Notes: This is AU, taking place when Santana is slightly older and going back to school. Meeting Dani in a different way. Actually taken off a rp of mine.
For as far back as she could remember, Santana had hated group projects in school.
Even in high school, back when she would have advocated group versus individual projects publicly, she had hated them secretly, because she had never been entirely sure of how to balance her need to look like she didn't actually care about doing work or getting a good grade versus her actual desire to do well. It was her inclination back then to let someone like Rachel do all the work while sitting back and talking to Brittany, but there had always been that undercurrent of worry that the "dedicated nerd" wouldn't do a good enough job or that she would understand that Santana was actually doing the part she had been assigned- just not anywhere or at any time where she might be observed doing it. It used to genuinely stress her out to be up until three am finishing her work the night before, simply because she didn't want to look like she was trying too hard to finishing too early.
She didn't care about her image to the extent that she would go that overboard to try to prove something so silly anymore- at least not in that exact department. But Santana did still hate group projects, for an entirely different reason. Whereas once, she had pretended to have no time or interest in completing her work, now, between rehearsals, school, and job hunting, she genuinely did have to struggle to find the energy and time to do so. Once, she had hidden her academic inclination to be "cool," now she genuinely did sometimes struggle with her work. Once, she had worried that someone would be able to tell that she was actually doing the work; now, she worried she would be stuck with all the work. But the worst difference: in high school, Santana had had plenty of friends and connections for her projects; in college, she had made exactly zero friends. Among her classmates, she was one of the "old" ones, the ones who had already had a round of flunking out and coming back, and she didn't live on campus. Her classmates all knew each other from parties and dorm life and got along easily; Santana didn't know any of them, and for the first time in a classroom setting, she felt that she was the social outcast.
Lately, she sort of felt like that in general. It wasn't accurate, she knew that; her stupid therapist made sure to point out how "inaccurate" most of her thoughts and feelings were every time she went to see the woman, plus publicly proclaim it all over the internet too. But it did feel like it was true. She didn't do much with Puck since they fought so much, and he wasn't much of a social butterfly himself. Rachel was too busy to really hang out, and so was Blaine, and Quinn always preferred to do things with Puck, or at least that's how it felt to Santana. She didn't know Marley or Jake or Sebastian or Sam well enough to do much with them and hadn't actually gotten around to offering, and she and Kurt weren't exactly the types to hang out together just because. Santana no longer went out partying or clubbing, whether with herself or others, since the shooting, so it was difficult to meet anyone new, even for a hookup. She was 23 and not really into hanging out with the college freshmen and sophomores that were in the majority of her classes, even if some of them were sort of hot, and besides, she still had both Quinn AND Brittany continually on her mind. How was she supposed to get anywhere with Brittany if she was looking towards someone else, even if Brittany did say she didn't want to date her?
It was so confusing, what she thought and felt about them both at the very same time, in somehow different ways. Brittany was the love of long term, deep, quiet, and a constant dull ache that hadn't ever left her over the years apart, bittersweet but not an open wound. Quinn was more recent, and somehow more intense and painful, because she had not yet learned how to live around it. Santana knew that she was only driving Quinn apart from her, the way that she was with Puck, as jealous and upset as she let him make her, but she couldn't seem to help herself. It hurt, really hurt to see her choosing him over her, as logically as she knew that this was the only reasonable thing for a straight girl like Quinn, who had loved Puck for years, to do.
Everyone in her life seemed to think that she should move on, make new relationships and really try to be a nicer and better person. It wasn't as easy as they all seemed to think, at least for Santana.
The last place she would have thought it could even possibly begin to change was during a group project at school.
She had noticed Dani before, of course.
She would have to be blind not to notice someone like Dani joining the class just a few days ago, mid semester. She was entirely too attractive not to. Dimpled chin, beautiful smile, curvy in all the right places, and wicked tattoos up her arms- "faith", birds in flight, which made Santana extraordinarily curious as to the meaning. Santana had overheard her mention to someone else that she played the guitar and sang, and that made her all the more interesting to her. And best of all, she set Santana's gaydar off, hard.
Santana hadn't actually spoken to her before; she didn't even know her name. The girl looked a little older than their classmates, like her, but she wouldn't place bets on it, nor did she approach her. Her luck with the ladies lately was at an all time low, and she really wasn't in the mode to want to deal with another rejection.
But when their professor announced a group project, then assigned partners randomly, through a rare and miraculous stroke of actual luck on her part, Santana ended up paired with Dimple Chinned Tattoo Guitarist- Danielle, or Dani, as she had quickly corrected him. And when the girl waited for her after class, asking her, with that all too gorgeous smile of hers, if she wanted to go for coffee after her rehearsals that afternoon to split up parts, Santana hadn't exactly been upset over it.
Puck had told her she needed to up her game with the ladies, she needed to make them feel beautiful and special and be nice to them? Well, maybe she couldn't seem to do that with Quinn or Brittany, but she could at least PRACTICE on Dani. No harm no foul, right?
Of course, her first efforts at "upping her game" had flopped hard, as only Santana could have managed.
She had tried her hardest at pointing out the things that she was most interested in and attracted to about Dani, meaning to compliment. But her flirting ability was either rusty or nonexistent, because nothing seemed to come out right at all.
"I like the tattoos…so, was that weird for you? The whole faith thing, what with being gay?" she had asked first, gesturing towards the tattoos on Dani's arm. They were sitting in the booth of the diner just outside the school that evening after Santana's dance rehearsals, Santana still clad in her leotard with a loose skirt and jacket overtop, and she was pretty sure she had noticed Dani's eyes scan up and down her body as she greeted her with that chin-dimpling smile.
To Santana's horror, Dani had looked at her straight-faced, no pun intended, and said very seriously, "What are you talking about? I'm not gay."
She must have seen the near panic in Santana's eyes, because she had laughed then, even reaching out to touch Santana's wrist reassuringly, and Santana had noticed her fingers lingering before she removed them again. "I'm kidding, I just thought your expression would be funny. No, totally gay. And as for your question, it's not really about that, so much. For me, the birds, they're freedom, being totally okay with being totally me- all of me, gay and all. And faith? That's being free too. Knowing that things will work out, as long as I have the peace and understanding of me to work them out myself."
"Oh…that's cool…philosophical. I like it," Santana told her, relieved, and she gave her a smile back that she hoped was less awkward than it felt. She hesitated, then reached out to lightly touch one before withdrawing her hand. "Most of the kids around here, they get a tattoo of a middle finger on their ass while they're stoned or something…so it's cool it has more meaning than that for you. I guess it's kind of weird for you, to be, like, over 21 and bigger than a size 2 in a school with all these scrawny little eighteen-year-olds running around in tutus and leotards and everything?" was one of her first efforts at being empathetic, which caused Dani to raise her eyebrows across the table at her, tilting her head to one side with a faint twisting of her lips.
"You calling me old and fat, Santana?"
Flushing, realizing then how that had sounded, Santana had immediately shook her head, putting up both hands as though to protest her own self, feeling her face redden with as much irritation at herself as embarrassment. She really did suck at this.
"No, no, I'm not! Just, you know…everyone here is jailbait and so skinny, and…you know, you have hips and boobs that I'm pretty sure no one bought…right? I mean sometimes it's hard to tell, I bought mine but I swear they're shrinking, sucks they didn't even last ten years as much as Papi paid for them, and…it's not like you're that Gilbert Grape mom or- oh god, shoot me," Santana lowered her face into her hands with a groan, genuinely embarrassed. Why the hell did Puck have to be so frigging right?
She fully expected Dani to bitch her out or else walk out, sticking her with all the work. But what happened instead was that Dani's gentle fingers reached out, pulling her hands down from her face, and when she raised her eyes up to her, confused, she saw that the other girl was still smiling. That by some miracle beyond her understanding, she was actually amused rather than offended.
"Hey," she said softly. "I get it. Relax, Santana…it's okay. You don't have to try so hard."
It was contrary to everything anyone ever told her, everything Santana herself believed. All her life she had tried so hard to be so much, to be better and smarter and sexier, to be the most wanted and most needed and most loved, to be everything and everyone but what she genuinely was. All her life she had had to struggle just to be okay, let alone happy, and she was still struggling every day. No one ever seemed happy or satisfied with her, and she certainly wasn't' with herself.
But here was this girl, telling her that it was okay. Telling her that she didn't need to try. And somehow, hearing it from Dani, she can almost believe it.
Even the pretense of working on their project was abandoned about that time, and by the time Santana almost floated through the door of her apartment a few hours later, Dani's brief but all too sweet kiss goodbye still lingering on her lips, she couldn't seem to stop smiling. She was confused, very, very confused, but certainly not unhappy. Maybe it didn't make sense that she could feel much for so many people, maybe it was ironic, that she, the supposedly heartless bitch, seemed to be constantly collecting more and more women to take up a piece of her heart, but this was the first one that actually seemed to want to take a piece of hers too.
Falling back onto her and Quinn's couch, still grinning to herself, Santana took out herphone, not caring how uncool it was to text two seconds after parting. Puck's advice still in mind, she texted Dani quickly, keeping it simple.
"I think you're beautiful."