The Story of Us

by loudmouthgeek

AU: Spin-off of "Beautiful Lost Girl" Mike and Santana are the only Gleeks that wind up on The West Coast. This is their story. Very, very M rated.

Disclaimer: I own neither Glee nor any part thereof. No money is being made off of this story and is intended only for entertainment purposes; therefore it falls within the parameters of "Fair Use"

A/N: So this is a spinoff of a story called "Missing Things" which in itself is the second part of my "Beautiful Lost Girl" series, although conceivably you could read this as a standalone if you wanted to.

For those that haven't read BLG, the series is AU and Faberry-centric. In it, Quinn's older sister comes and takes Quinn to live with her and her husband after the events of "Sectionals" sophomore year. She leaves McKinley and Lima and isn't heard from again for several years. When New Directions loses at Regionals that year, Sue doesn't save them so they are officially disbanded, but they stay together unofficially through the next year. Rachel's feelings for Quinn cause her to bond with Santana and Brittany over missing Quinn, and when the blow-up between Brittany and Santana happens in "Duets" instead of using Artie to make Santana jealous, Brittany just retreats into her friendship with Rachel and they eventually wind up best friends living together in NYC.

I know it's monstrously long, 49 pages in a 9-point font, over 26k words and I'd have broken it up but I couldn't find a good place to break it that I felt suited the structure.

And finally, Warnings: There are some things in here that might offend people so I'll lay them out here. Story contains underage drinking, references to drug use/abuse, implied RPF, group sex and since this spins off from a femslash story, I'll warn you that it also contains graphic depiction of heterosexual sex. If any of this offends you, don't read. Thanks. Hope everyone else enjoys.

The Story of Us

"Changster!"

"Santana?" Mike said. He hadn't really meant it as a question because of course he'd recognized her voice and pretty much only Santana called him that anymore. The uncertainty was more to do with why she was calling at 11:00 on a Friday night. Typically this was the time that Santana would be working on getting into the pants of some bi-curious girl she found at a party or that she'd sniffed out in one of her classes. "You strike out tonight, or was she just not worth a crap?"

"No, none of that shit," she replied, "I just started drinking too early."

"Oh. Is there a lesbian equivalent of Whiskey Dick?" Mike asked.

"No, just a lesbian equivalent of listening to your stupid friends when they try to convince you to go to a townie party that turns out to be full of tall, skinny, blue eyed blonde girls, and you know why I can't go there," she said.

"Shit," Mike said, "yeah, I'm sorry, Santana. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Yeah," Santana responded quickly, "talk dirty to me."

"What?" Mike replied almost certain he'd misheard his best friend, an out and proud lesbian, on the other end of the phone.

"Use your words to describe to me all the ways in which, if you were here, you would eat my pussy. Help me out here."

"You're gay," Mike said.

"You know, strangely enough, when someone's face is between your legs, unless they have a ton of facial hair, it's really hard to tell which gender they are, and if they're doing it right, it's also really hard to give a shit."

"Santana, what's going on?"

"What's going on is I'm wet as shit over here and you're supposed to be my friend, but you aren't doing anything to help me with this problem. Get to talking," Santana demanded. When Mike didn't respond immediately she continued saying, "Listen I'll help you out just to get you going, okay? Incoming."

Mike's phone chimed indicating a new e-mail, so since he'd been sitting in front of his computer since before Santana had called he opened up his e-mail account and there before him were three pictures of Santana in nothing but a tiny black thong touching her naked body in various ways. "Fuck Santana," he said.

"Nope," she said, "just go down on Santana. Now what are you gonna do to me?"

Mike held the phone away from his head and sighed. He realized that arguing with her would take longer and be more of a headache than just giving her what she wanted, so he resignedly ran his fingers through his hair and said, "Well, I've never been one to work around clothes if I didn't have to, so first I need to get rid of your panties…"

X X X X X

Three weeks later they were in the same places. In the intervening time they'd had four encounters on the phone and one rather awkward and unsatisfying bout of Skype sex, mostly because Mike didn't know what to do with himself during so he just sat there talking. Santana told him to act it out, but he refused to act like he was going down on his webcam.

Tonight's phone session, the first since Skyping hadn't worked out, was also less than satisfactory. Santana kept groaning but not in a good way, but rather in frustration that she wasn't even close to getting off. "Can you…" she growled out.

"Can I what?" Mike asked, "What can I do?"

"Can you just get on a fucking plane and come do this shit for reals?" she asked.

Mike was floored at the request, "Two minutes ago you were telling me to hurry up and get you off and now you're willing to wait for me to get dressed, drive fifteen minutes to the nearest airport, wait for a plane headed for LA, take the hour long flight, come pick me up at the airport, and drive back to your place just so that I can go down on you in person instead of over the phone?"

"I can take a cab to come pick you up," Santana said, "That way you can finger me on the ride back to my place."

"Well, shit Santana, why not just get a room at the airport hotel?" said Mike. "That way the whole thing can be nothing more than a layover."

"Now that," Santana said, "is a hell of an idea. I like the way you think."

Mike just scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Somehow I don't see it as a worthwhile expenditure of my time and money, flying round trip to and from LA just to pleasure you without any chance of you returning the favor."

"Who the fuck said I wouldn't return the favor?" Santana said. Mike said nothing because he genuinely had no idea what to say. Senior year of high school, they'd gotten pretty close. She had dated his good friend Sam Evans junior and most of senior year so Mike and Santana spent a lot of time together as well. So much so, in fact, that when she and Sam broke up they had remained friends and eventually she'd told him that she was gay. They'd both moved to California for school, he to Stanford and she to UCLA, and she not only came out of the closet almost as soon as they got there, but she'd blown the closet up on the way out. As far as he knew Santana was 100% about the ladies. Every sexual encounter she'd told him far too much about was with another or multiple other girls. Her Tumblr was full of pictures of beautiful, mostly naked women. She even had a "Top 25 Famous Chicks I'm Gonna Fuck" list for once her fame hit. "I am in serious need of some goddamn relief here, Mike. I need someone who can actually get me my fix and if you can walk the walk like you talk the talk, then you are just the person I need. I am definitely not going to fuck you but I'd be willing to suck your dick as a thank you. What's a shot in the mouth between friends, right?"

"Did it ever fucking occur to you that I don't want an obligatory blowjob?" Mike barked.

"Um, no," Santana replied almost laughing at the thought.

"Well, okay, fine," Mike said, "I'd take an obligatory blowjob but I'm not getting on a plane to get it. You know, Santana, I know you can be really self-centered a lot of the times, and honestly I like the phone sex. Listening to you come is really fucking hot, but if this is all we are to you anymore then do me a favor and lose my fucking phone number, okay?" He hung up without listening for an answer.

The next day, Saturday, when he got home from the dance class that his parents didn't know he took on the side, he found Santana on his doorstep sitting on her jacket, a case of beer on either side of her serving as arm rests as she read the textbook perched on her knees. She was wearing her glasses which even Mike had only seen a couple of times and doing that thing where she sticks the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth that she does when she's deep into whatever she's reading. So lost was she in fact that she didn't even notice Mike until he was standing above her. "I'm an asshole," she said.

"Yes, you are," he said offering her a hand up which she accepted. "You wanna get drunk and see how well I can walk the walk?"

"No," she said, "Because that's not all that we are. I flew all the way up here. We should go out and do something fucking legendary. Is there anywhere to go around here?"

"Here in Stanford," he said with a laugh, "no, but San Francisco is only about 45 minutes from here. There's usually some trouble worth getting into there."

In SF, they bar hopped for a couple of hours. Their fake ID's weren't the best in the world, Puck made them as graduation presents, but they worked well enough apparently because no one even looked twice at them. At the fourth place they hit, Santana found them some trouble to get into in the form of a pair of twin sisters. "What if neither of them have same-sex tendencies, or for that matter, opposite sex tendencies?" Mike asked.

"They will by the end of the night," Santana said. Sure enough, several hours later both sisters had screamed both Santana and Mike's names through orgasm, and though she wouldn't admit it, there were several times through the course of the evening where Santana would watch intently as Mike fucked whichever of the girls wasn't with her at the time. Not just his dick working in and out of her, though she did watch that too, but watched Mike, watched his well defined abs flexing, watched his face bunch up every time he'd feel an orgasm building, watched him smirk ever so slightly when one of the girls would call out his name, and watched him slowly build a sheen of sweat at the effort he was putting into it. It was all really fucking hot she thought.

X X X X X

"Fuck the goddamn law, Mike," Santana said, "You know and I know that shit is making you miserable. You are a fucking dancing machine, that shit is what you were put on this Earth to do. All this other crap is just you being too much of a fucking pussy to grab your life by the fucking balls and be your own man." They were in Lake Havasu, Arizona for Spring Break. Santana wasn't entire sure why they needed to drive five hours to go to the beach when there were a multitude of perfectly good beaches in LA, but whatever, Mike wanted to go and he'd been in funk the last couple of weeks so why the hell not exactly? Fifteen minutes after they arrived at the beach the first day, Santana was in the water just up to her waist and had her fingers inside this tiny, little feisty redhead and she decided maybe this Spring Break shit was alright after all. Not because of the ginger whose name Santana forgot the second she heard it, mind; because after Santana gave the girl two back to back orgasms she found out that the redhead pretty well sucked at giving so Santana got bored and basically humped the girl's leg to get off before sending her back to her life of blowing frat boys. Rather Santana started to warm up to Spring Break because they could just unwind. Nobody knew them here. There weren't any societal pressures here. Santana didn't have a voice coach here telling her to take better care of her throat. Mike didn't have family members with high expectations of him.

That, plus alcohol, is what had provoked Santana to rail on Mike's course load seemingly out of nowhere. They actually hadn't mentioned school since Mike had made it to Santana's in LA three days earlier so it came a little out of the blue and Mike was left somewhat flabbergasted. He and Santana didn't really talk about things. Mike was kind of a reserved guy and Santana was pretty much allergic to feelings, so the sudden seriousness was a little unexpected and overwhelming. He would have just chalked it up to the alcohol, but that usually just made Santana horny or weepy or sometimes a gross combination of both. "Where did that come from?" he asked.

"It came from fucking a year and a half of watching the fucking joy drain out of your life, dude," she said with an honestly that quite frankly surprised even Santana, "And I don't know what the source of your current funk is but you spending every fucking hour of every fucking day studying Law which I know for a fact that you hate and have zero desire to do is part of it. Wanna tell me the rest of it?"

"But… we… we don't…"

"Yeah," she cut him off, "we don't talk about shit like this, but look around you, Mike. We're on Spring Break. No one knows us here; we can be whoever we want to be here, now and for the next five days, and right now I want to be the version of Santana that listens when her best friend has shit on his mind."

Mike's partially intoxicated brain was racing to keep up with this conversation and finally after almost a full minute of silence she said, "Best friend?"

"Duh, genius, you seen anyone else around recently? You think I spend hours on the phone with you every Friday for some other reason, I mean, it's not like you give me phone oral every week anymore," she said, "I mean, you would if I asked you to because you're that kind of a guy, so maybe just this once let me be there for you when you need it."

"You want to give me phone oral?" he asked deflecting.

"I'd give you real oral if I thought it would actually make you feel better about life instead of just more confused by it," she said, "Now are you going to talk?"

"It's stupid," Mike said before taking a pull off of his beer, "I don't even know why I let it bother me, but… I sorta heard through the grapevine that Tina is back with Artie, and I've just started to question like everything, did she really love me or was I just a play to get Artie to straighten up which I know is stupid because we were together for two years, her and Artie were only together for a couple of months and they'll only be together for another couple of months before college."

"Are you still in love with her?" Santana asked.

"I don't know," he said shaking his head, "First loves are, y'know… when they… they're kind of a mind fuck."

"Yeah," Santana said definitively, "Boy do I fucking know that."

"Do you hold out any hope for you and Brittany ever getting together?"

"Not really," Santana said with a sigh, "I'm pretty sure we were in love at one point. I mean, I know for a fact that I was in love with her and I'm pretty sure she loved me. We never said it, but…" She trailed off and stared into her scotch. "Anyway, we talk occasionally now and it's nice to have my friend and shit but I can tell just by listening that she's moved on, and I'm okay with that, or at least I'm trying to be. God knows she deserves it. I take it you were holding out hope for you and Tina?"

"I guess so," he said, "I mean she applied to Berkeley so I was hoping to maybe try commuting across the Bay, but I dunno, she got into City College in New York and she pretty much can't shut up about it. So much so that I don't even know if she even got into Berkeley or not, so I guess she isn't really all that interested in going there which leaves us in the same boat as you and Britt, 3,000 miles apart and nothing but memories to hold onto. How did you get over her?"

"Who the fuck says I'm over her?" Santana shot back at him very quickly. "I mean, do you remember how the whole phone oral thing started?" It takes him a minute before he recalls that there was a townie party full of tall, blue eyed blondes. "But how I let go of her was just to get back out there. How many girls have you been with since high school?"

"Discounting phone sex, three," he said.

"If you're talking about me, then that was phone oral, not phone sex, but neither way does it count. And are you fucking serious? Three? That Kendra chick from your building and the Doublemint twins in San Fran?" Mike just nodded. "Okay, then you definitely needs to at least get your dick sucked tonight."

"You say that like I just make a decision and it gets done."

"Dude, look the fuck around," Santana said, "We're in one of the like Top Five Spring Break spots in North America. There's half a trillion girls in town, 90% or more of them are DTF, and have you seen you? Boyishly handsome, ripped to shit, and packing a serious meat missile, so yeah, at least in this particular environment, yes, you make a decision and it gets done. Hell, I bet you breakfast tomorrow that we don't even have to leave this bar to get you the hook-up."

"So the wager is that someone in this bar will go home with me tonight? I'm not taking that bet."

"No," she corrected, "the wager is someone in this bar will go down on you… in this bar."

"Okay," he said, "I'll take that wager." They quickly shake on it and Santana turns to survey the room. "Of course, you know that to win this bet all I have to do is walk out of the bar right now, right?"

"What" said Santana, "because you'd rather get a free breakfast than get head?"

"Fair point," he conceded.

They both turn around to survey the bar they're in and it, like everywhere else in town, is packed to the rafters. Mike looks for cute girls that he might want to buy a drink and maybe make a move on. Santana looks for girls that look hungry for something. She knew the look because she wore it often. It took almost no time for her to spot a couple of potentials. "Oh, I'z about to win this bet in record fucking time," she said, "just stands here and look cute and shit." Before Mike could respond, Santana was crossing the room to a gaggle of girls huddled around two pitchers of daiquiris and laughing like mad. "Ladies," she said to the collected group, "I was wondering if one or more of you could do me a huge favor." Eight pairs of eyes were all on her immediately and Santana was suddenly happy to see that she could still command that type of attention when she wanted. "My friend over at the bar, the tall Asian guy in jeans and t-shirt, he's hot, right?" There was a general consensus on this point. "Well, it's his first Spring Break, both of ours, actually, and I'm having a blast but Mike isn't. He's too stressed about some shit he can't control and… well honestly the dude needs a blowjob in the worst way, and I'd do anything to help a friend but I'm pretty gay and I don't think I'd be as into it as I really should be. I was wondering if any of you ladies would want to help my buddy out." Every eye at the table all immediately shifted directions to exactly where Santana expected them to, three seats to Santana's left to this absurdly tall blonde with huge tits, Angelina lips, and a straw cowboy hat. She couldn't have been more obvious if she'd been wearing a shirt that said "Loves Sucking Dick" Santana thought. To her credit, she didn't even try to look embarrassed about her predilection. She just tipped back the last of her drink, handed her purse to a friend and went off to help Mike unwind and enjoy Spring Break. When they were out of sight, Santana looked around the table and said, "So who's into pussy?"

After a couple of minutes of nervous laughter among a few of the girls, this tiny little brunette girl raised her hand and said, "I've always been kind of curious…"

"Nope," Santana cut her off. "Sorry honey, normally I like nothing more than taking some bi-curious straight girl home and fucking the shit out of her, but I've already collected my toaster oven for this trip and now Mama needs to bust an epic sized nut and I ain't got the patience for a tutorial right now. If you aren't a cunning linguist, you aren't getting a piece of Santana Lopez tonight." She returned to the bar without another word.

Twenty minutes later, Santana was still waiting for Mike to make his way out of wherever he was with the blonde when a light skinned black woman with a wild, untamed afro sidled up to sit next to Santana in Mike's spot. Santana gave her the once over and realized that she was sitting at the big table earlier. "Hi," she said extending her hand, "Zoe Washington, cunning linguist, master debater, thinking I might like a piece of Santana Lopez tonight." She dropped her voice and finished, "All night."

"Oh yeah?" Santana said with a sly smile. "I like the confidence. I hope you've got the moves to back it up."

"Oh, I've got moves," she said, "That's not the issue."

"What's the issue?" Santana asked.

"The issue is that I really had my heart set on a threesome tonight," Zoe said so matter-of-factly that Santana couldn't help but smile into her drink. "I've never had one. Always wanted to try it, and well, y'know, it's Spring Break."

"I do know, indeed. I'd gladly take on you and any of your friends, except for the blowjob queen. She's so painfully straight that…"

"I have no interest in fucking any of my friends," Zoe cut Santana off. "Aside from me, they're all, as you put it, painfully straight. I was thinking more along the lines of your friend." Santana couldn't help but snort at this request because apparently she and Mike couldn't go anywhere without the end result being group sex. Before she could explain, Zoe asked, "What's so funny? He's not…" she waggled her pinky finger up and down, "is he? I mean, I hate that I'm a size queen, but I am."

Santana laughed aloud at this, but quickly shook off Zoe's concern. "No, no, nothing like that," she said, "I mean, like I said, I'm no connoisseur of cocks or anything but I've seen what he's packing and if it's not the biggest I've ever seen, it's Top Two or Three of All Time." Santana glanced up just in time to see Mike reemerge from the restroom area looking considerably more relaxed. "Speak of the devil," Santana said, "he may take a bit of convincing since he just had a romp with your friend, but he'll do it."

X X X X X

Three hours later, the alcohol-induced haze began to clear from Mike's head and he started to take in his location. It's not as though he'd blacked out or anything. He remembered the broad strokes of the night's events: Karyn blowing him in the men's room and him fingering her in response to her talents. Then the girl at the bar with Santana when he came back, the same girl currently bent over in front of him with his dick buried inside her and from the sounds she was making he was rocking her fucking world. Then he cleared his head a little more and realized that it's not the girl, who he really, really hoped was named Zoe because Mike was so not the guy to just fuck somebody whose name he didn't know, but anyway he realized that she wasn't the one moaning for more and harder and calling his name; it was Santana, who was reclining against a mountain of pillows with her head leaning against the headboard. She was naked and playing with one of her breasts with one hand while the other was fisted in Zoe's afro holding the girl hard against her pussy while Mike rammed her and he wished there was a better word for it but there really wasn't because he was just giving it to her hard and fast. She was wet, her pussy was on fire, and the sounds coming from her were definitely not complaints, so he really couldn't bring himself to feel bad about it. Mike also couldn't help but think that the image in front of him was maybe the hottest thing he had ever or would ever see.

Santana, meanwhile, was watching intently as Mike fucked Zoe hard as hell making her moan and scream, all right up inside Santana and fuck did that ever feel amazing. Don't get her wrong, Zoe had nice lips, a talented tongue, strong fingers, and solid technique, but Santana's had enough people eat her out to know that the orgasm building inside her was at least 50%, if not more, Mike's doing and she was having trouble giving a shit about that fact at the moment. Looking up at him Santana couldn't help but think that the image of Mike Chang naked and sweaty, fucking a girl from behind, working it like it was the last time was a fucking beautiful sight to behold. "Fuck yeah, Mike," she said through gritted teeth, "Holy shit, yes, fuck her and make her come. Fuck her and make me come, Mike. Fuck, so good! Fuck Zoe, like tha…" Mike slammed hard into Zoe who let out this deep guttural groan into Santana's opening and the vibrations were enough to send Santana over the edge, "Oh fuuuuuck!" She had to fight to keep from screaming out Mike's name. She really, really wanted to because this was the most intense orgasm she had ever had, bar none and it was largely to do with him she knew, but even in that moment she needed things to not get weird with him and she was pretty sure they would if he knew that in that moment she was thinking more about him than about the girl actually working her pussy. Like somehow it was really just Santana and Mike fucking and Zoe was just some kind of sex conduit or something. Santana noted that she sometimes had weird thoughts immediately after orgasm.

Santana's climax set Zoe off and though she'd removed her mouth from Santana to vocalize this, her fingers were still inside Santana, fingers that were now trembling because of sensation overload causing some not so little aftershocks to the Latina and yeah, that shit felt amazing. Zoe had no issues vocalizing that Mike was responsible for her current bliss, lucky bitch Santana thought. Santana looked up at Mike and he was completely flushed and glassy eyed, and yeah he was about thirty seconds from exploding inside her, and that was when something occurred to her. "Mike, pull out!" she yelled over Zoe's moans. He didn't respond so she got louder, "Mike! You aren't wearing a condom! Pull the fuck out, NOW!"

He was too far gone to listen and Zoe was so lost in pleasure that her eyes were rolled far enough back into her head that Santana could only see white which was both a little creepy and also completely unfair. Mike was just starting to relax about life and Santana knew that he really, really didn't need a pregnancy scare right now, so she more or less wrestled Zoe off of Mike and onto the other side of the bed and rubbed circles on her clit to bring her down from her orgasm.

Then there was Mike, teetering seconds away from coming and fuck did he deserve to come after all the work he put in on this one and it really deserved to be more than just jerked out onto the bed sheets. So Santana made a decision that she hoped wouldn't have lasting consequences for their friendship. She gently pushed Mike back so that he was sitting at the foot of the bed. She grabbed the base of his dick with her hand and took the head into her mouth. He tasted like a mixture of his sweat and Zoe's come which was just insanely hot and he smelled like pure sex and it made Santana want to come again already. She took him in as far as he'll go before sliding back up to where only the tip was between her lips. The dude really was hung like a fucking horse, and Santana never really learned how to deep throat. While she was tempted to try it for Mike to make this night really great for him too, she knew that if she did it wrong things could get messy. She was surprised that she didn't feel the least bit weird sucking her best friend's dick, or for that matter that she was sucking any guy's dick and actually kind of enjoying it. She reasoned that it was certainly not the first time she'd done it. Hell, she'd even done it to Mike freshman year of high school before they really knew each other. It occurred to her that it also wasn't really uncommon for her to go down on her best friend… just a different best friend, but she immediately pushed that thought aside since that was an entirely different scenario.

Santana pushed all thought from her head and focused on what she was doing, rewarding Mike for giving her what may well have been the best orgasm of her life and definitely what she had been needing that night. She bobbed up and down several times and then started stroking her hand over the part of him that her mouth couldn't reach and she was really shocked that he hadn't come already since he was so close with Zoe. Suddenly, she worried than her blowjob skills were rusty due to disuse, but then Mike let out this deep moan that sort of disproved that theory.

The truth of the matter, which Santana didn't know because she couldn't look up from what she was doing, was that for reasons he would feel guilty about later Mike was fighting his orgasm for as long as possible. He was suddenly and completely in love with the sensation of Santana's mouth wrapped around his cock and he was pretty certain that it would never happen again so he held out for every last millisecond he could get. "Oh, Santana," he moaned, "Shiiiiiit!"

Hearing him moan her name, Santana was definitely wet again and definitely needed to come again. As if on cue, fingers slid inside her from behind, most likely Zoe's but possibly Mike's and frankly at that moment she didn't care. It felt really fucking good and that was all the fuck that mattered to her in the moment. With the intensity of all of it, Santana was embarrassingly close only a minute later when she pulled him out of her mouth and said, "Mike, babe, I need you to come for me. Can you…" She stopped talking when she felt his whole body shudder. She took his head back in her mouth and stroked him quickly and he very soon erupted in her mouth still moaning her name. That combined with fingers hitting her g spot caused Santana to tumble over the edge again as well and that time she did call out for him, although no one could tell since her mouth was still occupied by Mike's manhood and the fucking river of come he'd shot into her mouth.

Utterly spent, Mike and Santana collapsed more or less where they were. Mike wasn't asleep but he was definitely in a sex coma lying with his head at the foot of their bed and making no moves to right himself. Santana instinctively curled up to him her back pressed firmly against his chest his arm draped across her stomach.

They awoke in much the same fashion. Neither had moved much except that Santana had rolled over and was now face to face with Mike. Zoe was nowhere to be seen but then no one had really expected her to stick around. Mike really had no idea what to think when they woke up together much less what to say so he kind of just stared like a deer in headlights until Santana kissed him on the cheek and said, "Mike, do me a favor and unclench, okay? I mean, it's not as though it's the first time I've sucked your dick."

"It's the first time since we've been friends," he said, "and the first time since you told me you were gay."

"Look, I get it," she said, "It kinda odd. Should I feel weird that I went down on my best friend especially considering that you're a dude and I'm gay, maybe, but I don't and you shouldn't either because you didn't do anything wrong. I was well within my tolerance when I talked you into the threesome and almost completely sober by the end of the night. I didn't feel forced, coerced, or obligated to blow you. I did it because I wanted to. I honestly wanted to because last night was so fucking amazing for me, and I wanted you to feel something even remotely close to what I felt. And, okay, a lesbian really wanting to give a guy a blowjob, that's more than a little weird but not any more weird than me wanting to talk about my feelings, so fuck it. It's Spring Break. We can be whoever we want. If I can be emotionally open and honest, then I can be bi-curious too, and if I want to blow you again or hell if I want to fuck you, that's what I'm going to do and I refuse to feel like I can't or shouldn't."

"If I'm willing," he said.

"Oh please," Santana fired back, "like you or any other guy in this town wouldn't hit this in half a second if I was interested." As an answer, Mike just laughed at her bravado which was as much of a confirmation as she needed. "After all, you have no trouble being the guy who gets his dick sucked by three different girls in the course of a few hours. Speaking of which, you owe me breakfast."

Nothing else happened between them the rest of the trip. They took it easy for the next two days, drinking only slightly, mostly enjoying the beach and the water. They held hands when the wandered through the waterfront shops as though they actually had anyone else in their lives that they needed to buy souvenirs for. Friday at lunch Mike told Santana that he had decided to leave Stanford after the semester; he was going to study and pursue dance fulltime. They went out and partied hard that night and as Santana watched Mike dance she entertained the notion of taking Mike back to their room and fucking him into the early morning light to see if she really did kind of like guys too, but she chickened out because she was honestly afraid of the answer. The whole situation was all too familiar to her: sleeping with your best friend causing you to redefine your sexuality. Doing that once was hard enough, she wasn't sure she could do it again, and she was pretty certain that she couldn't take losing Mike if things went wrong.

Also there was this really cute Polynesian chick with an ass to die for that Santana scooped up. In the coincidence of all coincidences, they ran into Kendra, Mike's neighbor, who was nine kinds of DTF, ready, willing, and eager to get with Mike again. It was the only night they spent apart. Saturday was their last day before they had to drive back and they sort of wordlessly agreed to keep it mellow. Burgers for lunch then they caught a movie, and then they went back to their room to start packing up most of their stuff. They went to this awesome little barbeque joint for dinner and then they went to the beach after the sun went down. There was a big bonfire down the way and huge party all around it. They didn't go. Instead they found a secluded spot and watched the waves roll up on the beach, just sitting and watching, they barely even spoke. When they got back to their hotel room they both just fell onto the bed and lay there. It was hot so the shed all their clothes. They'd both seen everything the other had to see so the need for modesty had gone out the window several days ago when they were forced to start showering together so that neither of them was left without any hot water, the hotel's water heater being severely over taxed by the occupancy.

Sunday morning they loaded up Santana's car, checked out of the hotel and went to IHOP for breakfast before hitting the road. They talked and laughed and recapped the highlights of their trip all while stuffing their faces full of eggs and bacon and pancakes. Afterwards, they were walking towards the car when Mike caught Santana's hand and spun her around to face him. "Hey, San, thanks for doing this with me, the trip, I mean. I really needed this."

She smiled up at him. "We both did," she said placing a hand on either of his shoulders, "and you're welcome." With that she leaned into him with her whole body. Mike wrapped his muscular arms around her and leaned his head down to bury his nose in her hair. He briefly pressed his lips against her kissing her on the top of the head and Santana felt something that she'd not felt in years, not since before she started questioning her sexuality at age 14. She felt protected and safe. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply the scent of Mike. "Y'know, after nine days of near constant contact, it's really gonna suck not seeing you all the time."

"It really is," he agreed.

X X X X X

"You know what would be great," Santana said, "if just one morning every great now and again I could wake up and not have you grinning at me for some damn reason or other."

"Well, you see," Mike said, "it's funny that you should say that since that could be easily arranged since all you'd have to do is spend one night every great now and again in your dorm room." They were arguing but not really. There wasn't really any hostility behind the words. They sometimes just got frustrated at seeing each other so much and this was the result.

"You know, I can't do that," Santana said, "My new roommate is a big old sack of crazy and if I go to sleep there, I could wake up pregnant with her baby or some shit." Santana's new roommate was actually her old roommate, but not really. Genetically they were the same individual but they were completely different people. Her freshman year roommate was Laurie Hardison a sweet, corn fed, vanilla, white bread, Nebraska native with an "aww shucks" attitude and boyfriend named Deacon whom she loved madly who was back in Hickville or wherever going to Heating and Air School and they were gonna get married and have babies and be happy together forever. Santana loved Laurie as a roommate largely for geographic reasons… meaning she was never around. She rushed Beta Kappa Theta and spent all of her time with her sorority sisters. Then sometime over the summer Laurie and Deacon got into a huge fight about God knows what and Deacon had proceeded to go out and fuck some big whore named Ronette, (because really who the fuck names their kid that) and Laurie came back to school sophomore year as Lauren with choppy green hair, a septum piercing (which, gross), a closet full of hipster clothes, and a raging lady boner for Santana.

There was exactly nothing about the Laurie/Lauren situation that was the least bit reassuring that going there would be okay. Santana was pretty sure that her roommate was just hurt and angry over Deacon and wanted to get back at him and that fucking a girl was just the best thing she could come up with. Actually, scratch that, losing her virginity to a girl was the best thing she could come up with and Santana wanted no part of that either. That bitch was clingy enough as it was. She could have requested a change of roommate and explain that her current roommate had a psycho crush on her and she couldn't live like that, but on the off-chance the girl did have legit same-sex tendencies, Santana didn't want to start rumors about her. Actually she didn't want to start rumors about her either way since she was fully aware of how much that sucked.

Plus that just seemed like it was a lot of effort when Mike's place was just two blocks off campus. True to his word, Mike had left Stanford and transferred to UCLA where Santana was going, mostly because it was a really good school but also partly because after Spring Break he really did miss seeing her all the time. They kind of were each other's only friends, or at least their only close friends. Santana never had much in the way of friends, that's just who she was. Mike had once been a shy guy but he'd mostly gotten over that. He was just so unhappy at Stanford that he never tried to make any real friends there. As such, he wasn't going to move any farther away from his one dear friend. Mike's father had been furious about the transfer and even more so about the change of major and threatened to cut him off, but his mom refused to allow that, so instead his father just stopped speaking to him… one more thing that he and Santana had in common, he thought. He'd been admitted too late to get a dorm room, not that he'd particularly wanted one so he found a tiny little studio apartment just off campus which served him just fine and Mike, his mom, Santana, and Kendra, his neighbor whom he'd been seeing casually (causally, of course, meaning naked) since Spring Break, packed him up and moved him out of Stanford and into his new place in LA.

Mike, the consummate gentleman, took the couch the first couple of times Santana slept over, but once it started becoming a nightly thing that quit being an option. He was going to hurt something curled up on that couch, and they'd talked about getting another bed but they both agreed that it was silly to have two beds in such a small apartment and it wasn't as though they'd never shared one before, so he and Santana became fulltime bed partners once more. Nothing had happened between them after Spring Break. It seemed that Santana had left any inkling of bi-curiosity in Lake Havasu. Mike wasn't really surprised about it, maybe a little bit disappointed since he was pretty sure Santana would have been an awesome girlfriend. A guy can't have everything he figured.

Mid-terms had come and gone and it was coming up on Halloween when Mike noticed something that struck him as odd. They didn't really go out much. Most nights Santana would get on a video game kick and spend hours kicking Mike's ass at Mario Kart or Wii Sports or whatever and some nights they'd do movie marathons. Occasionally, Santana would break out her pretty impressive culinary skills and make them dinner. It actually worked out in Mike's favor since he was carrying a slightly heavy course load to make up for the year spent studying law. He didn't really have time to go out a lot.

That's not to say that they had entirely stopped going out. They usually hit up a club or bar or several of both about once a week, generally, and when they went, they went hard, almost as though they were trying to jam an entire week's worth of partying into a single night, but even then they almost always went home together and crashed out in bed immediately. Again, Mike had no time for anything else, even just hooking up seemed like more of a commitment of time than he had to give, so he kind of just didn't. While Santana wasn't really above slinking off to the ladies room and knocking out a quickie with some random chick at the club, Mike hadn't really noticed her doing it much.

One night they were laying in bed, both needing to go to sleep but neither one particularly tired. "Hey, San, you up?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied.

"What do you want to do for Halloween?" he asked. When she didn't answer right away he said, "I'm sure there will be some pretty awesome parties that we The Sexy People would have our choice of." Santana just scoffed. She had dubbed them "The Sexy People" months earlier while they were listening to music together and "Push It" had come on.

"Can we just like… not," Santana said rolling from her side facing away from Mike onto her back to stare up at the ceiling, "or, I mean, you can if you want and I can clear out so you can get your dick wet or whatever. Psycho bitch Lauren will probably go out, I can go back to my room for a change."

"Santana, what's up with you?" Mike asked turning on his side to face her, "Are you like depressed or something?" Santana visibly winced at the word "depressed" as Mike had just put a name to what she'd been struggling to verbalize... or rather struggling to identify it since Santana wasn't exactly keen to talk about it.

"I- I don't know, maybe… a little bit," she turned her head to face him and saw the concern on his face, his kind eyes on her. "Have you ever questioned like your whole existence and come up with no answer?"

"What do you mean?" Mike asked a little confused. Santana just shrugged and shook her head. "Look, I know it's against your nature and all, but you can talk to me." Santana closed her eyes and sighed. "I know you don't want to but if you need to, you can. Emotionally open and honest Santana doesn't just have to only exist on Spring Break. You don't have to be in a bar full of strangers to be whoever you want to be, you can just be her. I promise I won't ever tell anyone that you had actual feelings."

This garnered a laugh out of Santana. She slapped the back of her hand against his bare chest, "Shut up and lay back." Mike looked confused. "Just lay back," she insisted. He rolled back over onto his back and immediately understood why when Santana nestled herself under his left arm. She rested her head on his chest and draped one of her legs across his. Mike wrapped his arm around her his hand coming to rest on her side just above her hip feeling the warmth of her through the thin tank top she was sleeping in. "Mi tio Benny died this summer," she said, "that's why I went back to Lima that weekend."

"You should have said something," Mike said, "I'd have come with you."

Santana shook her head lightly against him. "Wasn't that big a deal," she said, "I didn't really know him. I think I met him once or twice when I was little. He wasn't really my uncle, just an old war buddy of mi abuelo. That's not what's got me fucked up. At the funeral, at St. Mark's, the place was packed, not an empty seat in the house. That means there were over 300 people at his funeral. That made me think how many people would come to my funeral, and I came up with three: you, Brittany, and mi abuelo."

"Santana…"

"No, stop," Santana cut him off, "You wanted me to talk, so shut up and listen. Then I started trying to figure how to fill out my funeral with people so I thought of the Glee Club and figured most of them would show if just out of obligation and the rest of my family would put a dent in the amount of real estate in that church. Then I hit on the idea of my sexual conquests and suddenly the church was not only full but really crowded. The problem was they were all these faceless, nameless forms. I mean… how many girls have you been with like in any way, from kissing all the way up to fucking?"

"Um, I'm not sure," Mike said, "I've slept with eleven girls, got oral from a few that I didn't sleep with, maybe four or five. As for kissing, if you discount like Spin the Bottle and shit then maybe like ten more."

"So eleven, five, and ten. Twenty six," Santana said. "That's your entire sexual history from puberty to right now, yeah?"

"Yeah," he confirmed.

"I've fucked 24 girls since we moved to California. That's not counting the ones I didn't go all the way with, and okay, some of them were pretty memorable Dana, Emily, Zoe… and of course, Amber…"

"You did not have sex with Amber Heard," Mike cut her off. He sounded confident in the statement but really he wasn't sure. They'd gone to a club back during the summer and Santana had managed to flirt and bullshit their way into the VIP room and Amber Heard had been there. She was number four on Santana's Top 25 list and Santana had decided that she was going to grab some liquid courage and go for it. Mike wished her well and went to dance not thinking it would actually work. He got to dancing with this insanely hot Cuban girl who was relentlessly dancing to every song, fast and slow alike. After half an hour, he started looking around him to see how Santana was but he didn't see her and he just assumed she was giving him space with the girl he was with. Another hour passed before he thought to check his phone and sure enough he'd gotten a text message: I got mine. I'm takin off. Don't wait for me. Text me when it's safe to come home. He wasn't sure he believed her but Santana wasn't generally one to lie about sex so he couldn't really dismiss her claim entirely either.

"Believe what you want," Santana said, "I know the status of my Top 25. Anyway, some of the encounters were very memorable, but most of them weren't, most of them I don't remember their names and in some cases I can't even recall faces, and I guess I asked myself if doing all that really made me happy and clearly the answer is no, but, y'know, what does that mean? What happened to Never Say No Santana, and if I'm not her anymore, then who am I?"

"I hate to break it to you, San, but I don't think you've been Never Say No Santana for while, at least since senior year."

"Okay, fine, Never Say No to Girls, then."

"Right, that's my point," Mike said, "You've changed in little ways slowly over time. You were Never Say No Santana then you figured out that you were gay and became Never Say No to Girls Santana. After we moved out here that went on for only a few months before I saw you start turning girls down. You turned down at least two girls on Spring Break not to have sex with other girls, but just because you didn't want to be with them."

"There were reasons…"

"Of course, there were reasons," he cut her off again, "Just like I'm sure there are reasons why you haven't slept with Lauren."

"Uh, because she's crazy?"

"You've banged crazy chicks before," Mike said.

"Well, then, I don't shit where I eat."

"You don't eat there. You're always here, and I'm not complaining. I love having you here, but you do pretty much live here."

Santana lifted her head to look at him. "Are you seriously saying that you think me fucking Lauren will solve whatever's the fuck wrong with me?"

"No!" he said. "I'm saying that you have reasons for not having done it and probably pretty good ones. I just want you to admit to yourself what they are."

Santana sighed and lay back down on Mike's chest and said, "Okay, fine. That chick may or may not be gay. I'm not convinced and I've got pretty awesome gaydar, but I've been wrong before so fine maybe she is gay, but she's definitely not the type for casual sex. If she was she wouldn't be 19, almost 20 and still a virgin. She's pretty, she's got a nice ass, and nice legs and there's not much to do in Nebraska so if she wanted to lose it, she would have. And, fine, maybe it took coming to college and figuring out that she was gay to want lose it, but if that were true she'd have fucked one of her sorority sisters last year or one of the hipster chicks she hangs with now. Instead, she's basically waiting for me to have too many to drink and decide I want in her pants. She knows I don't really care about her like that, and losing your virginity should be more than that. Happy?"

"Ecstatic," Mike said flatly.

"So casual sex isn't making me happy anymore, and okay whatever, maybe it never did, but not having sex is driving me insane. I haven't fucked or been fucked in almost three months and I honestly have no idea what to do with myself."

"Well, you know there is a third option, right? You know that somewhere between not having sex and having sex with everyone you find attractive is an extremely viable option that only about 90% of the human population finds very rewarding."

"You know," Santana said, "there's a reason 'monogamy' and 'monotony' sound so much alike."

"Says the woman who's almost 20 and never been in a real, honest, open relationship with anyone," Mike said, "And before you protest, Santana, I'm not telling you what to do with your life. I'm just saying that if you aren't happy, there are things that you could try to change that."

X X X X X

By the beginning of their Junior Year, Mike had regretted having that conversation, or maybe he didn't but he certainly didn't like the results of it. Shortly after Halloween, Santana had starting dating Emily Murphy, one of her previous conquests, one of the few that Santana had ever kept in touch with. They stayed together through the holidays and into the New Year despite the fact that they weren't really a good match outside the bedroom. They eventually got sick of fighting all the time and split up, although they kept hooking up until Santana met Katarina, a ballet student whom she really liked. Unfortunately the relationship was mostly one sided and Santana was too self assured for that to go on for very long, so it ended after just a few screaming orgasms.

One of the biggest problems with both Emily and Kat was that they were both very busy with school, so when Santana met Nancy McPherson, who was enrolled in UCLA but not really in school, she thought she hit the jackpot. Mike didn't like her at all. Santana really liked Nancy. Nancy really liked Santana, but she also really liked drugs.

Now Mike was no saint when it came to pot to be sure. If he was at a party and someone passed him a bong, he'd hit it a time or two to relax and feel better about life for a little while. He'd tried ecstasy once and while he'd mostly enjoyed it, he never felt compelled to try it again. By contrast, Nancy was never not at least a little bit high, she never left the house without at least two joints on her person, and she owned more bongs and pipes than she did dishes.

That sort of lifestyle was fine for someone like Nancy who had started smoking when she found her step-dad's stash when she was fifteen and basically hadn't ever stopped. Nancy knew when to set the pipe down and could handle her shit. Santana, on the other hand, had been a cheerleader all through high school and much like Mike on the football team she had been subject to random drug tests. As such they would smoke the occasional joint at a summer party here and there, but beyond that, nothing. Thus Santana had no concept of limits and by the middle of summer she'd become a full on teetotaler. The big problem with that was that if alcohol occasionally made Santana kind of weepy, weed made her hysterically so pretty much every time.

By September, Santana had stopped crashing at Mike's every night, or really ever. After a week of not seeing her, he friended Lauren on Facebook to ask if Santana was staying there. She'd told him that Santana wasn't her roommate anymore; she had a new one named Dina and asked Mike if he could get Santana to come pick up the last of her stuff since it was taking up a lot of space in an already crowded dorm room. He told her he'd see what he could do.

So Santana had pretty much moved in with Nancy. Mike had heard the term "U-Hauling" before but he'd never expected his commitment phobic best friend to do it. Still he tried to be happy for her, for them. He tried to still be around Santana and be a friend because he knew she would always need him because he would always need her, but being around High Santana really wasn't a lot of fun. It became more of a chore than something he looked forward to.

Then Mike started seeing Jenna, a girl that was in a lot of the same classes as him. He'd switched majors mid-sophomore year once again, from dance to musical theater and once again was carrying a heavy course load. Jenna was fun and funny and they had a lot in common and she was very energetic in bed, and she was a very welcome distraction from all the drama that was Santana. The problem being was that she didn't understand about Mike and Santana's friendship. She didn't really believe that men and women could be just friends and Mike tried to explain that Santana was gay and not interested in him like that, but all Jenna heard was that Mike was interested in Santana.

Santana wasn't really someone to be reasoned with at the best of times and high she was fifty times worse, so there really was no use in telling her that the drugs weren't helping her. It was just something she would have to go through, something she would just have to figure out on her own. Since he didn't really like being around her when she was like that and Jenna didn't want him around her at all, Mike tried to pull away from her a bit, but any time Santana needed help in some way, she would always call Mike and he would always answer. There were times he thought he shouldn't, that he was only making things worse for her by helping her out, but the way he saw it he was the only person still looking out for her, even Santana herself didn't have her own well being in mind anymore. He couldn't just give up on her and let her fall down the rabbit hole alone. Jenna said it was her or Santana and Mike was never one to appreciate ultimatums so Jenna got cut loose.

It was two days before Thanksgiving and Mike was not headed back to Lima for the holiday because he was still persona non grata to his father and he couldn't sit in that house and be ignored for days on end. He hit up the liquor store on his way home after his last day of classes before the break and stocked up. He played Call of Duty and drank for a couple of hours. He was halfway through a bottle of Smirnoff when he suddenly felt gross and realized he hadn't showered after his last dance class. He paused his game and sat the bottle on the side table and went off to take a long hot shower. When he came back out Santana was sitting in his seat and the bottle was nearly empty. He wasn't exactly sure how long he'd been in the shower but he was pretty sure it wasn't long enough for one 120 pound girl to demolish half a bottle of vodka in any responsible manner.

Without speaking, Mike went to his dresser and pulled on a pair of pajama pants before depositing himself on the couch next to Santana and held his hand out for the bottle. To which Santana said, "Get your own, asshole." He would have pointed out that the bottle was his but once again Santana and Reason were not really the best of friends and Mike didn't really feel like arguing, so he got back up, went to the fridge and retrieved two bottles of beer and a bottle opener. He opened both and gave one to Santana who had killed the vodka by the time he returned. "Thanks, asshole," she said.

"Stop calling me an asshole," Mike said louder than was strictly necessary.

"Stop avoiding me," Santana responded at an equal volume.

"Stop being high all the goddamn time," he said.

"Cuz being drunk's so much better?"

"You don't cry all the fucking time when you're drunk. You just want to fuck everyone in sight… which I can deal with," Mike said. His filter was definitely off tonight which was weird because alcohol almost never had that effect on him.

"Fucking girlfriend," said Santana but didn't elaborate at first, "Fucking only likes me when I'm high. She's a bitch."

Mike didn't want to agree verbally but he damn sure couldn't disagree and seemed to have some trouble biting his tongue so instead he said, "Are you high now?"

"A little," she said resting her head on his shoulder. "We smoked up before she left to go home for Thanksgiving. I walked around campus for like an hour or something before I wound up here. Need to stay here for break." It wasn't a question and he felt no need to answer it. They both knew that he was never going to turn her away when she needed a place to stay no matter what was going on between them.

"Want to do something?" he said.

"Like what? We're both too drunk to leave," she said.

"Video games?" She groaned by way of an answer. "Movies?"

"Whatever," she said, "I'm gonna go lay down." She stood up and almost fell down immediately but saved herself somehow. She kicked off her heels and walked toward the bed pulling her top off as she went tossing it aside and shimmying out of her jeans at the foot of the bed leaving her standing naked just before crawling into bed. Mike wasn't exactly surprised by her nudity but it had been a while since he'd seen her naked and he'd maybe forgotten just exactly how hot she was. She crawled into the bed and turned over a couple of times trying to get comfortable before whining, "Miiiiike. Come lay down with me." He sighed softly. He knew he wasn't really very tired but he also knew there was no talking to her when she got like this, so he quickly crossed the room and lay down in bed next to her. She immediately curled up beside him. He wrapped his arm around her as she rested her head on his chest just like they'd done a hundred times before. Santana brought a hand up to lay flat on his stomach and she began to absentmindedly trace the outline of his abs which reminded him of when Tina use to do that right before they would… Mike brought his hand up to cover Santana's before he had a Pavlovian response that would be inappropriate. She threaded their fingers together and rested their joined hands over his navel. Meanwhile, she pressed her lips against his chest and held them there long enough to take in and release a long deep breath. "Smell nice," she said. He smiled and pressed his lips to the top of her head which quickly rotated out from under him as she turned her face to meet his and her lips to meet his.

They were kissing and not just a little bit. Santana pushed against his stomach to guide herself up his body dragging her naked breasts across his warm skin and the sensation sent shivers down both of their bodies. Santana brought her free hand up to Mike's cheek as she licked his lips in silent invitation to deepen what they were doing. Even through the haze of alcohol a small part of Mike knew that he should stop what they were doing. Making out with Santana was almost certainly going to lead to something more he knew, especially considering she was already naked, in his bed, and already half on top of him. He needed to stop this because this was more or less exactly why he and Jenna had just broken up… plus there was Nancy.

The problem was that Mike didn't really care what Jenna thought and he couldn't stand Nancy and hated who Santana was when she was with Nancy and he knew Santana would be better off without her so she… they weren't much a deterrent. Mike parted his lips and let Santana's tongue slither inside his mouth and his tongue slid along hers into her mouth. His free hand pressed against the small of her back just above the curve of her amazing ass. Santana let go of Mike's hand to pull herself on top of Mike. Because of the height difference between them, she wound up straddling his stomach just above the waistband of his pants. He could feel the heat and the wetness coming from her center pressed against him and immediately that tiny little part of him that was still thinking was trying to justify this by saying that if Nancy had been pleasing Santana properly this wouldn't be happening but even then he knew that was kind of bullshit. Drunk Santana was Horny Santana and it didn't really matter if she'd been fucked until she screamed an hour ago, she would still want more.

"Touch me," she said, her voice was so sexy and raw that Mike was instantly hard.

"I am touching you," his mouth responded before his brain could tell it not to. Of course he knew what she wanted and he damn well wanted it too, but for some reason information relay was running slow in his brain.

"No," she said sitting up on him. She took his right hand in her left and guided it to where she wanted him and said, "Touch me. Feel how hot I am." She lowered herself back down until her nose was millimeters from his. "Put your fingers inside me, feel how wet you make me, Mike. Make me come like you did on Spring Break and I'll suck your cock like I did then." Mike ran a finger through her folds and moaned, "God, yes, Mike I want you so fucking bad."

Mike's conscience was screaming at him to put a stop to this, that he was taking advantage of not just a friend but his best friend, that he was a better man than this. It wasn't screaming loudly enough however, because the bigger, louder, more in control part of his brain was sick of always doing the right thing, especially when the right thing involved not having sex with the most beautiful, amazing, sexy woman he'd ever known who just so happened to be naked, on top of him, and begging for it.

"God, Mike, please. I need you inside me," she rasped out and even that tiny part of his brain saying he shouldn't started to lose all resolve to fight this. He'd wanted her since the first time he saw her in the eighth grade. At first he'd always been too shy to make a move, even after she sucked his dick in ninth, and then he'd had to push that desire aside, first because he was with Tina and later because she'd told him she was gay. Mike didn't necessarily feel right about making judgment calls about someone else's sexuality but he was pretty sure girls who were completely gay didn't beg their guy friends to fuck them, didn't have phone sex with them, and almost certainly they didn't give them the most amazing blowjobs they'd ever had.

Mike didn't remember making the decision to dip his middle and ring finger inside Santana's opening and Santana didn't put them there, her hands were on Mike's chest holding herself up, but there they were, buried all the way to the knuckle. Santana's head slumped down as she moaned at the intrusion. With that they were past the point of no return. They might have been forgiven for getting drunk and making out and possibly for light groping, but no one was going to make a distinction between Mike fingering Santana and Mike fucking Santana, least of all Santana's lesbian girlfriend.

So they were officially doing this and Mike pushed all concern away. He was going to hate himself tomorrow anyway; he might as well hate himself for having great sex with Santana as opposed to for lousy guilt-filled sex. Mike began moving his fingers inside her and if the heat he felt pressed against him earlier was burning then the temperature inside Santana was blazing hot and he couldn't wait to feel what it was like when it was his dick moving in her. Santana moaned with every thrust. He was moving his fingers in and out at a deliberate but steady pace, but the angle was odd and Mike could see Santana's arms were getting tired of holding herself up after only a few minutes. He wrapped his free hand around her waist and quickly spun them over never breaking his rhythm.

Santana smiled through her moan as she reveled in the delicious friction. Mike kissed her and she felt passion in it like she hadn't felt in a long time then he moved to her neck and that felt even better. A familiar tension started building in her lower abdomen. "Oh, Mike," she whimpered. Mike's mouth continued to trail hot kisses down her body through the valley between her breasts. When he continued on past that, Santana knew where he was headed and her body shuddered in anticipation.

Mike withdrew his fingers from her and Santana whimpered but before she could register a complaint, he licked her sex from her opening up to her clit with a long swipe of his tongue teasing the little bundle of nerves with the tip of his tongue several times. Santana dragged in a long ragged breath while he was doing it causing her whole body to tremble. He stroked his hands lightly up and down her toned, muscular thighs as he continued licking and teasing her opening with his tongue. "Oh fuck yeah," she moaned, "so good."

Santana had no idea how Mike knew so well what to do to her to drive her insane but he was doing it. She had a firm hold of one of her breasts teasing her nipple in one hand and death grip on Mike's hair with the other making certain he wasn't going anywhere. "You like that pussy, don't you, Mikey?"

"Sweetest pussy I've ever eaten," Mike said in a voice much deeper than his speaking voice and Santana's eyes rolled back in her head at the moan that followed. Santana fucking loved Mike's sex voice and he knew it. "I've wanted to taste you since we were fucking 13 years old, San." Santana was desperate to come now. The tightening in her abdomen was getting to be unbearable. Mike latched onto her clit with his lips and began to suck as he slid his fingers back in and quickly crooked them to hit the right spot. Santana came undone in a moment and started moaning and wailing, but Mike kept working both his tongue and his fingers at the same furious pace and Santana felt herself topple over the edge again. She let loose a jumble of incoherence peppered with Mike's name and much profanity. Mike sat up and watched as her body shook and convulsed. He gently rubbed and stroked her center as she slowly came down from her orgasms. He leaned over and took one of her nipples into his mouth.

"Fuck, Mike," she moaned, "You're trying to kill me aren't you?"

"Just remembered that I neglected these big beautiful breasts on my way downtown," he said.

"Oh shit," she moaned again, "You like those? You like playing with my tits, babe? Does it make your dick hard?" She cupped him through the thin layer of his pajamas pants.

"Everything about you makes my dick hard," he responded.

"Take these fucking pants off," Santana demanded, "They're really getting in the way of my blowing you."

"Oh yeah?" Mike asked.

"Well, I did promise you," she said with the sexiest smirk Mike had ever seen. Mike stood up off the bed and his pants were around his ankles in a flash. Santana wrapped her hand around his almost painfully erect member and she brought herself up to her knees to bring herself eye level with it. She licked her lips and said, "I wanted to fuck you Freshman Year of high school when we did this but I was scared it would hurt too much because you're so big, now I can't fucking wait."

Santana leaned in and swallowed the head of his dick and quickly swirled her tongue around it. If Mike had forgotten exactly how hot Santana was naked, then he had definitely forgotten just exactly how amazing it was when she had her mouth on him. Her mouth was so warm, her tongue was so talented, and the moans that she made cut right through him. She gripped one of his thighs to keep her balance as she bobbed up and down while she stroked him with her other hand. Mike put one hand on her shoulder to help him keep his balance, but it soon became a moot point as Santana's lips and tongue were causing sensation overload leading to wobbly knees. Just as he'd done for her earlier, Santana grabbed Mike by the hips and spun him around and deposited him on the bed. He pushed his way back and Santana followed straddling his legs. "Do you wanna fuck me or do you want me to finish the blowjob?"

"I'm really close," he said, "finish the blowjob, and then later we can…oh shit!" He was cut off by the warm, familiar sensation of Santana's mouth. She began working him hard, ready to feel his release. "Look at me," Mike said. Santana opened her eyes and raked her gaze up his naked, sweaty muscular body to his lust-filled face. The amount of need and desire evident in Mike's eyes was a huge turn on to Santana, and of course she loved how much control she had of him that she could speed up or slow down at will and that his pleasure was at her whim. Not that she was remotely interested in slowing down right then. "Fuck, I'm gonna come, Santana."

"Give it to me, babe," she said, "Come for me." She held his head just inside her mouth while she pumped furiously on his shaft. When his words became unintelligible she knew it wouldn't be long and sure enough one more pump and the first spurt hit the back of her throat. She slowed her pace and she worked him down. When she was sure he was done unloading, Santana swirled her tongue around the head once more eliciting a groan from a very content Mike. "Did I do you good, babe?" Santana asked with a huge smirk.

"No, you did me fucking amazing, San," Mike said.

"I'm glad you think so," Santana said her hand moving up to run her fingers over his abs once more. "Mike, I want to fuck you so hard, but you're gonna need time to recuperate and honestly, so do I, so I'm gonna take a little nap. You should too, because when I get up I'm gonna rock your fucking world." She went to lie down next to him but he sat up and grabbed her shoulders.

"Before that," Mike said, "Before naps and rocking worlds, I need to ask you something. Will you go out with me tomorrow night?"

"Sure, where?"

"I don't know," he said with a shrug, "Dinner, dancing, maybe a show if there's anything worth going to. Whatever, wherever. It doesn't matter to me as long as we're there together."

Santana shifted her head back and raised an eyebrow at him. "You mean like a date?"

Mike grinned. "Was I not clear with that? Yes, Santana, will you go on a date with me?"

"A date with a guy?" Santana said with the vaguest hints of a smile.

"Not with a guy, with me," Mike said.

"You're right," Santana smiled fully, "Not with a guy, with the best guy. Yeah, Mike, I'd love to."

X X X X X

Their nap wasn't a nap. They both wound up crashing all night. Mike woke up a little after 10 am with a wicked headache and serious craving for pancakes. He disentangled himself from Santana thankful that she was such a heavy sleeper because she looked more peaceful than he'd seen her in a long time. Mike pulled his pajama pants from last night back on and crossed the room to the kitchenette. He looked through the cabinets and quickly found pancake mix and syrup. He filled the coffee pot and started it. He knew the smell would bring Santana around in a few minutes.

He got into the fridge to get milk for the coffee and saw the pack of bacon he'd picked up a couple of days ago and suddenly that sounded really good too so he grabbed it and the eggs as well, figuring if he was making bacon and pancakes he may as well just make a full breakfast. Mike set about working on the food and slowly the aromas of bacon and coffee filled the room. Soon he heard Santana stirring followed by her groaning after coming fully conscious and being hit with the full force of her hangover. "Coffee's almost ready," Mike said as softly as he could. There was a grunt of acknowledgment from Santana as Mike heard his closet open and hangers slide across the bar.

Mike continued cooking as she crossed the room and grabbed a mug and began to pour herself a cup of coffee. He glanced in her direction to find her wearing his L.A. Kings jersey and nothing else. The large neck hug sexily off of one shoulder, but besides that her entire upper body was covered except for the tips of her fingers and her amazing bare legs were sticking out the bottom. "Goddamn, you're sexy, Santana. I'm never going to be able to watch a hockey game the same way again." She smiled from behind her coffee mug. She wasn't wearing make-up and her wild hair was tied up in a messy bun on top of her head; Mike swore she never looked more beautiful.

"Mmmm, good," she said of her coffee and finally looked over at what Mike was doing. Her eyes went wide. "Pancakes?"

Mike smiled at her reaction, "Bacon and eggs, too."

"I was wrong last night," Santana said licking her lips, "You're not just the best guy ever. You're like the fucking Chinese God Sex and Breakfast."

Mike loaded up the food onto two plates and brought them to the small kitchen table. Santana quickly poured Mike a cup of coffee also refilling hers and joined him. "So," he said as she sat, "you remember last night?" Santana closed her eyes and moaned softly while nodding her head. "Regret last night?"

"Only that we passed out before things could get really fun," she said waggling here eyebrows, "but… we've got all the time in the world for that, right?"

"So we're still on for tonight?" Mike asked.

"Unless you got a better offer," she retorted.

Mike scoffed, "Like there's any such thing."

They ate breakfast talking about nothing important. Santana put her feet in Mike's lap under the table and after he was done eating, Mike began rubbing Santana's feet as she sipped her third cup of coffee and marveled at the easy domesticity, even more so at how much she actually liked it. Afterwards, he cleared their plates. He stood rinsing their dishes in the sink when Santana slinked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his stomach, and pressed her lips against his muscled back right against his spine. "Let me put something out of your mind because I'm sure you're gonna be beating yourself up for it later. You didn't take advantage of me. What happened last night, I've wanted since Spring Break last year, I was just too much of a coward to go after it because it meant I was going to have to re-examine my sexuality again. I'm sorry it took drugs and alcohol to open me up to it but I'm glad it happened, okay?"

"Okay," Mike said and sighed like Santana had just taken the weight of the world off him.

"I've got to go to school for a while today," she said, "I'm borrowing your jersey cause it's warm and it smells like you."

"Fine by me," Mike said. Santana went back to Mike's closet and pulled out a sweater and some tight jeans, thankful that she'd never fully moved out of Mike's place when she started shacking up with Nancy. She retrieved some underwear from the dresser and quickly got dressed throwing the hockey jersey over top of everything. After retrieving her shoes, purse and backpack she was headed for the door when he caught her hand in his. She turned back to him and he pulled her into a hug and like always when she hugged Mike, she felt the overwhelming sensation of safety. "Let me put something off of your mind," Mike echoed her words to him a few minutes earlier, "As far as I'm concerned you don't have to rack your brain about your sexuality. There's no rule that says you have to label yourself anything. You like me, you're attracted to me, you want to be with me. That's all I need to know."

"Thanks, babe," she said as she rocked up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to him lips.

"Do me a favor?" he asked. Santana arched an eyebrow at him. "Don't get high today?" She nodded wordlessly. He kissed her on her way out the door and smiled as he watched her walk down the street to school.

X X X X X

The date was going amazingly well, Mike thought. In the course of planning it, he'd found out that though she'd lived in Los Angeles for two and a half years, Santana had managed to never have Indian food, or at least not authentic Indian food. There was an Indian restaurant back in Lima, but it was a chain restaurant and no one actually associated with it knew what they were doing and the food sucked. Mike took Santana to the Agra Café on Sunset and she'd loved it immensely.

Santana looked amazing in this insanely tight little red dress that showed all of Santana's curves so well that Mike couldn't decide which ones he wanted to stare rudely at first. She also had her hair up off her shoulders showing off miles of flawless skin. Mike honestly couldn't remember her ever looking hotter. Mike looked pretty damn hot in his own right and Santana couldn't help but feel pride in this since she had been educating this t-shirt-and-jeans guy on how the hell to dress since they got to California. Tonight he was just doing a simple blue button-up and black pressed slacks but he was rocking it. Santana was having trouble keeping her hands in appropriate places. Mike had an adventurous side she knew, adventurous enough to get a blowjob in the restroom at a bar on Spring Break and then go home with two other girls within a couple of hours, but this was a nice restaurant. Santana knew there was just no way that Mike was going to take her in the restroom and fuck her like she might possibly want, especially not since this was their first date.

Instead they just talked and it consistently amazed Mike how two people who spent so much time together could still find so much to talk about but they never struggled to fill their time together with interesting conversation... and laughter. Mike hadn't heard Santana laugh so much in a very long time as she did that night, and being the cause of so much of it gave Mike no small amount of hope for their future. "Hey, San, fair warning, I'm about to be really sappy for a minute."

"Oh God, okay, let me take my insulin," she said playfully.

"I'm really glad we're doing this," he said taking her hand in his.

"Me too," she smiled and squeezed his hand.

"And I want us to keep doing this," Mike said.

"Yeah, hey, look with Nancy... I'm gonna break up with her. I just don't want to ruin Thanksgiving by dumping her over the phone," Santana explained, "I owe her better than that. She'll be back in town on Friday. I'm going to do it then."

Mike rubbed his thumb over the back of Santana's hand soothingly. "I don't think you owe her anything, but I understand not ruining her holiday and I'm fine with that. That wasn't what I was going to say."

"Okay, what were you going to say?"

"You aren't going to want to do it," Mike said.

"Just say it," Santana said.

"I'm going to," he said, "I was just warning you." Mike paused and cleared his throat. "I want us to take things slow."

"No," Santana said reflexively, "What? Why?"

"Because this isn't just a relationship of convenience for me," Mike said, "I didn't ask you out because you were naked and offering sex…"

"I know that," Santana interrupted.

"Can you just listen, Santana?" Mike asked, "I asked you out because I think you're awesome, I have for, like, ever. I just always put a cap on what we could be because…"

"The gay thing," Santana finished for him.

"Yeah, and I've seen you with the girls you've dated and I've seen you with the guys you used to be with in high school and I think because you always left sex and sexual things on the table from the outset that no one ever took the time with you to see that you're a lot more than a beautiful face and an amazing body. I mean, I obviously already know that, but still I want to take the time." He paused to gage her reaction and it seemed like she still didn't get what he was saying. "I want you to know that you're worth waiting for."

"Oh God, Mike," Santana said softly as quickly dabbed at her eyes to make sure she wasn't crying, she had a reputation to maintain after all. "Why the hell did you have to go and do that?"

"Do what?" he asked clearly concerned about what'd just said.

"Be all fucking perfect and convince me to go along to along with this dumbass 'take things slow' plan of yours," Santana replied, "I mean, I was thinking we were gonna get it in tonight. So how slow is slow, exactly? Because some might say that we've been taking it slow for over two years now and some might say seven since we've known each other."

"Some might say that," Mike said, "but they'd be wrong." Santana looked at him critically. "Hey, don't look at me, Santana. While there's been a slowly escalating sexual side to our friendship, you were the one who first declared that sex isn't dating, and you're right. Sex is physical, dating is emotional, and I don't want the physical right now."

Santana fixed him the most smoldering look imaginable and said, "You don't?"

"Okay," Mike said, "Amending my previous statement, I want the physical now and always with you, but I want the emotional foundation more. Happy?" Santana smiled. "As for how slow is slow, I'm not thinking glacially slow or anything. I was thinking it might make a really nice graduation present to ourselves."

"Graduation!" said Santana, entirely too loudly. Mike's façade broke and he dissolved into a fit of laughter. Through clenched teeth Santana continued, "I don't know what you think is funny about this, Mike Chang, but you should explain yourself really fast."

"Wha… hehe… what's funny is look at you," Mike managed to get himself mostly under control. "What's funny is you thought for a second that I was serious. Hehe, Graduation. Who in the world could resist you for a year and a half? I'm going to do well to wait a month."

"A month?" Santana echoed, "You want to wait a month?"

Mike nodded, "I think a month of solid dating without sex would be good for us, yeah. Maybe a couple dates a week, go out once, stay in once. More often if you like and if our school schedules allow it."

Santana smiled slightly, "I think I can do a month. I can… I can do a month." Then Santana scrunched her face up briefly. "You son of a bitch, you did that on purpose, the whole graduation thing. You said graduation so that when you said a month, I'd be okay with it."

"I admit nothing," Mike said doing his best to feign innocence, because, yeah, that was exactly what he had done and exactly why he'd done it. He had to admit that it made him happy that Santana knew him well enough to figure that out and happier still when she didn't really object to him kind of playing her.

Later, in the car on the way to the club Santana was sitting in the passenger seat as Mike drove when something occurred to her, "Wait a minute, a month from today is Christmas Eve. Fuck, yeah, I'm so going lingerie shopping for this. I'm find the sexiest fucking shit you've ever seen and then you're going to take it off of me with your teeth. Oh, fuck, Imma buy massage oils and I'll get you a book on sensual massage…"

"Don't need it," Mike interjected.

"…and we'll get our massage on and have some fucking epic Christmas sex." Mike just smiled.

Later still when they were in the club, they were taking a much needed break from dancing and drawing jealous glares from everyone in the place when Santana asked, "How in hell are we gonna do this waiting stuff with our living arrangement? When I break up with Nancy, the only place I have left to go is your place. I moved out of the dooms… well not so much moved out as just stopped living there. Lauren probably threw all my shit out."

"Last I talked to her, she still had it and wanted you to come get it," Mike said, "As for the next month, for tonight and maybe tomorrow we'll just have to control ourselves. After that, you know Topher, from down the hall in my building?"

"The little mousey dude? Blonde hair, glasses?"

"Yeah, that's him," Mike confirmed, "I sent him an e-mail about borrowing his apartment since he's studying abroad this semester."

"Oh yeah, what's her name?"

"Heh. You joke but apparently her name is Zia, she's Greek, and she spent most of her life riding horses."

"Fucking lucky ass Topher," said Santana, "cowgirls are totally the shit. They all have the most insane thighs. They're like massively strong and crazy sensitive. Next time you talk to him tell him when he goes down on her to like lick and suck on her inner thighs for like twenty minutes. She'll fuck him so hard after that he may never want to move back home. And suddenly I'm having a fantasy where we go horseback riding somewhere and after an hour or so we give the horses a break while we fuck in field of green. And shit do I have to stop thinking about stuff like this or a month is going to seem like fucking torture. So one of us is staying at Tobey's?"

"Topher's," Mike corrected, "and I haven't heard back from him yet, but I'm sure he'll say yes. I'll stay there. That way we have our own space but we aren't miles apart if we just want to hang."

On the ride home, Santana asked, "So we're waiting until Christmas to have sex or…"

"Anything sexual," he clarified, "Anything that requires the removal or the disheveling of clothes."

"What about foot massages? Cuz if I'm giving up sex for a month…" she trailed off.

"I have decided that foot massages will be an exception to this rule," he said in a very official sounding voice, "but only feet and ankles. If you need relief beyond that, go get a massage at a spa or something."

It was some time well after midnight and they were lying in Mike's bed making out like a couple of thirteen years olds who just learned how, which is not to say that it was bad or awkward or anything, they were both great kissers who were even better together. It was just that with the "no sex" rule in place they both knew it wasn't going any further than that so they both just relax and enjoy it for what it was. "Mike, if you ever repeat what I'm about to say I will deny it and then I'll shoot you, not fatally of course because I'm too pretty for prison and not somewhere that would disrupt my sex life, because let's be serious… but bear in mind there will be shooting and it will be painful."

"Understood," he said.

"I think I like your 'tale things slow' plan," Santana said.

"Really?" Mike said smiling at her.

"Yeah, yeah I think I do. I mean, with sex off the table, I'm not all in my head running through moves. Am I going to do this? Is he going to do that? I can just be here in the present and enjoy making out with you… and I can feel you smirking at me. Stop it."

X X X X X

Mike tried not to worry about it too much. It was almost midnight and Santana still wasn't back from breaking up with Nancy. He tried not to worry because it wasn't exactly as though she'd given him a timetable on the matter. She had left a little after five that afternoon to go give her the bad news and he hadn't heard back. Mike tried not to worry because for all he knew Santana had done just exactly that and then had gone to school to work on something or gone out with other friends.

As per the plan of taking it slowly, they no longer spent every waking moment together. They'd spent Wednesday on their date and they'd spent the next day, Thanksgiving, together because they had no other plans for the holiday. They'd found a little diner that was serving turkey and dressing and all the traditional Thanksgiving foods and then they'd spent the rest of the day at Mike's watching movies. Santana got up to go Black Friday shopping the next morning at 4 am. Mike slept in since he really only had his mom and Santana to shop for and that didn't seem like reason enough to risk getting trampled to death. He briefly worried for Santana's well being before remembering that she was far more likely to be someone doing the trampling. Mike had taken the time in the early afternoon to move some of his clothes and toiletries down to Topher's apartment, and they'd just hung out for a little that afternoon before Santana went to go end things with her toxic girlfriend.

A few minutes after midnight the door burst open and Santana was in tears, huge sobbing tears. She was barely standing as she made her way into the room flinging her purse and coat aside as soon as she was clear of the doorway. Mike had been afraid of this. Nancy didn't take it well. She almost never took bad news well from what Mike knew of her, she'd most likely lashed out at Santana, and for whatever reason Santana had stood there and took it, probably because she felt bad about cheating on Nancy with Mike. He crossed the room in a second to wrap Santana up in his arms. She was stiff in his embrace and he was suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of pot again. Mike tried to write it off as just having come from contact with Nancy who always smelled like pot, but then he kissed her to try to calm her down and her breath tasted like smoke as well.

When Santana pushed against Mike's chest, he didn't fight her at all. She stumbled across the room and fell into the bed on the other side. "You didn't break up with her, did you?" he asked. Her lack of a response told him all he needed to know. "Did you fuck her?" Santana pinched her eyes shut and sniffled as she breathed in wiping at her nose. "You're here to break up with me, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry," Santana said softly.

"Is she better than me?" Mike asked, "I mean that has to be it, because I know she doesn't make you feel better about yourself, you guys never go anywhere or do anything, so the only reason I can think why you're throwing us away is that she must be really amazing in bed. Is that it?"

"No," Santana replied still very softly.

"Then what the fuck is it about her?" Mike said obviously angry but not loud.

"She's a girl, Mike," Santana said sniffling and wiping her nose again before flipping over and sitting up on the bed her legs dangling over the side, "and in case you missed the news flash, I'm fucking gay. That's who I am."

"Santana Christina Maria Lopez is who you are. You're sexuality is whatever it is, and it's only a part of you," Mike took a breath to calm himself before he started yelling. "This is why I didn't want you to get high. It's not good for you. I mean, it's not really good for anyone but it is fucking terrible for you. It brings out every last one of your insecurities and then people like Nancy trample all over them." Santana went to say something but first had sniffle and wipe her nose again and that's when it hit Mike. "Are… are you coked out? Is that the new thing? Nancy only likes you when you're high but now that you cheated on her she only likes you when you do cocaine?"

"We went to a fucking party and yes, Mike, I did cocaine and it was fucking fun," Santana yelled.

"Yeah, you seemed like you were having a lot of fun when you were balling your eyes out when you came in a minute ago," Mike said.

"I was having a hell of a lot of fun when Nancy and I were fucking!"

"Oh yeah, how many orgasms did she give you?"

"Fuck you!"

"So none, then?" Mike asked.

"I don't know why you care. You want to be the one to give it to me anyway," Santana said, "You just want to fuck the druggie dyke, just to say you were man enough to turn me straight."

Mike knew immediately whose words those were and they weren't Santana's. She never used that word to refer to herself or anyone else. She hated when people used pejorative terms about themselves, so she was clearly quoting Nancy. "That's not true and you know it. I don't want to fight with you anymore, Santana," he said, "It's late and I'm tired. I'm going to go down to Topher's and go to sleep. You can crash here or go back to Nancy's, but tomorrow I'm bringing my stuff back here. I'm always going to be here for you, Santana. Someone has to be, so it might as well be me. I love you as a friend. I think I might be able to love you as more, but not until you love yourself. I want to help you but I can't until you are willing to accept my help. You'll always be welcome here, San… except when you're high." Without another word Mike grabbed his keys and left the apartment.

X X X X X

It was Christmas Eve and Mike hadn't heard from Santana since that night. He had to assume that meant that she was back living with Nancy and for some reason he couldn't stop picturing Santana as Tony Montana in Scarface snorting mountains of blow. Somebody, Mike could really remember who, told him about a party that he had very little interest in actually going to but the other option was to sit around his apartment and think about what his original plans for Christmas Eve were and he had even less interest in doing that, so party it was.

It was a frat party and it was spectacularly lame, because apparently all the cool and/or fun frat brothers had gone home for the holidays while the ones that had apparently joined because they were desperate for acceptance and attention had stayed behind. There were enough sorority girls there to keep most people distracted, but Mike wasn't terribly interested in them, so he was on a solo mission to float a beer keg or pass out trying.

He was on beer number six when into the house walked possibly the last person he ever thought he'd see. "Hey, Mike," said Zoe, "fancy running into you here. How are you?"

He shrugged noncommittally, "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, friend of a friend said there was going to be this huge party tonight. It sounded better than anything else I had going on, so I drove up with some friends."

"Drove up, oh right, you were at USC," Mike said pulling some bit of knowledge out of the shroud of alcohol that surrounded both this evening and the one almost two years ago. "I think you may have wasted a trip, though."

"Y'know, I was just beginning to think that until I saw you here," Zoe said as she sat down next to Mike running the back of her hand along his arm. "Is Santana here somewhere?"

Mike shook his head. "With her girlfriend… I guess," he said.

"Well, that's too bad," she said, "I was really hoping we could relive Spring Break, but I guess you and I will have to make our own fun without her."

Mike smiled and said, "I guess we will."

The next morning when Mike woke up he was momentarily confused about there suddenly being someone in bed next to him, but that wild afro was pretty unmistakable and soon most of the night was coming back to him… all except for the really fun parts. He got up and found his boxers from last night and dragged on a t-shirt and started breakfast, just bacon and eggs this time. He couldn't bring himself to make pancakes. He hadn't actually made them since that morning with Santana.

"Smells good," Zoe said when she eventually got up.

"Thanks," Mike said, "It'll be ready in a minute."

"Well, I'll grab a piece or two of bacon and some coffee if you've got any to-go cups, but I can't stick around. If I miss the morning train, I'll be stuck here until this afternoon," Zoe said quickly dressing herself.

"Okay," Mike said, "do you want to give me your number and we could try this again, maybe with less alcohol this time?"

"Mike," she said, "don't get me wrong, last night was a lot of fun, but who are you trying to kid?" Mike just stood there looking confused. "You talk in your sleep," she added not clarifying at all. With an exasperated sigh and an eye roll she said, "Mike, you're still in love with Santana."

"What do you mean still? How would you even know about…? You haven't… since… Spring Break," he stammered out as realization began to take hold of his brain. "Since Spring Break?" This time it was a question.

"You guys weren't fucking me that night," she said, "We were together for hours and my name only got mentioned in passing. You really didn't know?"

"I'm sorry, Zoe," Mike said hanging his head and rubbing his forehead. "I swear I'm not that kind of guy."

She collected some bacon in a paper towel and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I'm not complaining, Mike. Two nights of great sex with two ridiculously beautiful people, what do I have to be upset about? Just don't wait too long to tell her."

X X X X X

New Year's Day Mike showed up at Nancy's apartment set on dragging Santana home with him and forcing her to detox and come to her senses. There was only one slight flaw in this plan, the guy who answered the door wasn't Nancy, didn't know Nancy or Santana and had no idea where to find either of them. He called her on Valentine's Day but her phone was cut off. He sent her a Facebook invite to hang out on St. Patty's day, but she didn't show. He didn't even know if she had access to a computer. Her classmates said they hadn't seen her much towards the end of last semester though they were pretty sure she had turned up for finals, but she hadn't returned after the holidays. Mike quickly got in the habit of scouring the paper to make sure she hadn't turned up dead or been arrested. Easter came and went without hearing from her.

Then finally on May 3rd at nine at night Mike was sitting home going over a routine for one of his classes with the music up, so he missed the sound of someone keying into his apartment. The door swung open and there she stood looking like not a day had passed. "I haven't used in two days, I swear to God," she said the desperation in her voice clear as day. Mike waved her in and she made a dash for him crashing into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her tightly. "I'm sorry for all the shit I said to you. I'm sorry I'm so fucking weak."

"Shhhhhh," he said, "You're not weak, Santana. You just need help. There's a difference."

"I'm just so tired, Mike," she said, "Can… can you lay down with me right now?"

"I need a shower," he said.

"Mike, please," she begged, "I've spent the last six months with my face buried in the snatch of a drug addict. Hygiene was way, way down on the list of her priorities. Next to that you smell like fresh cut grass. Please just come to bed with me." Mike pulled his sweaty tank top off, did his best to wipe his torso off with it, and threw it in the hamper before lying down. Santana lay down next to him and he wrapped his arm around her while she laid her head on his chest. It was just as natural as it had been six months previously to them. "I missed you so much, Mike," she said kissing his chest.

"I'm going to get you help, Santana," he said choking back the emotion in his voice, "No matter what it takes, whatever it costs, even I have to go begging my father for help, we'll get you all the help you need."

Santana turned to face him. "You're too good to me, Mike."

"No such thing," Mike said, "I'm exactly as good to you as you deserve."

She leaned up to kiss Mike and he kissed her back and suddenly Mike was flooded with the sensations of her once more, the taste of her, the scent, the feel of her laying half across him and he was intoxicated by it. He knew he had about one second to back off this before his brain got flooded by feelings and hormones and he started making bad decisions. Unfortunately, that second passed and Santana was still running her hand down over his abs and under the waistband of his gym shorts. "Santana," he said trying to call her off what she was about to do.

"Please Mike, you're so good to me when I don't deserve it," she said in her husky sex voice, "Please let me make you feel good. I really want to taste your come, and then we can take a nap and after that we can… we can fix me, okay?"

He should have said no because she was obviously emotionally fragile, but he was every bit as in love with her as he had been months earlier when he finally realized it and he hadn't been with anyone since Zoe and her hand was already wrapped around his cock and stroking lightly, so he didn't say no.

When he woke up, Mike was pretty certain that he hadn't been asleep long since it was still dark out and sure enough it was 10:40, only about an hour and a half since the door had opened. Santana was gone as was all the cash in his wallet. Instead he found a note from her that said:

I'm sorry, I told you I was weak. Nancy got busted a couple days ago and I had to find a new place to score and my ATM card will only let me take out so much per day and I ran out of cash. While they'll take sex in trade, I'm not quite so far gone to be willing to whore myself out to strangers… though clearly I have no problem doing it to friends. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you, Mike, and I always will but you deserve better than me. You can't give up your dreams to fix me. I know you would without even being asked but I can't be fixed. You deserve everything good. I'm none of it. Please just forget about me and go find someone good enough for you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry.

If that didn't sound like a suicide note, Mike didn't know what did and now he was absolutely scared to death because he really had no idea where to begin looking for her. That didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

It was times like these that Mike wished he wasn't the only one from their youth still in Santana's life... wished that there was someone else who cared, who would help him find her. The next closest person was Sam who'd just gotten drafted to the Seahawks and had moved into a new place up in Seattle, and while they'd dated for a while, Mike never got the impression that Santana actually cared all that much about Sam as a person. He was mostly just a status symbol, a football player to go along with her as head cheerleader.

He was, however, the only other ex-Glee Clubber on the west coast. Brittany, Rachel, and Tina were all in New York. Artie and Blaine were having an epic bromance in Boston. Kurt was in France. Mercedes was in Chicago. Finn was in Lima still. Matt was in Miami playing for the Hurricanes. Lauren Zizes presumably was still at the University of Iowa wrestling, but he wasn't sure. Puck might be somewhere nearby but who the hell knew with him and his band.

Santana's parents had accepted her sexuality when she came out, which is to say they hadn't kicked her out of the house or sent her to a reform camp or anything like that, but they didn't talk either. Mike knew his mother liked Santana well enough and if he asked her she would help in any way she could but she too was all the way in Lima.

Santana was looking to score and although he wasn't well versed in drug economics, Mike was pretty sure the twenty dollars he had on him wouldn't get her far. Mike was pacing the floor trying to figure out where Santana might have gone, when his phone chimed. He had a message on Facebook. He quickly called up the app on his phone and saw that it was from Lauren Hardison, Santana former dorm roommate. Santana was just here. She was completely hysterical begging me for money. Please call me when you read this. Mike dialed the attached number. "Mike," Lauren answered as though it couldn't possibly have been anyone else, "she's been gone maybe five minutes. I messaged you as fast as I could."

"You said she was begging you for money. You didn't give her any did you?"

"No. No. I didn't have any but I wouldn't have even if I did. She got into her stuff. Y'know she never really moved out. I just moved all her stuff over to my side of the room so my new roommate could move in. Anyways, she got into her stuff and dug out a bunch of jewelry and left."

"Jewelry?" Mike said, "So she's going to be headed for pawn shops? Did you see what she was driving? Was it her car?"

"Didn't see," she said, "but she was wearing a green v-neck sweater and black skinny jeans if that helps."

"Thanks, Lauren," Mike said.

He was about to hang up and start working on which pawn shops were still open at this time of night when she said, "Please let me help you find her, Mike."

"Lauren, I-"

"Look, I know you probably think I'm crazy," she said, "with good reason. I went a little nuts with the green hair and the nose ring. I was just... Doesn't matter, look I came out because of Santana and I got a bad case of hero worship and tried too hard to be cavalier about sex like her. I know that's not me now, but I am gay and the only reason I was brave enough to admit that is because of her and I never got the chance to tell her that and I can't sit around here and do nothing while she's maybe out there dying."

"Okay, okay, okay," he cut her off finally because he really didn't need the image of Santana dead in a ditch somewhere in his mind. Now was the time for levelheadedness. "Okay, she's chasing a high. She needs cash and doesn't have much. She took jewelry so that means pawn shops. Do you have a copy of the yellow pages there?"

"Yes," Lauren said.

"Get it and turn to the pawn shop section. You start at the front. I'll start at the back and call every shop that's still open. Briefly describe Santana to them. If Santana was there ask them if she said anything about where she was going, what sort of vehicle, which direction she went. I'll leave a chat window open on Facebook and we send a message to tell each other the second we hear anything."

"Okay," she said.

With that they went to work calling. At the fifteenth place Mike called he found somewhere she'd been, "Yeah, she was here. I sent her away. I don't do business with junkies. For all I know that stuff was stolen and I don't need that headache."

Mike bit back his anger at him calling Santana a junkie, mostly because he knew it was true, "Did you see what she was driving?"

"Near as I could tell she was on foot. That or she was parked somewhere way away from the building. Listen find your friend cuz uh, I told her if she comes back in here I'm callin the cops."

"Do it," Mike said, "If she comes back, call the cops. Then tell her to call Mike Chang when they let have the phone."

"What kind of friend are you?"

"The kind that would rather see her picked up for possession than dead of an overdose," Mike said and hung up. He turned to the computer and typed to Lauren. She's on foot. Ignore any shops more than a mile or two away from the school.

A second later he got a message back, Thanks that narrows it way down.

We'll find her. He responded not sure if he was trying to convince Lauren or himself.

We will, she replied.

Mike went back to work calling three places and getting nothing. Ten minutes after the last message, Lauren sent him another, Pawn shop owner said she was goin 2 frat party. Trying 2 find which frats r havin parties 2nite. Mike just replied K so as not to distract her from her search. Deltas and Sigmas.

Either more likely to have drugs?

No clue

U go Deltas. I'll go Sigmas. Call as soon as u no nething. Mike grabbed his keys and was out the door within a minute, in his car thirty seconds after that, and out of the parking lot in another thirty. Mike had no idea how fast he was driving because he couldn't be bothered to look at the speedometer because he didn't care. Frat Row was all the way across campus from Mike's apartment building and that hadn't been an accident. Right then it felt like the dumbest decision he'd ever made in his life. It took more than ten minutes to get to the Sigma house and when he got there, there were so many cars he had to park nearly half a block away. Mike raced to the building and shoved in the front door finding the scene he expected, lots of dunk people. Mike quickly pushed his way to the banging stereo and turned off the music. A huge growl came from the collected masses. "Yeah, listen up," Mike shouted, "I'm looking for Santana Lopez, really hot Latina chick, green sweater, came in looking for blow. You have as long as it takes me to call campus security to tell me where she is." He couldn't say why but Mike was pretty sure she was here and not at the other frat.

A walking stereotype of a frat boy in khaki shorts, a short sleeve dress shirt, and sweater vest came up to him and said, "Look man, don't cause trouble but if she's looking for coke and she's here, she'll be on the second floor at the end of the hallway."

Mike shoved the J. Crew model out of his way and raced up the stairs. He came to the end of the hallway and opened it without knocking to find a room with eight people passing around a small mirror with likes of cocaine on it. "Hey, uh, party foul," one of the guys standing near the door said.

"Fuck you!" Mike said, "Where is she? Santana Lopez, the Latina girl, I know you sold to her."

"Dude, chill the fuck out," the guy said, "Yeah, I sold your bitch some blow, but she left. Not exactly the social type. Check the bathroom, three doors down on you left."

Mike turned without another word, stomped down the hallway tried the knob on the third door but it was locked. He really, really hoped that someone wasn't in there doing their business because he wasn't wasting time beating on the door. Mike stood back slightly and raise one very strong dancer's leg and kicked the door as close to the knob as possible. He hoped it worked the same in real life as it did on TV and fortunately for him in this instance it did as the door frame broke under the strength of his kick.

Inside the bathroom, lying in the floor was Santana passed out with her sweater pushed up over her breasts and some skeezy asshole crouched over her, clearly just having been molesting her. Mike didn't say a word to the guy still frozen in shock. Instead Mike grabbed him by the throat and one shoulder, dragged him to his feet, and slammed him into the wall harder than Mike had thought possible. Then he directed his attention back to Santana. Once he really paid attention to her, it was obvious that she wasn't breathing. His CPR training from his summers as a lifeguard at the Lima Community Pool kicked in and he felt for a pulse finding none. He quickly started chest compressions counting softly to himself. He pinched her nose closed and breathed into her mouth and on the second time she choked and gasped for air. Her eyes opened only momentarily. He checked her pulse again this time is was faint but steady. Her breathing was shallow but it was there.

Mike shouldn't have wasted the time but he just couldn't help himself. He looked at the guy he'd just pulled off Santana. "You were going to rape her while she died asshole!" He balled his fist and punched him in the face. Mike hadn't hit anyone since the 8th grade when Puck had called Brittany a retard. That incident had earned him the nickname Big Bro from Brittany. Hitting Puck had hurt a lot more than hitting this guy. This guy crumpled to the ground in a heap starting bleed from the nose.

Mike quickly pulled Santana's shirt down and searched through her pockets to find any drugs she might have on her. He found a wad of cash, a keycard, a pawn stub, and bag of white powder. Pocketing the other items, he deposited the bag into the toilet, flushed it, and then scooped her up into his arms. He raced out of the bathroom, down the stairs, out of the house, and down to the street. Quickly surveying the area he realized that an ambulance would never get down the insanely crowded street. He figured it was no time to be concerned with appearances and moved Santana into a fireman's carry and took off down the street towards his car running as fast as his legs would carry him.

Upon arrival Mike rather unceremoniously dumped her in the passenger seat and raced around to the driver's side. Mike thanked God that there was a hospital on campus. Granted it was almost all the way back across campus, but Mike's complete disregard for traffic laws made short work of that trip. He raced up to the emergency room door and dragged her bodily inside. The next few minutes were a blur, relaying all the pertinent information, trying to relate as much of her medical history as he knew off hand, ended by a nurse telling him that he'd have to stay in the waiting room since he wasn't family. When the doors shut, Mike never felt so alone in the world and so scared in all his life.

Only a minute later his phone rang. He dug it out to see that it was Lauren calling him, "Shit," he said to himself. He'd forgotten to tell Lauren he'd found her. "Lauren," he said.

"She's not here, Mike," she said frantically, "I've looked everywhere."

"I found her, Laur. I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner but I had to race her to the hospital."

"Reagan?" she asked.

"Yeah," he confirmed in a shaky voice.

"I'll be right there," she said hanging up.

Mike then pulled up another number and called. It rang and rang for some time before finally someone picked up. "Armando?"

"No, Mrs. Lopez, it's Mike Chang. I'm sorry to call so late, but Santana's in the hospital."

"Oh my God, what's happened?"

"Drug overdose," Mike said flatly, "but I don't know how she's doing because they can't tell me."

"Drugs?" she questioned, "How could you let this happen? What kind of friend are you?"

"You know what? I'm sick to death of people asking me that all of a sudden," Mike snapped back at her, "I'll tell you what kind of friend I am. I'm the kind of friend that has been up to his neck in Santana's problems for the last three years when it would have been a lot easier for me to just do what everyone else has done and walked away. I'm the one that's been there and listened. When you couldn't accept that your daughter was different than your narrow-minded preconceived notions of what is and isn't normal, I was the one that was there for her, and yeah, I failed to protect her from herself tonight and I fucking hate myself for that, but you've failed her every night for three years so you don't get to lecture me on friendship and responsibility. I need you to tell these idiots in this hospital to let me see her and to tell me what's going on with her since I'm the only one who's here."

"Hand the phone to a nurse," she said her voice significantly softer.

No sooner had he done that than a now familiar voice said, "Mike?" He turned to look and but for her voice, he'd have never recognized Lauren. Gone were her short, choppy green hair and her nose piercing. In their place she had long, curly brown hair and thick rimmed glasses. She pulled him into a hug that he didn't realize how desperately he needed. "Thank God you found her, Mike. How is she?"

She was about the same height as Santana so her hug reminded him so much of hers. "I don't know," he said, "I don't… I don't know. When I found her, her heart had stopped." Lauren gasped. "I got her going again but she was weak, and now she's in there," he pointed through the triage doors, "and now they can't tell me anything because I-I'm not family. S-S-Santana's mom is on the phone with the nurse trying to find out. I-I-I-I-I-"

"Mike, breath," Lauren said.

Mike let out a long, slow shaky breath and for the first time since he read that letter he stopped moving and when he did emotions overwhelmed him. He hugged Lauren tight as tears erupted from his eyes. Mike generally wasn't an emotional guy, at least not with people he didn't know well and he barely knew Lauren at all, but in that moment it didn't matter. She was someone else that cared about Santana, probably the only other person in a hundred miles and in that they were connected. After several minutes and a couple of wet spots on his t-shirt, Mike said still shakily, "God, she wasn't breathing, Laur."

"But you got to her, Mike," she reassured him, "You saved her life. You're a freaking superhero. You're like Batman, Mike, except better because Batman's girl died before he could save her." Mike couldn't help but be flattered at the comparison.

Before he could say anything in response a nurse said, "Michael Chang?"

"Yes," he said letting Lauren go.

The nurse handed him his phone back and said, "She hung up. She said she'd call you back after she made a reservation." Mike took the phone and the nurse then held up a clipboard and a pen. "If you'll sign this, we can get you back to see your friend in just a few minutes." Mike noticed that the forms already had Maria Lopez's signature on it so he quickly signed his name. No sooner had he finished than his phone rang again.

"Hello," he answered the number he didn't recognize.

"Mike, it's Maria Lopez," she said, "First thing, Santana is okay." Mike immediately relayed that information to Lauren who visibly relaxed hearing it. "She's still unconscious but they're confident that she will wake up soon. Second thing, the document that you should have just signed makes you her temporary medical proxy. It will get you in to see her and if some decision should need to be made in the next few hours and she's not awake, you'll be the one to make it. I'm on my way out there but it's going to be some time before I can make it. I have to drive to Toledo and then I can't get a direct flight out, so it will probably be six or seven a.m. before I can get there."

"It's not a problem," Mike said, "I'm absolutely not going anywhere."

"Thank you," Maria said, "Please make sure she has everything she needs, whatever it takes, whatever the cost. We'll cover it."

"Uh, I'll make sure she has food and blankets and stuff, but what she needs, what she's going to need is rehab, therapy, a new place to live."

"I'll take care of that," she said, "I've got hours of airports and airplanes to worry about all that. Just go be with her, Mike."

"Okay," he said.

"One last thing, Mike, I'm very sorry for the way I spoke to you earlier…"

"It's okay, you…"

"No, Michael, it wasn't. You saved my daughter's life tonight. I can't ever repay you for that, but I can say thank you for being there for Santana when I wasn't."

"You're welcome," Mike said, "I'll see you when I get here. I'll call you if anything changes." They hung up and Mike looked back to Lauren. "Can you do me a favor?" he said, "A couple of them actually."

"Whatever you need," she said.

Mike pulled the contents of Santana's pockets out and said, "I'm going to go be with her. They aren't going to let you back, so this is a pawn ticket Santana had on her and this was all the cash she had. Can you go back there and buy whatever she sold them. It could be something important that she'd hate to have lost. Whatever the difference is moneywise, I'll get you back."

"Okay," Lauren said.

"Mariport Inn," he said holding up the key card, "Room 223. Any idea where that is?"

"No, but I'm sure my friend Google does," Lauren said.

"It can't be too far if she was walking everywhere tonight," he said, "Go and get her stuff out of there. Take it back to yours and we'll come get all of her stuff when she gets out of here, I promise. Oh and if you see her car there…"

"I've got someone that can come help me pick it up," she said. She leaned in to hug him once more. "You're totally a hero, Mike."

"I wouldn't have gotten to her in time without your help, Laur. If I'm Batman, then you're Robin… or Batgirl… or Alfred… someone. Take your pick. Thank you."

"You're welcome. It's what friends do, right?"

X X X X X

Santana's whole body ached when she started coming to. She emitted a low groan as she started to peek through one eye. Her vision was blurred and she couldn't really figure out where she was but she knew she was somewhere other than that bathroom she was last in. Looking at her left arm she saw an IV stuck into her. She assumed that meant hospital. She looked down at her right arm and found it attached to something too. It was attached to someone else's hand. When she managed to shake herself still awake a little more she saw that that someone else was Mike. "Fuck," she said softly, "I'm still dreaming."

Mike who had been dozing very lightly suddenly bolted upright in his chair hearing her voice. "Santana? Oh my God, Santana," he said gripping her hand tighter, "You're not dreaming."

"I-I'm not? Th-this is real? You're really here?" her breathing started becoming erratic as her eyes filled with tears. "You… you found me?" He nodded to her. Tears ran down her cheeks as she said, "God, Mike, I'm so stupid. I'm so, so, so sorry."

"Hey, hey, hey," he said softly while tightening his grip on her hand. "It's okay. You're here, you're going to be okay, and I'm not going anywhere."

"I could feel it, you know," she said, "When I was laying there in that bathroom floor, I could feel myself dying. I could feel the life going out of me. I remember thinking that it wasn't fair because I wasn't going to get a chance to tell you how much you mean to me. I lay there and I called out for you, and…" Santana choked hard on her emotions once again, "and you came for me."

"I always will," he said.

"I love you so much, Mike," she said, "but you deserve so much better than me."

"I love you, too, Santana," he said with a huge smile, tears in his eyes as well, "and there's no one better for me than you. Think back to Thanksgiving, Santana. We can have that again. You just have to let us help you.

"Who is 'us'?"

"The doctors, me, Lauren, your mom."

"Lauren?" Santana questioned, before more realization sat in, "Wait, my mom?"

"You're mom is on her way out here," he said, "I called her because they wouldn't let me back here because I'm not family. She straightened all that out and she's flying out. Last I talked to her she was at O'Hare in Chicago waiting for her connecting flight."

"And Lauren?"

"Lauren helped me find you," he said, "Without her we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"She's not still…"

"Obsessed?" he finished. "No, she's calmed down a lot in the last couple years, I think. She said she had some things she needed to say to you, but they're for her to tell you, not me, but suffice to say that she's a friend, or will be if you let her, and that your gaydar isn't as awesome as you think."

Santana massaged her temples and then ran her hands through her hair. She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. "I don't ever want to feel like felt tonight again. I swear I wasn't trying to kill myself, but I guess I wasn't trying very hard not to." She was quiet for a minute. "So what, Rehab?"

"Yeah," Mike said pretty certainly, "and I think you need to talk to someone, y'know, like a psychiatrist or a therapist or something."

All of Santana's instincts were to say "Fuck that," but she realized that acting on instinct was how she got to this point in the first place. "I… I…" She took another deep breath, "I've walked away from you twice now, so clearly I don't make good decisions. I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to try to work on that. I just need to know that you're going to be here for me. I just need to know that you're going to be there with me."

"Always," said Mike.

Santana smiled at him just a little and said, "Thank you for being so patient with me."

"Like I said before, you're worth waiting for."

X X X X X

Mike and Santana's second first date was the day after Santana got out or rehab, planned entirely by Santana this time and it went just as well, if not better, than the last one. The second time around it was significantly harder to talk Santana into agreeing to the "take things slowly" plan. She argued that they were already in love, what else needed to be proven? Santana's doctors had told Mike to be on the lookout for Santana transferring her addiction, and as much fun as it might have been for him in the short term, Mike didn't want her replacing cocaine with sex. Santana thought that was an entirely unfair reason, mostly because she couldn't dispute it or get mad about it since it was for her own good. So at the end of that and every other date they went on, they would retire to separate bedrooms in the new two bedroom place that Santana's mom had found for them and helped them get set up in.

Musical Theater West was preparing to open its production of Rock of Ages and Mike had been cast as Justice and the buzz about the show was massive, so massive in fact that Mike was stressing about it big time, working himself nearly to death to make sure everything was right for when they were going to open. By the last week in July, two weeks before they were due to open, it got to the point where the director had to send Mike home for a couple of days on the orders to relax before he drove himself insane.

He didn't really know what he was going to do to relax. Santana was due to be working most of the afternoon/evening, he'd given up drinking to help facilitate Santana maintaining her sobriety and honestly hadn't missed it that much, and video games had kind of gone by the wayside in favor of paying the bills. It was summer so most of his classmates were either home or off on vacation. He really didn't know what he was going to do. As he was contemplating this on the drive home, his phone rang. It was Santana. "Hello," he said into the speakerphone.

"Hey, babe," Santana said, "I'm sorry to call while you're working, but there's kind of a small situation at the house that I need your help with. It's not like a huge deal. You don't have to like rush home or anything. I know you're at rehearsals…"

"Actually, I'm already headed that way. What's the problem?"

"It's not a problem," Santana said, "Just a little bit of a situation. I'll explain when you get here, okay?"

Mike leaned on the gas a little more after that conversation, not quite speeding-Santana-to-the-hospital fast, but still faster than he probably should have been driving. He made it home in just over fifteen minutes. "San," he called as soon as he was in the door not seeing her in the living room or the kitchen.

"I'm in your bedroom," she called back.

Mike walked down the short hallway to the bedrooms which were opposite each other. He opened the door on the left side, and found his bedroom empty of anything except for the bed which was stripped of any bedding. He walked in and looked briefly into the closet which was likewise empty. He was somewhat stuck for what to think. He was reasonably certain that Santana hadn't thrown him out or he'd have found his belongings all over the parking lot and that phone call wouldn't have been so nice. He stepped back out into the hall and knocked on Santana's bedroom door. "Come in," she said.

He opened the door to her room and found her stretched out very seductively on her bed in some ridiculously hot looking lingerie, pink with black lace, a little lacy skirt, garters, stockings, the works. Santana looked sexy beyond words. Her tumble off the deep end had, for a time, wrecked her amazing body. She'd lost almost twenty pounds due to not eating and not exercising, but Santana had worked hard to get it all back and as near as Mike could tell she looked better than ever.

"Sorry," she said, "I forgot to mention, that's not your bedroom anymore. This is."

"And the situation…"

"…is that we've been dating for over a month, we're living together, sharing a bed now, and still have not had sex yet," Santana said as she lightly caressed the swell of her breast.

"And it's no coincidence that you just happen to be lying in bed like this when I just happen to get sent home from rehearsals under orders to relax, is it?" Mike asked.

"Less coincidence, more elaborate plan on my part," Santana said.

"What does your therapist think about this?" Mike asked.

"Really, Mike? Really? I'm lying here looking hotter than I have ever looked, and that's saying something, wearing some of the sexiest lingerie on planet Earth that I ordered just for this occasion, and the first thing you can think of that you want to talk about is her? Seriously?"

"Sorry, hon, you do look just absolutely stunning, like human beings haven't invented words for how breathtaking you are at this moment, but your mental well being is gonna trump orgasms every time," Mike said.

Santana closed her eyes and smiled as she shook her head, "If I promise that we'll talk about it first, will you stop standing over there being perfect and come get in this bed?"

"Deal," Mike said.

"Okay," Santana said, "Your clothes aren't welcome." He smiled at her and rolled his eyes before yanking his shirt overhead and pushed his shorts down leaving him standing there in just his boxer briefs. "Well," she said, "are you waiting for an engraved invitation? Get your sexy ass in this bed."

Mike lay down on his side facing Santana kissing her sweetly on the lips. She kissed him back considerably harder. He returned it to her for a minute before pulling back. She growled at the loss of contact, but Mike reminder her, "Talk first, Santana."

"Okay, fine," she said, "If we wait on Dr. Murphy to tell us it's okay to have sex, our first time will be on our ten year anniversary. That's just not how things work with us. She doesn't tell me I can or can't do things. Whenever the subject of sex comes up which is less often than you'd think, she just tells me that I should be sure that I'm ready and that I'm not just doing it for something to do. That's how I'd know that I wasn't exhibiting addictive behavior."

Mike put his hand on her side, lightly caressing her with his thumb, "So you're sure you're ready for it?"

"As sure as I'm likely to be," she said running her hand up his arm coming to rest on his chest, "I mean there's always going to be a part of my brain that worries about me getting addicted again and anything I really enjoy is going to set that part of my brain off, but I can't live in fear of that because that's not living. I've seen you the last couple of weeks, walking around stressed, and I know this is important because it's high profile and it could lead to huge things for you… for us. I get that, but right now you need to relax and quite frankly I need you. I have all this love in me for you. I need some way to express it and just saying I love you doesn't begin to do it."

Mike leaned back in to kiss her. As their lips collided, Santana's hand moved from Mike's chest to the back of his neck gripping it as she rolled onto her back pulling him with her. Mike's hand traveled down from Santana's side to her thigh just above her stockings and she sighed at his touch. His lips migrate to her neck as she drew in a ragged breath. "You were right, by the way," he said between kisses, "You do look hotter than you ever have and that really is saying something." She smiled brightly at him as he placed a kiss on her sternum just above her breasts. "And this does look great on you."

"You know," Santana's breath hitched as Mike kissed down her stomach, "you know what would look even better on me?"

"Hmm?" Mike said as he pressed his lips against Santana's hip.

"You."

Mike laughed as he caressed both of Santana's thighs with his hands slowly nudging them apart. "Does that mean that Santana Lopez, the ultimate Top, is ceding control?" Mike moved to the floor and positioned himself in between her legs.

"Yes," Santana replied softly.

Mike looked up from what he was doing at her and said, "Wait, really?

"Mike, don't stop," she panted.

"Sorry," he said pressing another series of kisses against her inner thigh each one eliciting a gasp from Santana. Mike repeated the action on her other thigh with similar responses. He then hooked his thumbs under the hem of the garter skirt pushing it up to find Santana naked underneath. Mike reflexively licked his lips at the sight. "A fancy lingerie set like this doesn't have a matching set of panties?"

"Do you seriously want me to go put clothes on right now?" Santana asked in exasperation.

"No," he said quickly, "just trying to torture you a little."

"Mike, what part of I need you waaa…" Santana was cut off when Mike's tongue hit her soaking wet folds. She gasped as sensation coursed through her whole body at every movement of Mike's tongue. She ran a hand through Mike's hair coming to rest on the back of his head holding him close. When Mike trapped her clit between his lips, Santana arched herself into him mashing herself hard against him. "Mike," she moaned, "Mike, I need you up here with me."

"You don't want me to…"

"I'll pretty much always want that," she said breathily, "but right now what I really want most is for you to be inside me. So please for the love of God lose the shorts and get up here."

Mike pushed his underwear down and climbed up the bed over Santana. She took his erection in hand, stroking it lightly sending waves of pleasure sure through Mike's body. "Shit," he said, "do we even have any condoms? I haven't bought any in…" He was cut off by the look on Santana's face. "What?"

"Mike, I already told you I planned this," she said reaching with her free hand to bowl sitting on their bedside table full of condoms that Mike had clearly failed to notice. To be fair to Mike, he had been rather distracted when he walked in. Santana grabbed one, made quick work of the wrapper, and rolled it on Mike. "You ready?" she asked.

Mike nodded adding, "You want me on top?"

"Yeah," she said, "because I don't have to be in control with you. I always feel safe when I'm with you, safe enough to let you make me feel good instead of me making myself feel good on top. Please, Mike, will you make love to me and make me feel as good as I know you can?"

"Who could refuse a request like that?" Mike said. He leaned down and trapped Santana's lips with his as he positioned himself between her legs.

"Just go easy at first," she said breaking the kiss, "I haven't had anyone as big as you… well ever, and I haven't had more than a couple of fingers in me in years."

"I've got you, Santana," he said kissing her again.

Mike positioned himself at her entrance and pressed himself gently against her. Despite any concerns, he slid inside her easily. As soon as he was in, he stopped and let Santana adjust to him. He watched Santana as she groaned through the initial intrusion the tip of her tongue pressed between her lips. She peeked out through her eyelids to see him looking at her. She nodded at him and Mike pressed their lips together once more as he began thrusting in and out of her. Santana snaked her tongue into Mike's mouth, joined her hands together at the base of his neck, and wrapped her legs around his waist hooking her ankles together behind his back. Mike rested his weight on his forearms cupping Santana's shoulders stroking them lightly with his thumbs. After a few minutes Santana said, "Faster." Mike obliged her picking up the pace a little. "Yeah," she moaned, "Yeah, good. So good." They continued on like this for several more minutes mostly moaning and grunting in pleasure. Santana let go of Mike's neck and gripped his muscular back digging her nails into him slightly. "Mike, I'm close," she whispered.

Mike once again quickened his pace and buried his face in Santana's neck kissing her behind the ear. "Come for me, Santana," he said softly, "Come for me, honey. You're so beautiful." Mike could feel Santana muscles tightening, her walls constricted around him. He pulled back as far as he could within the confines of Santana's strong legs, thrust back in hard as he whispered, "I love you, Santana."

With that Santana came undone, "Oh God, Miiiiiiike!" She arched her back hard pressing their stomachs together. Mike sat up and slid his hands down her back to pull her up with him holding her against him Santana straddling his thighs. Santana brought her hands up to his cheeks and rested her forehead against his as she worked herself slowly up and down on Mike as she came down from her orgasm as they stared silently into each other's eyes.

Tears ran down Santana's cheeks and Mike quickly wiped them away saying, "I didn't hurt you did I?"

"No, no no no," Santana said quickly, "That was just the most beautifully intense thing I've ever felt. Happy tears, I promise." She rested he head against his shoulder as her breathing returned to normal. Afterwards, she started rocking her hips slightly against Mike and said, "Now, unless I missed something you didn't come yet, did you?"

"Nope," he said.

Santana reached behind her quickly unhooking and discarding her bra. She lifted herself off of Mike and turned on all fours pointing her ass towards Mike and rocking her hips again quickly this time to make the swell of her ass bounce. "You made beautiful love to me," she said, "Now I need you to fuck me." Mike moved up behind her walking on his knees giving a firm slap to one tantalizing ass cheek which caused Santana to yelp and then groan. Mike lined himself back up and slid into Santana once more.

Two hours later Mike and Santana were passed out in the bed… their bed together, a naked jumble of limbs and hair. Both bore hickeys, bite marks, scratches, and very content smiles.

X X X X X

Mike was a bundle of nervous energy pacing the floor of their apartment waiting for Santana to get home so that he could share the momentous, potentially life altering news. He'd picked up the phone three times with intention of calling his mom and telling her just so that he would have someone to tell but he and Santana had a policy of always sharing news with each other first. Hence why he was stuck waiting. He knew he wanted to celebrate somehow but he wasn't sure how since their one year anniversary was just days away and the plans for that were locked in place. He knew he didn't want to upstage that event or to detract from it in any way.

Within a few minutes he heard Santana sliding her key into the door and opening it. She saw him standing waiting on her. "Hey, babe," she kissed him as she dropped her bag near the door. "I have huge news."

"So do I," he said.

"I assure you mine is bigger, so you go first," Santana said.

"There's no way your news is bigger than mine," Mike said.

"Care to make our standard wager on it?" Santana challenged.

"You're on," he said pushing back.

"Like I said," Santana told him, "I'm certain that I'm going to will, so let's hear your news first."

"Okay," Mike said, "There's a new show opening on Broadway and I'm up for the lead."

"Wow! That's fucking huge news," said Santana, "I am so insanely proud of you, babe. We're going to New York, possibly moving... well, let's be honest, you're gonna kill that audition, so we're probably moving to New York, which I am completely up for by the way, LA can suck it. We're gonna have a chance to see some old friends. I've got some monster apologies to make. That's some pretty huge news."

"Not just that," Mike said, "If I get the part, I'd be originating that part. If the show takes off, I'd be forever associated with it. If they make a movie of it, I'd most likely be offered the roll over anyone else. I could start getting movie parts."

"Yeah, this is potentially your big break," Santana said, "It's enormous. Even if the show doesn't do well, it's still a lead and just having that on your resume means you'd be in consideration for other leads. Any other day and this would certainly be enough to have won our bet and that big beautiful cock of yours would already be in my mouth... and realistically it probably will anyway because when have these bets ever not ended up turning into a huge fuck session, but in today's case you're at least going first because my news trumps that." Santana rather unceremoniously unfastened her pants and stepped out of them. Sitting down on the couch, she started rubbing herself through her black lace panties. "It's been too long," she said.

"It's been since this morning," Mike said.

"Yep," Santana said, "too long."

Mike smiled having fully expected that response. Santana's insatiability wasn't necessarily her best feature but it was definitely top five. "You know you're going to have to actually tell me your news before I'm going to concede to having lost the bet."

"Oh, if you insist," she said in mock exasperation, "I win because I finally figured out what we're going to do with the spare room. Maybe not that spare room given your news, but certainly the spare room at our new place in New York."

"You're redecorating a room?" Mike asked, "In what way does that trump my big break?"

"Because," Santana said an enormous smile breaking out on her face, "it's going to be a nursery."

"A... a nursery?"

"I'm pregnant, babe."

Mike stood there stunned for a long moment. He'd always wanted kids but he and Santana had never had that discussion before. Pretty much all of their focus for the last year had been to getting Santana well. It hadn't really ever felt like the right time to have the marriage and babies discussion. "And you're happy about this?"

"Don't I fucking look happy about it?"

"Fair enough," he said finally taking a seat on the couch next to her, "Do we need to talk about marriage?"

"We can," Santana said, "It's gonna be a short discussion, though. Would you have asked me, if I wasn't pregnant?"

"I, uh, eventually, yeah," he said, "I mean, I want to get married."

"Then eventually we'll get married," she said. Mike clearly looked like he wasn't sure the issue was resolved. "Look, Mike, babe, I love you with all my heart. You know that and if I get to spend the rest of my life with you, then I'm the luckiest bitch ever. I just don't want to be the girl who gets married just because we got pregnant. When we get married, I want it to be because it's what we wanted to do, not what society says we should do. Also, I don't want to be huge and pregnant in my wedding photos."

Mike finally relaxed enough to smile about what he really did think was amazing news. "We're having a baby," he said that information finally settling in. "Oh my God, San, we're having a freaking baby."

"Damn right we are," she responded, "a half Chinese, half Puerto Rican, 100% awesome baby."

Mike pressed a firm kiss to Santana's lips before sitting back to smile at her brighter than the sun. "You know having a baby means that our days of having random sex fests in the middle of the living room are numbered right?"

"Uh, yeah," she said, "Which is why I have to say I'm a little confused as to why you're wasting so much of the time we have left not doing it. Get down here. This pussy's not going to eat itself."