Title: Life in the Fast Lane

Rating: R for language

Pairing: Brittana

Spoilers: None, I think

Summary: Thought I'd take a shot at mechanic!Santana and dancer!Brittany. Just a slice of blissfully blue collar life.

Disclaimer: If you count my student loans, I've never owned as little as I do right now. So: the characters aren't mine, show's not mine, etc.

A/N: Hey folks, thought I'd give a shot at this fic thing. I haven't written in, for serious, ages, so forgive me if it sounds a little weird.

So my AU takes place in a world in which Santana got stuck in Lima, but Brittany got to grow up in the Big Apple.

I'm writing Santana from the perspective of someone who was a mechanic. A lot of her voice is coming from me and my personal experiences, and her coworkers are influenced by some of the awesome people I've had the privilege of working with, so if everyone's OOC that's why. Plus, it's AU, so I figure I can get away with it, yeah? I had a tough time deciding if Santana would be as OCD as me about organization, but then I figured she'd probably be a pretty controlling bitch, so why the hell not? She's not as much of a BAMF as she is in the show, tho, because this is a really depressing time to be a mechanic and I haven't met anyone who hasn't been affected. Plus, she's older, I guess around mid- to late-twenties, so I figure she'd probably have grown up a bit.

Edit: So the cold medication wore off long enough for me to go back and switch up my language a bit. It was a little redundant before, I think.

"Son of a goddamned mother fucking..." The girl's voice trailed off as she watched a thin stream of blood blossom from her recently split knuckle. "'Cuz I really needed another fucking scar." Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the brake caliper she had been wrenching on. Unlike most of her coworkers, Santana was not above feeling anger toward an inanimate object. So she hauled off with her uninjured hand and punched the rotor for good measure.

"Owfuck." She shook out her good hand and, sucking on her knuckle, walked off to the bathroom to wash the grease out of the cut and put a band-aid over it.

It had to be at least 7PM on a goddamn FRIDAY and she was tied up late at the shop, again, because this asshole customer just could not keep his pants on or whatever and just had to have his fucking car tonight or somehow the world would manage to stop spinning around him and fly off into some less douche baggy corner of the universe. The entire shop was deserted except for her and Don, the spineless sonofabitch service writer who apparently skipped the class in which they teach you how to say "NO," god dammit, to customers.

Whatever.

With her newly bandaged hand, Santana returned to her toolbox (blue, 72 inches from end to end, with a nice flat bench top, and every penny of five freaking thousand dollars), intent on putting an end to this hellish workweek as soon as humanly possible. She turned back to the car - a 2008 Ford Escape, so she reminded herself to break routine while disassembling the brake caliper 'cuz these sons of bitches don't go back together as easily as every other piece of crap car on the market – and took up her air ratchet to finish this stupid job and get the hell out of dodge.

She knew the guys already had a solid half of the bar across the street locked down and (please God) there would be a pint and a barstool waiting for her whenever the hell she got out of this stupid building, with its drab cinder-block walls and peeling paint and soiled concrete floors and fuck this place. She slammed the air ratchet down on her toolbox, snatched the rotor off the car, tossed it in the trashcan, slapped the new one on, replaced the brake pads, grabbed her air ratchet back up and spun the bolts back down. Just to be safe (because she was rushing, and she'd been burned for rushing one time too many), she pulled out a torque wrench and double-checked the bolts. Satisfied, she maneuvered the tires back into place, tightened down the lug nuts, dropped the vehicle down to ground level, and got in to take it for a quick test drive 'round the block.

The brakes didn't go out, so that was good. She ran it through the car wash, leg bouncing against the brake pedal while she waited for the automated machine to finish up, spun it around to the service lane, jumped out, turned in the paperwork, threw the keys at Don's stupid shitface, and suddenly she was back at her toolbox.

Sighing with the pleasure that only the end of an ungodly long workday can bring, Santana wiped down her tools and placed them carefully back in their respective drawers. With a quiet snick she turned the lock on the box and (thank you JESUS) called it a day.

"Have a good night, Santana," Don said pleasantly as she walked out of the building. In place of a verbal reply, she flipped him the bird. He wasn't too concerned – he got that a lot.

"I fucking love you guys," Santana sighed as she settled down on her barstool and wrapped both hands around the pint glass that Puck handed her as soon as she walked into the building. Slumping her shoulders, she ducked her head down to take a sip. "Although, Miller Lite? Really?"

"Not my fault you couldn't finish a damn brake job fast enough to make it over here before the end of happy hour," Puck said with an unapologetic grin.

"Do not even begin to sass me, Puckerman, I swear to God..." Santana grumbled into her beer but chugged it down because beer is fucking beer, thanks just the same, and she usually drank PBR at home anyway but really that was no one's business but her own.

Finn stumbled over to the bar, laughing over his shoulder at some stupid joke Mike had just told that somehow had every dude around him howling. Santana decided she didn't really care to know.

"What's up, lady?" Finn asked, smiling with a level of charm that only the halfway-inebriated can manage.

"Same shit, different goddamn day," she said back, as resigned as she'd been the day before. It was just bullshit and depressing really, being laid up in this god forsaken cow town. She'd had dreams, dammit, big stupid dreams for what would happen after high school. None of them included Lima fucking Ohio. But whatever.

"Yeah, it is what it is. But hey, you're here now, so let's all get wasted!" Finn's good humor was contagious, and by the time Puck chucked her over her fourth glass of watered down piss Santana was laughing along with the rest of the guys as Mike regaled them with tales of his more recent customers.

Finn, Puck, and Mike all worked across the street with her, but while the first two occupied stalls on either side of hers Mike got a cushy desk inside the dealership which he used to get customers to sign their lives away in exchange for the latest and greatest vehicles to roll out of Detroit on four wheels. Despite the hordes of unemployed or underpaid salesmen filling up bars around America at this very moment, Mike was actually doing pretty well for himself. He was rolling on the high of one of the best months of his six-year career. Puck, Santana, and Finn had not been so fortunate of late.

"You missed out, Santana," Mike said with a laugh as he leaned up against the bar beside her, "had a really good one today. I think you would've appreciated the view."

Ah, a girl. While her sexuality wasn't exactly disclosed at work, pretty much everyone had figured it out on their own. For all that mechanics are supposed to be crass blue-collar unintellectuals, this group had turned out to be far more perceptive than she'd expected. It didn't take them long to put two-and-two together when her last "roommate" had showed up at the dealership and violently chucked a duffel bag full of silicone and leather at her head and then stormed out.

"Yeah? I dunno, Mike, I'm pretty picky these days." Mike chuckled and Santana snorted into her beer glass. Picky? In Lima? Really? Slim pickings had created a level of standards as follows: Tits? Check. Ass? Check. Legs? Check. Get 'er done, or whatever boys are always hollering in crowded urinals throughout middle America.

"Not much to get picky about with this one, San." He shook his head ruefully, glancing off into the middle distance. "Super tall, all muscle, blue eyes, blonde, snazzy dresser. I'll holler at you if she comes in for a follow-up on the Mustang I almost sold her today."

Santana blinked. What the hell was a broad like that doing in this shithole town? "Seriously, dude? She can't be local."

"Nah, came in from NYC, some kinda dancer chick. I think she was on her way to visit family when the old clunker took a shit. She had it towed in or whatever, was asking what she could get for a trade. Said she wanted to sleep on it, so we'll see."

"Nice, dude. Yeah, let me know, I kinda wanna see this chick." Santana shook her head and took another pull on her beer. "Don't get a lot of ladies around these parts that fill that particular bill. Gimme something to think about at night at least, huh?" She elbowed him roughly in the side and downed the last of her pint.

"Alright, fellas," Santana announced, "I gotta roll before I get so fucked up that I try to drive home and wake up with my car running and still in drive," she said with a pointed look at Puck.

"What?" he asked defensively, only slurring his words a little. "That's only happened like twice, so I dunno what you're talkin' about." He was already swaying, on his fucking barstool, so Santana shot him a raised eyebrow and punched him in the shoulder.

"We still on for tomorrow?" she asked them. Finn and Mike both grinned at her as Puck attempted to nod and promptly fell off of his barstool.

"Whatever, I'll be here," Puck said from the floor. "One of you bitches give me a hand up, Jesus..."

Not one to be caught giving a rat's ass, Santana murmured as quietly as she could to Mike, "You're gonna take him home, right?"

Mike smiled reassuringly and bid her good night.