Pairing: Rachel/Santana
Synopsis: (3 of 8) The friendship between HBIC Rachel and Untouchable leader Santana is blossoming. Both are pleasantly surprised by the bond, but others are more than a little bothered by the friendship.
Author's Note: Lyrics in this story are from Esperanza Spalding's wonderful song, "Precious." I think the characters are developing as I want them to – it's not as challenging as I thought it would be when I started this little venture.
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THREE
But I'm not gonna sit around
And waste my precious divine energy
Trying to explain and being ashamed
Of things you think are wrong with me
I'm not gonna sit around
And waste my precious divine energy
Trying to explain and being ashamed
Of what you think is wrong with me.
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Santana's first war wound came when Toad cornered her in the locker room and shoved her head into a padlock.
"So, you're buddy-buddy with the HBIC now huh? Too good for us?" Toad growled. She smelled foul, as if she hadn't showered in a while.
"Get your stinking ass paws off me, Toad," Santana drove an elbow into Toad's stomach. "She's tutoring me and besides, she's not a bitch and she never has been."
"Oh, you think you're somehow her friend? You think she'd defend you if I were to drag your sorry ass out into the hallway?"
"Shut the fuck up," Santana shoved Toad over the bench separating the lockers, the girl clattering against metal and then falling awkwardly in between the small space between the two. As Toad struggled to get up, Santana fought every urge she had to do further injury. Instead, she strode through the doors into the main hallway; it was crowded out there but it didn't mean she was any safer.
The problem was that Toad had a penchant for real damaging violence when she was pushed. And since Santana fought back, she was likely in danger of something more than a fist. She kind of jogged through the crowd but it wasn't long until Toad caught up with her. The girl was skinny but strong (unlike Squeak) and grabbed Santana by the hair, jarring the Latina backward and dropping her to the ground.
Her skull knocked hard against the marble and the crowd around them was just barely registering the action by the time Toad had clamored on top of Santana and was laying blow after blow to the Latina's face. Santana had her arms up over her face, so a lot of the blows only connected with her forearms, but she knew she was in trouble when Toad got off the ground, the weight of her body gone from Santana's awareness.
Toad followed with a kick to the base of her spine, circled her and nailed her with a hard-toed boot in the stomach. Another kick to the stomach, and Santana spat up blood.
"Fuck this," Santana grunted under her breath. She caught Toad's foot as it was mid-kick, yanked, and the girl fell to the ground. It was just enough for Santana to struggle up on to her feet. She was totally oblivious of the crowd at this point. "What, are you jealous that I have more than one friend? Jealous I'd rather be around her than around you two losers?" They had been a sort of inseparable gang. They operated by the rules they had all been taught by drug dealers and drop-outs.
Squeak was nearby, and Santana knew because she heard the recognizable sound of a switch blade. In the early days, they'd sworn each other in. To betray the group or leave the group meant pain – and Squeak and Toad were bringing it today.
This was all over who Santana was friends with, all because she'd left the Untouchables, all because she wanted to get better grades. It was laughable. Santana swung around just too late, because as she caught Squeak's wrist and caused her to drop the knife, Toad slipped between her legs, grabbed the knife, and Santana felt a surprisingly sharp sting in her thigh.
The teachers were a little too late as they broke the gathering; the teachers were totally unaware that Santana had been stabbed until the Latina passed out, a blurry image in her eyes of the floor rushing to meet her. When she came to, she was in the hospital and alone. She didn't like hospital's much.
Nobody came to visit her. Not that she should have expected anyone to. The doctors stitched her up and let her limp back to school. Somebody caught her in the hallway and said that the two girls had been dragged to the office. The rumor mill was busy – one rumor was that Squeak had been suspended and Toad had been expelled. Another said that they'd both been expelled.
Santana didn't see Rachel anywhere that day. And it bothered her to think that maybe Rachel had found out but hadn't really cared at all. She didn't get a phone call, didn't get a text, didn't get anything after-hours that would indicate Rachel knew anything about what had happened. And it's not like she was about to call Rachel and say, "Hey, by the way, I got stabbed today at school."
When classes got out, Santana lingered on campus, mostly because she didn't want to go home and partially because she was a little afraid to walk home. If Toad or Squeaks had gotten expelled, they had bigger plans for her than just a knife-wound. So she was lying on the bleachers, staring up at the sky and touching the area where she could feel her stitches. Even underneath her jeans they left a kind of bulging pattern.
She thought about Rachel's night-terrors, wondered if she had them every night. She thought about the strange way Rachel made her feel accepted and normal, redeemable. Then again, maybe something Toad said had been right – Rachel hadn't been there to defend her when she was getting her ass kicked. Nobody stepped in until it was too late. She hadn't seen Rachel's face in the crowd, but maybe there was an excuse.
Or maybe Santana was just a charity case.
Having distracted herself to the point of being able to leave the school property without fear, she was walking along the dimly lit sidewalks before she realized she wasn't walking toward her home. She was walking to Rachel's. She didn't know what she was doing here.
She knocked at the door anyway. She didn't know what she'd say. She thought maybe she'd open with, "Hey, craziest thing happened. I got stabbed." Then again that didn't seem like a great opener. She hadn't seen Rachel since the night she'd stayed over, and her grades were coming back up so they hadn't scheduled a tutoring session yet.
Another part of her just wanted to ask, "Where were you?"
She could have used a friend, or the knowledge that somebody watching the fight didn't want her to get hurt. The crowd of teenagers had been mostly cheering and hollering.
Hiram Berry opened the door, and he made a little sound of surprise, "Oh! It's … "
"Santana, Mr. Berry. I know it's kind of late, and I don't have a real uhm … I just," she took a breath, patted her leg over the stitches, winced in pain. "Something happened today that was pretty rough and I don't have anyone else to talk to."
"You wanted to talk to .." the older man trailed off his sentence, pointing a finger at his chest.
Santana laughed, a deep-throated chuckle, "No, sir. Rachel."
"Oh! Right, of course. Sorry, sipped a little too much wine tonight. She's up in her room," Hiram let her in and touched her shoulder. "If you need to, you can talk to me. I didn't mean to make it seem like I'm Mister Unavailable."
"Well you're not Dr. Phil either," Leroy called from another room. It made Santana laugh a little.
"I'll just –" she indicated the stairs before heading up them. She felt a little nervous as she approached Rachel's door. She really did wonder where the hell Rachel had been today. Hadn't she heard anything about what had happened? She hesitated, fist hovering over the door before she knocked.
Rachel opened the door, her look of surprise mirroring that of her father's. "Santana! Did we have .. did…why are you here?"
Santana raised an eyebrow and scratched the back of her neck, "I know we're not really close friends and all, but …"
"I'd like to think we are," Rachel answered, opening her door fully and motioning for Santana to come in. "I mean I know we haven't been friends long, or really spent a lot of time together, but," Rachel fiddled with the door handle before closing it behind Santana, "I'd like to think you're my friend."
Santana watched Rachel closely. Why did Rachel want to be friends with someone who associated herself with people like Squeaks and Toad?
Rachel was watching Santana with some concern. "Is everything okay?"
"No. I mean. Now it is, but I'm … were you in school today?"
"Only half the day, I left after my third class because I had an appointment. Why?"
"Did…uhm, any of your Cheerio buddies tell you about anything interesting that might have happened?"
Rachel shook her head, looking ever more confused as Santana fished for information.
"Wow. I guess the high school social network isn't as connected as it is in the movies," Santana observed wryly before she sat down.
"Did something happen?"
So Santana started unbuttoning her pants – mostly because she was tired of feeling like she was an awkward teenager and instead wanted to get back into her old role of being a badass who could give a shit about what people thought.
"Whoa! Santana, I don't think –"
"Shut up, Berry," Santana smirked simply and pushed Rachel onto the mattress, forcing her to sit down. She stayed in front of her and pulled her pants down past the thigh. "Look."
Rachel looked a little flushed, her mouth kind of gaping, before she outright gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. "You … you must have at least thirty stitches!" The brunette's eyes filled with fear and she immediately leaned forward, touching them out of morbid curiosity.
Santana flinched, let out a hiss between her teeth, and a nervous chuckle. That last part was because a very pretty girl's fingers were near her thigh – her bare thigh. "Careful," she warned softly, before she pulled up her jeans again and fastened the button, zipped them up. "It was a parting gift from my old 'friends.'"
"What?" Rachel looked absolutely wounded and worried, "What do you mean?"
"Toad attacked me in the locker room. Smashed my head into a padlock. We fought and I mean usually I can hold my own, but by the time she caught up to me in the hallway, I didn't realize Squeaks was there, too. We fought some more and then that happened."
"But … how?"
"Toad stabbed me with Squeaks knife," Santana informed Rachel before sitting down on the bed.
Rachel looked flabbergasted, and reached over to touch Santana's arm. "Are you okay?
"Rachel, that's kind of a stupid question. I got stabbed. However, I am alive." Santana gave Rachel's hand an encouraging squeeze before letting go. "I'm a little shaken up. The problem is that the rules they live by mean retaliation. I got them suspended or expelled – rumor mill wasn't clear on that one – so now they'll be looking to get some kind of revenge for it."
"This is … this is Ohio," Rachel said by way of expressing bewilderment.
Santana laughed at the Cheerio, "Where cheerleaders win huge trophies and dance to 'Hey Mickey' and the worst kind of thing that happens is a cheer-off between two squads?"
Rachel scowled, "Don't make fun of me."
"I'm not. There are fucking mean people out there. I just happened to hang out with a couple of them. We learned what we learned for a kind of survival. And…that's like signing an oath, I guess." Santana rubbed her hand very lightly over her jeans, feeling the hint of stitches underneath.
"I'm so sorry," the brunette Cheerio sounded sorrowful. "Is there.. I mean is there anything I can do to .. keep you safe? I don't even know how this works."
Santana shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. You're off-limits to them because it'll be considered dishonorable to attack someone they didn't have some kind of bond with, so at least you're safe. I mean, they might not even do anything further, you know?"
"What if they do?"
"I'll deal with it."
"Not to sound like a terrible person, but why did you come here?"
Santana chuckled, "I don't know. I kind of just ended up here."
Rachel's arms wrapped around Santana from the side, and the shorter girl buried her face against Santana's arm. She was squeezing her as tightly as she could, and it made Santana smile. It took her a minute, but the raven-haired girl wrapped her arms around Rachel in return.
"Can we hang out more?"
Rachel laughed at the question, nodding.
"I mean, if I'm going to get stabbed for it –"
The Cheerio's face blanked, "They attacked you because you're hanging out with me?"
"Because I'm spending time with someone who isn't them, who isn't on the outside of everything," Santana tried to clarify but already she could see Rachel's chin quivering a little. "Hey," she grabbed Rachel by the shoulders, "if you start crying I'm going to be pissed," she half-smirked.
"Does that mean – "
"It does not mean it was your fault I got stabbed."
Rachel only nodded, still looking tearful. She touched the wounded thigh, running her fingers over Santana's jeans, before meeting Santana's dark gaze. "I'm sorry."
"Shut up," Santana murmured simply and she wrapped an arm around Rachel's shoulders, tugging the girl's head down onto her shoulder and sifting her fingers through Rachel's hair. "How've you been sleeping?"
"Okay," Rachel responded. "I think."
A few more moments of silence fell between them, and as Santana was flattening a portion of Rachel's hair between her fingers, she spoke, "Do you think I could stay tonight?"
She didn't want to admit it, but getting attacked like that really had scared her. It might only have been a wound in her thigh, but deep in her gut she knew that her old 'friends' were capable of wounding her much worse.
Rachel nodded.
"I was kinda disappointed we didn't hang out after last time I was here," Santana admitted as Rachel pulled away from her to search for some pajamas.
The brunette hesitated at the dresser drawers, her back to Santana. "It's funny, I could have anyone I want over here, ask anyone I wanted and they'd be here in a second." Santana turned her gaze back to Rachel, "For some reason I felt like if I had asked you, you might have said no. And that bothered me. Isn't that strange?" When Rachel turned around, setting the spare pajamas on Santana's bed, the Cheerio met her eyes in a way that betrayed some slight vulnerability. "I guess maybe I worried … that the night terrors would make you think I wasn't the person everyone loves."
Santana chuckled, "Miss Popularity is worried about what I think?"
Rachel gave a brief shrug, "I guess it is kind of stupid."
"I should be the one worrying about that kind of shit," Santana stated simply before taking the clothing from the other side of the bed. "You're this person that everyone loves. You're kind to everyone and you pretty much could get anything from anyone. And yet you're choosing to have someone over who –"
"You're hiding from the world just like I am. We both bear the shame of wearing a mask, whether it's for good reasons or bad." Rachel, in moments like this, seemed wiser than her years. Santana was stilled, her eyes lingering thoughtfully on the shorter girl.
"I guess so."
"I don't feel ashamed of myself when I'm with you. I don't feel like I have to be what someone wants me to be," Rachel confessed.
Santana's brows knit together in thought as she met Rachel's eyes, then slowly a half-grin lit up her features. She ducked her gaze down, scratched the side of her neck, "I guess we have that in common."
The Cheerio's expression was genuinely thoughtful as she watched Santana. She seemed to be asking a question without asking anything; she took a slight breath and fidgeted with her shirt sleeves. "I really want to spend more time with you. I mean I know you already asked and everything but I just feel like you should know I didn't agree just because it's what popular-sweetheart Rachel would do," Rachel sat down on the bed, honey-brown eyes keeping Santana in her place, "it's what I want to do. I feel … comfortable when I'm around you."
Santana suddenly felt as if she were put under a magnifying glass – an ant burning up from a single ray of sunlight. Her expression sobered and she swallowed air before shrugging her shoulders, "I guess I do have that sort of charm," she said in a kind of dismissive way. As she took off her shirt, back to Rachel, and unstrapped her bra, she quickly slipped into the soft fabric of Rachel's Cheerio hoodie. She was less shy about changing into pants; when she turned around and slipped out of her jeans, she noted that Rachel looked flushed and was biting her lip a little bit.
Santana tried not to read too much into it. She slipped into the matching sweatpants and folded her clothes up in a pile, setting them on Rachel's desk chair. "So what do … people do when they hang out?" The question came out awkwardly enough for Rachel to laugh a little.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean the kind of friends I had didn't exactly stick to PG-13 activities," Santana clarified as she sat on Rachel's mattress, laying back against the headboard and watching the shorter brunette. Rachel twisted her torso just enough so that she could comfortably keep her eyes on Santana.
"What did you do?"
Santana chuckled. "Marijuana, for one. Two, alcohol was always involved. Three, there was some pretty –" she cleared her throat, "some relatively 'free love' goin' on."
Rachel blushed, nodded. "Well, I don't drink or smoke and I don't think I'm about to hop in the sack with you for fun."
"But it would be fun," Santana joked, noting the shade of red on Rachel's cheeks and neck grow darker. She nudged the girl with her foot. "It's a joke, Berry."
Rachel gave an embarrassed smile. "Well, last time we watched movies. And just kind of talked. Wasn't that okay, or did it bore you?"
Santana shook her head. She neglected to mention that for some reason, she didn't remember much about hanging out with Rachel outside of looking at Rachel. Especially when the Cheerio wasn't paying attention. "Not boring at all, short stack."
So they watched movies like normal teenagers. Both girls felt the freedom of their individual masks falling away when they spent time together, and that was something to treasure. Santana was just a little less sarcastic and Rachel was just a little less politically correct, and the thrill of being honest was something that seemed to put them in good spirits.
Later on in the night, when they'd worked through a stack of movies, they were laying lazily in bed beside each other, touching fingertips the way children might when comparing finger sizes.
"So why do you want everyone to love you?"
"Why do you want everyone to hate you?" Rachel countered.
"Because it keeps me safe. It means nobody gets inside and makes a mess of my head, or uses my weaknesses against me."
"But they're always looking at a shadow of you."
"And they're always looking at a shadow of you, Miss Congeniality," Santana turned her head to look at Rachel, her fingers caught midair and balancing against Rachel's palm. "You pretend not to have one bad opinion about anyone, pretend to care all about athletics, but then when you sing –"
"When I sing, I'm naked," Rachel's words were more of a whisper. "It's like if I were to let somebody see that, it would be the equivalent of letting them put their hands directly on my heart to feel the way it beats."
"Kinda grotesque image," Santana teased.
"It's like standing in front of somebody naked, blemishes and all, letting them judge me and make me into who they see. It gives them power over me, so I make sure nobody has power over me."
"And I do the same."
Santana met Rachel's eyes, the conversation going quiet for a moment. Honey-brown orbs stared at her, seemingly in thought. Santana took a quiet breath, felt Rachel's fingertips trailing over her wrist, "I've heard you sing."
"You weren't supposed to," Rachel reminded her.
"But you didn't freak out or anything."
"You heard me sing and you looked like … somebody in love. And obviously you're not, but when somebody looks at me like that, I know I'm safe."
Santana's eyes lingered, "I guess you're right," her words were a gentle murmur. "I mean, you are safe."
"I know," Rachel gave a subtle smile. There was a spark of intensity in the way they were matching fingertips and staring into each other's eyes.
It kinda scared Santana. So she lay her head back and closed her eyes, humming simply as if in thought, "When did you first start singing?"
Rachel didn't seem to notice Santana's avoidance of any kind of intimate connection. "When I was five. My daddy would play Cher and he came in the living room one day, and he'd find me singing along. I mean I was as good as a five year old could be, but then he enrolled me in singing lessons and from then on it was kind of my … hobby."
Santana nodded her head in acknowledgement. "Can I ask you something kind of personal?"
"Yes," Rachel answered with a surprising lack of hesitation. Santana could feel her eyes on her.
"Where's your mom? I mean I know your dads raised you, but somebody gave birth to you."
Rachel fell silent, her hand dropping away from Santana's, and folding itself into the other. "She was just ... like a surrogate. She had the option to have partial custody, my dads offered it but … she didn't want me," and even though Rachel smiled at this, it was the kind of smile that masked deep pain.
Santana sat up, leaning on her elbow, and found her hand covering Rachel's. Deep brown eyes searched honey-brown orbs. "I'm sorry, that's a raw deal."
Rachel nodded simply. "I know some things about her," she spoke softly, her eyes dropping away from Santana's but while she spoke, she slipped one hand over the top of Santana's so the Latina's hand was sandwiched in between her own. "She's a vocal coach at a really high-ranked school in New York, and apparently I look a lot like her. That's what Dad says."
Santana let her hand be held, trying not to wonder at the way she wanted to kiss Rachel, a way of soothing that deep feeling of loss one has when there's a parent who chooses not to be a parent. She didn't kiss her. She just listened, a somber expression on her face.
"It's not so bad. She sends child support just because, so I know she must care a little bit."
Santana knew the kind of silent questions Rachel was asking herself, Why am I not good enough? Doesn't she want to know who I am? Doesn't she love me? Santana didn't have answers for her, and Rachel wouldn't ask those questions. So Santana did the same thing she'd done for one of her cousins when his dad left him. She shifted down on the mattress, gently slipped an arm under Rachel's warm torso, noting the curve of her lower back and the angle of her hip, and wrapping the other arm just around Rachel's waist. Her hand skirted over warm skin, but she ignored all her wolfish impulses and simply let Rachel respond to the embrace.
Rachel tucked herself in Santana's arms, her fingers tangling gently in raven-black hair, and Santana could feel her breath against her throat. The Latina rested her head against the top of Rachel's.
Neither girl said anything. They remained that way until Rachel fell asleep, and as Santana was drifting off into sleep as well, she noticed that she never felt so comfortable as when she was holding Rachel Berry close to her.
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Squeaks was back in school a week later and Santana felt a strike of fear every single time she saw the girl. Her now-healing wound would sting a little, the echo of past transgression. She was waiting for retaliation, waiting for something, but so far it hadn't come.
Then it did come, when she'd finally thought she was past the point of retaliation. The locker room. What a shitty place. Santana was pulling on her clothes when she felt herself shoved into a locker, head rammed against the metal. Her head throbbed painfully, and she didn't get a chance to defend herself before Squeaks was raining blow after blow to Santana's face. It was an oddly silent attack – just the sound of bone cracking against bone.
Santana's ears were wringing and her hands were going kind of limp; she was pretty sure that there was a trail of blood running from her nose because she tasted salted copper on her tongue. When she tried to push Squeaks away, she couldn't get her arms to work very well.
And then the beating stopped. It stopped because something very large hit Squeaks over the head and knocked the girl to the ground, seemingly unconscious.
"I'm not even sorry!" Rachel's voice was what Santana heard as she sank against the locker, and she saw a blurred figure standing over Squeaks. And then the Cheerio hopped over the bench and quickly gathered Santana in her arms. "Please tell me this is the last time you're going to get beat up," Rachel pleaded quietly with her.
Santana laughed, "I really hope so," her words slurred together and she felt cloth pressed over her nose. "I just…she kept smashing my face, man, I couldn't get it together, couldn't .. fight back. I'm usually so much tougher than that." She felt Rachel's fingers pressing as hard as they could on either side of Santana's nose.
Rachel's free hand was gingerly touching Santana's bruised cheek. "Sylvester's coming. She heard commotion and sent me in here. She said she was getting Figgins," she assured the downed Latina.
"You were kinda like a super hero. Didn't think you had it in you, Berry," Santana coughed into the cloth over her face.
Rachel laughed at her, "Well, I didn't think. I just reacted."
"It's almost like we're friends."
"Almost."
Even when Santana was losing a great amount of blood, she managed to realize that Rachel really was very pretty. Then she saw tears in the brunette's eyes. "Dude, don't cry, it makes you so much less badass."
"I'm not the badass, remember," Rachel murmured softly and sniffled, "I'm watching my favorite person bleed profusely after getting beat up."
"Yeah, I am pretty badass," Santana responded, words slurring a bit. She lifted a weak arm and wrapped it around Rachel, slowly resting her head on the curve of Rachel's breast and closing her eyes. "Thanks, Rachel."
Figgins arrived a moment later, with Sylvester ushering a gathering crowd away from the locker room doors. Santana spent the rest of the afternoon in the nurse's office, nursing a black eye and some minor injuries. Rachel stayed until Sylvester had pulled her up by the shirt collar and dragged her out of the office, lecturing her about Cheerios needing to be exemplary and punctual.
