A/N: So this came from listening to 2:54's self titled album on repeat for a few hours. All the songs in this fic are from that album.
She had promised herself she wouldn't come to another of her brother's shows. The natural movement around her as she moved closer to the stage forced her to close her eyes and dance with the somehow both heart wrenching and hypnotic sounds streaming out over the crowd she was trying to push through. When she got to the front, dark eyes fell from the audience to meet her own. The wicked grin that curved full lips made her lick her own and as she thought about what would inevitably happen in the backroom as soon as the band's set was over, she tried not to dwell over how she had fallen into the trap she thought she should want to climb out of. One she had fallen into for the first time almost nine months ago.
When Noah invited her to come check out a performance in Brooklyn she hadn't expected as many people as she'd seen when she walked into the intimately small club. Neither had she expected the voice that had taken over the microphone from her brother's familiar tones. She hadn't heard the lyrics to the song before, only the music, and was instantly enamored with the gorgeous and haunting voice that belonged to the bands bassist.
"Bend to meet the low, dissolve into the dawn, coursing and soaring, it fell. Leading to, whispering, disappearing, cannot leave a scar."
"Lover, she said, you put the beat in my bones, it's your light here in my hand, you make it easy to see. It flows. Flows. Flows."
Rachel had been captivated immediately, unable to peel her eyes away from the dark eyed woman until the end of the three song set that heavily featured the alluring and attention-grabbing woman on guitar and sometimes vocals. She walked back stage to the small excuse for a green room, hugging her laughing brother without the compulsory warning she usually gave even him.
"Sup, Rach. We were totally awesome right? The chick standing behind you thought so. Totally gave me the eyes. I'm outta here. Lucky night!" The small singer rolled her eyes at Noah, her maple eyes locking onto the coal dark eyes of the guitarist. She stood unmoving for minutes, unaware of the other band members walking out the door behind her. Unsure where her sudden confidence came from, she reached back and pushed the door closed, locking it and then stepping closer to the woman who stood only two feet in front of her.
"You were... you're performance in Scarlet was...inspiring. I'm Rachel. And you're Santana, correct?"
"How 'bout we skip the bull and fuck like we both want, short stack." Her desire to walk away nonexistent, Rachel nodded, unsurprised by how much being pushed against the door she'd just closed turned her on.
It was a pattern that repeated itself. Noah would call to tell her they got a gig at a bar. Always somewhere with a larger crowd, in a better part of Brooklyn. They were moving up. She would go, watch the entrancing bassist and or her brother sing a few songs off of the album they were still working on and then find herself under the dark eyed latina, moaning out her pleasure.
She tried to stop going. Tried to give it up. Being used and then left wherever it happened to be they'd just fucked hurt her. And the other woman was unapproachable otherwise. She tried to make it seem that she was all emotionless darkness, brooding, and attitude.
Rachel didn't believe it. There was too much proof of the opposite. The Latina would immediately order at least two shots if she saw a tall, leggy, long haired blonde or anyone with pink hair and this told stories that Rachel had to admit she was all too curious about. The way she always made sure Finn and Sam, the drummer and second guitarist always got home safe. Above all of that, she wrote most of the band's music and it was anything but empty. It was dark, haunting and alluring. It showcased the writer's pain, made it clear that Santana had been hurt before, over and over again. The performer couldn't help but feel like that's why it was so hard to get close to her unless she came to you. And she had, but only once.
Getting up from off her couch and walking towards the sound of knocking to peer through her peephole, Rachel gasped, unlocking and ripping open the door. There stood Santana in a fitted red dress and heels. She walked inside without a word, closing and locking the door behind her. Expecting the usual even under these different circumstances, Rachel pulled off her shorts and tshirt, standing bare in front of the girl for the first time.
She reached forward and pulled the darker woman behind her, pushing Santana to sit down on the edge of her bed. She slipped the shoes off her feet then undid the zip in the back of the dress, helping the latina slide out of it and her black panties. The other woman's eyes were red and swollen from tears and she hadn't said a word.
Rachel put herself down on her knees between the woman's legs, stroking soft tanned skin as she looked up at Santana's vacant staring off into nowhere. She raked blunt nails against her skin and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss against the apex of her thighs, causing the Latina to finally look down at her.
"Sorry. I was...I don't know."
"It doesn't matter, beautiful. Do you want this? I've wanted to taste you for so long, and you smell so good Santana." The Latina reached down, running her shaking hands through soft hair, nodding her consent.
"Yea, baby. I want this."
The next day Rachel had woken her up, made her breakfast and kissed her goodbye once the Latina told her she had to get home to change and get ready for work.
That was a month ago, and things had gone back to normal after it. She was desperate to see her like that again but without the obvious pain that had brought the beautiful woman to her door in the first place.
Tonight would be the night if she could make it work. After the show at the rather large bar was over, Rachel would hang out with the band the way she always did, then bring Santana home with her. She knew the latina didn't work the next day. She looked up from the vodka tonic she'd just ordered as the bass and guitar heavy opening to a song she didn't recognize filled the air around her and gave her goosebumps. it was at least another thirty seconds of the hypnotic rhythms that drew her closer to the stage until she was standing right at the base of it. Then and only then did the voice she knew so well fill the bar.
"I've been watching, i've been waiting, for you. For you. Run my fingers, around the frame. The frame." It was strange to realize that the latina on stage hadn't taken her eyes away from hers since she started to song. She wasn't sure what it meant, but she would pay close attention to the words.
"I just want to be...close, want to be." Rachel listened as both her brother and the latina on stage followed with moaned vocalizations, filling the space until the next verse with their voices.
"Let my self in, hope you don't mind. Don't mind. Don't mind. A little longer, the view is fine from here. From here. I just want to be, close... want to be..." The band led out with more moaned vocalizations and it appeared that was the end of the set. The four musicians stepped off the stage to applause as Rory and Joe, the two young guys they hired to pack away instruments and gear post performance, stepped on the stage and started unplugging amps. Rachel watched as all four moved towards the bar and walked that way herself, stepping up next to the bassist and sliding her hand under her tshirt and over her skin as she held her hand up for another vodka tonic. When it came and the bartender went to take the band members money for the shots they'd ordered she handed over her own cash instead.
"Fuck yes, free alcohol. This, baby sister of mine, is why I love you. Plus you totally sent a chick my way a few days ago. Thanks for the lay." Rachel didn't think it important that she'd only done that because the woman had looked like she was seconds away from propositioning Santana.
"Noah we're fraternal twins, i'm not your baby sister. I was born forty seconds before you."
"Yea but I'm way more badass than you. That gives me big brother rights.
"Saying thanks for the lay sounds so weird given you said it to your sister Puck."
"Sam's right. I wouldn't say that to my sister. I mean I don't have a sister, but if I did. I mean I do have a brother kind of but i wouldn't say it to him because before we were brothers he had a crush on me so that would be weird, right? Right."
"Shut up, you idiots. There's alcohol in front of you. Drink it." The boys downed their two shots each back to back then turned around to search through the sea of girls. Within thirty seconds they were all walking away. Rachel rubbed her thumb against the soft skin at the small of the bassist's back, leaning against the bar with her drink in her free hand.
"Thanks for the shots short stack. How'd you like the set?"
"It was amazing. Even more so. The last song though, that's new. Did you write it?" The Latina nodded, locking their eyes together.
"Yea. I did. What'd you think?"
"It was beautiful. And different." Rachel ordered two more drinks, knowing Santana would like the vodka tonic she'd been drinking. It was the taller woman who'd gotten her drinking them in the first place.
"Oh? In what way?"
"Your songs tell stories in past tense and that's true almost exclusively. This one though, it wasn't telling a story, it was yearning, like a way to call out to someone. To tell them something you haven't been able to before. That maybe you kept yourself from saying. You held yourself back and don't want to anymore. That's what I got from it. The more I run the lyrics through my brain the more I hope you wrote it to me. For me." Santana leaned down and kissed her, grinning when she pulled away.
"Oh yea? You'd want me to say those things to you?"
"Yes. In fact I..."
"You what?"
"I came here tonight hoping I could talk you into coming home with me instead of us just finding a back room or the green room. I know you don't have to work tomorrow and I don't have a show...I just wanted to spend the day with you. Make you breakfast, and spend the day together. After last time I-"
"What, in bed? Why, is that all you need me for beautiful?" The Latina asked with that trademark smirk curving her full lips, her eyes gleaming from the light over the bar.
"Anywhere. I just want to be close to you."
"You quoting my lyrics now short stack?"
"Maybe." Rachel sucked the last of her drink from the bottom of her glass then set it down and dropped money for the bill on the bar as it's tender came over and picked it up.
"Alright babe. Come on." Santana slipped her arm around Rachel's shoulders and led the both of them out of the bar into the warmth of the summer night and over to her black impala. Within a few minutes they were moving but Rachel noticed they weren't headed back towards Manhattan.
"Are we going to yours?"
"Yea. I know you've been curious about it. How many day's off do you have?"
"The whole week. Apparently someone the writer/producer is trying to impress is coming into town next weekend and he wants my voice rested up and ready to show said person how amazing his show is. I think he said something about in laws." Santana nodded and thought about it.
"How would you about maybe driving out of the city and going to the beach for a few days? We don't have any gigs this week. There's a beach house my parents own a few hours out of town."
"I was under the impression that you had to work the day after next and have heard from the boys that you never take off."
"I'm supposed to and I don't. I have like a billion off days saved up. I'll just call and take care of it." Rachel nodded and looked away for a second before she looked back, chewing on her lip.
"I never wanted to seem like I was snooping, but where do you work?"
"I'm the third in charge of Sony BMG New York. I bring in new, talented artists from my contacts at Berklee and around the city. In fact, it's how I got my job. I started working at a pretty low starting position in the beginning, but then I started bringing in more artists and they promoted me the more success those people found in the business. I mean, I'm twenty nine and I run the entire new artist division of the New York branch."
"Wait...what? You work for a major label? I thought you and the band were trying to get signed? Why wouldn't you just have gotten the band signed there?"
"We're not about that. I've worked in the business for like seven plus years now and I know what it's like. Plus, honestly all of us really love playing in the bars and little music clubs. We don't need the stage and huge audience like you do. Either way, I'm in talks with Fiction and Fat Possum. They just needed one more song, the one I wrote for you I sent it to them this morning so we should be good." Santana finally pulled up on her curb and parked the car, getting out and opening Rachel's door to gently pull her into her side.
"Wow. Fiction and Fat Possum are both highly acclaimed indie labels. Sony BMG isn't worried about conflict of interest or anything?" Santana walked them both towards the front door of her brownstone, fishing her keys out to open the door and then close it behind them. She flicked the light on and tossed her jacket on the hook when she pulled it off while Rachel looked around the open living room.
"No. they're a huge label. They'd never know how to market our music anyway. Plus, I wouldn't go work for either of those other two. If anything I'd start my own. It's something I'm thinking about, you know, it's in my five year plan." Rachel nodded while she pulled off her boots and her faux leather jacket putting them away quietly. She'd had a long day and although the thought of finding herself between her lover's legs again that night was as enticing as anything had ever been, honestly she just wanted to fall asleep in the Latina's strong arms at the moment.
"Hey, Rach you look so tired, come on we'll go to bed." Rachel followed her up the stairs and to the bedroom quietly. She pulled off her jeans and tank top then lay down on the Latina's bed as she watched the other woman strip down to her blood-red underwear and slide in behind her, pulling the covers up around the two of them and wrapping strong arms around her.
"Sorry I'm so exhausted. I wanted to taste you again, the thought of it turned me on. It was just a long show and then before It I had a meeting with the producer of a show I really want the lead in but the guy was hitting on me and I got the impression that if I wanted the part I'd have to sleep with him so I turned it down." Santana tamped down on the jealousy that rose up in her at hearing about the dick of a producer and placed a tender kiss on the olive skin of Rachel's neck.
"She knew she had hurt her girl with the way she'd acted. Turning everything into a fucked up kind of sex only relationship and whatnot. She'd been heartbroken before. By Brittany first then by Quinn later.
Brittany never loved her, she knew that now. Santana had been someone to take care of her, give her what she needed physically and pay her attention emotionally, that was it. When the blonde had come back from Europe and asked her on a date she'd been hopeful that things would be right again. She'd been the inspiration for more than a few songs. Watcher being the first. It had broken her when the blonde told her she was getting married and had heard it was okay to sleep with someone else on her bachelorette night. Running to Rachel's had felt right and the brunette took care of her the way no one else had ever cared to.
Quinn was a mess. The type of girl who left whenever things got to serious for her to handle. She was the inspiration for Easy Undercover. The Latina had let herself forget who she really and had payed for it. Rachel made her want to risk her heart again. She already was.
"It's okay, Rach. We'll have the week to do things the right way again. For now, just sleep." Rachel turned and buried her face under the taller girl's chin, finally closing her eyes.
"Ahhh, love...you." Rachel yawned then mumbled as she fell asleep. Santana ran a hand through the girl's soft hair, kissing her head.
"Love you too, baby."