Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the world in which this story is based.

Author's Note(s): Hey howdy hey! Well, I'd like to thank everyone who has read and reviewed this story so far. You've been very patient :-) Anywho, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

No Rest for the Wicked
Chapter 1

Santana is eight when she finds out that the monsters under her bed are real.

It doesn't come as a complete shock to her; she's still young enough to have a secret belief in magic, so monsters don't seem too unreasonable.

She and her parents are staying in some fancy hotel in California while her father attends a work conference. He's a doctor; the kind of doctor that cuts open people's heads, but that's as far as Santana's knowledge on the subject goes. All she knows is that whatever it is he does means that she and her mom spend a lot of time waiting for him to come home.

It happens in a park; the nice sort of park with a pond and trees and grass. Maybe if it hadn't been, she'd have seen them coming.

That day she learns that vampires travel in groups.

She also learns that at the tender age of eight, she isn't big enough to be worth their time. Her mom is though.

They promise to come back for her when she's older, and Santana doesn't doubt them for a second.

It takes hours for anybody to find her. It's way past midnight and it takes the police ten whole minutes to convince her to release her tight grip on her mother's body. She cries all the way to the hospital and it takes a slap across the face from her father before she'll tell the police what she saw.

They don't believe her.

Why would they?

The doctor tells them that the high stress situation had caused her to hallucinate and that her mother was probably killed by a wild animal. He is at a loss to explain the complete lack of blood left in the body, but the police seem not to dwell on this aspect of the case.

Before Santana leaves the hospital, she is questioned by two men claiming they are with the FBI. Santana doesn't believe them for a second; she knows that no respectable adult would believe her tales of vampires and she's pretty sure that Robby Steinhardt and Steve Walsh are members of Kansas. Her father obviously thinks so too, because he leaves her alone for the rest of the day to follow them.

When he comes back, his face is pale and drawn and he apologises profusely for not believing her in the first place. It doesn't make her feel any better.

From that point on, Papa Lopez quits his job at the hospital and devotes the rest of his time and effort into learning all about vampires and all the other supernatural beings at large in their already corrupt world. He becomes, in short, a hunter. A damn good one too. He's always been smart and he often tells Santana that once you've been a surgeon, you can be whatever the hell you want to be. He's sure she doesn't notice the wistful tone in his voice whenever he mentions his old job; his old life.

He never mentions Santana's mother though.

Santana spends the next two years going to school as normal and living with her aunt, who doesn't much care for her sullen and damaged niece, but tolerates her; and as far as her father is concerned, that's all that matters.


As Santana approaches her thirteenth birthday, her aunt dies of a stroke. Santana isn't there for it, but she finds the body when she comes home from school. It takes three days for her dad to swing back into town and by that point Santana has been forced to speak to two child counsellors. Leaving out the vampire stuff, she tells them in no uncertain terms that finding her aunt's body is nowhere near as scarring as watching her mother being murdered. The counsellors don't seem quite sure how to respond to this.

She loved her aunt, but Santana can't help but feel a thrill of excitement at the prospect of spending time with her father again. Since her mother's death she only sees him once every two or three months, and never for very long. She misses him.

But, Santana's desires to spend more time with her father are soon understood to be childish misconceptions. The only difference to her life is that now instead of spending large amounts of time with her aunt, she spends large amounts of time of her own and living in some crappy motel room that doesn't even have a good TV.

Her father makes the effort to at least stay in the general area, and when he moves on, he simply transfers Santana to a new a school. Despite his preoccupation with hunting down monsters, Papa Lopez still understands the value of a well rounded education.

For her part, Santana makes the best of her new found alone time. She pretends to herself that it's great being able to do what she wants without any parents telling her what to do. She has no curfew, nobody to yell at her to do homework and she can eat junk food whenever the hell she wants. It's any almost-teenagers dream. And yet she finds herself almost excited to go to school everyday, something which was far from the case up until this point. She tells herself it's because she just likes to learn. Deep down she knows it's because she's lonely.

Somewhere between the ages of thirteen and fourteen, boys begin to notice her. It makes sense, she thinks to herself, even at her age she is very pretty. She finds herself with a new boyfriend every couple of weeks. It isn't an ideal scenario, she realises, and if her father were to find out he'd probably slap her so hard that she'd be seeing stars for a week.

The boys make her feel wanted. Even if it's only for a little while.

When Santana is fifteen, she falls in love. Or at least she thinks that's what it is at the time. His name is John and he's sweet to her. Sweeter than she'd known any boy had the capability of being. He's attentive and doesn't just dismiss her as the hot girl with nothing upstairs. He buys her flowers and takes her to the movies and doesn't even care that her clothes are threadbare and look second hand, which they are for the most part.

Santana loses her virginity to him and he tells her he loves her later that night when they're cuddled up in bed together. Santana can't bring herself say those three little words back to him. He understands though and kisses her softly to prove it.

Three weeks later, her dad comes back and it's off to a new school.

Santana begs and pleads with him to let her stay, but he doesn't listen to a word of it. He's lost a bit of weight and there's a haunted look in his eyes that suggests that his last hunt had not ended well.

He threatens to knock her out and take her with him unconscious if needs be, and she's under no illusions that his threats are empty. She packs up her meagre belongings and they leave for Ohio. He doesn't even let her say goodbye to John.

From then on, Santana knows not to let herself get attached.

She goes from meaningless sexual escapade to the next, not caring about who she's doing it with or the damage it might cause. At first, she can fool herself into thinking it's John who she's with. The high she gets from every orgasm can almost be mistaken for love, Santana thinks. As time passes she grows more distant and begins to understand that nothing will replace that original feeling, but she continues her quest anyway. It makes her feel like someone cares for her, even if it's only for one night, and in the end that's all that matters to Santana. A couple of times she even finds herself a temporary girlfriend. If anything, Santana has more fun with these girls than she ever has with boys. She tries not to dwell too much on it though.

After Santana turns eighteen, she graduates from high school. She's done pretty well considering she hasn't stayed at any one school for more than three months in the past five years. Naturally, her father doesn't attend her graduation; he said he would but gets caught up in some demon problem in a small town in Wisconsin. Santana is deeply unsurprised but still a little disappointed.

When her father returns he doesn't hesitate in packing her up and taking her on her first hunt.


Brittany hadn't lied when she'd told Santana that she's a fast learner. Within the first day Santana discovers that Brittany isn't exactly what one would call academically smart, but as Santana teaches her some basic self-defence skills, Brittany picks them up remarkably quickly.

"I used to be a dancer," she tells her idly when Santana comments on it. "I'm good at using my body."

Santana swallows back any feelings she might be have about this new development and clears her throat. "How come you stopped?"

With a sad smile, Brittany tells her that she had to leave college when her mom got sick and then she couldn't afford to go back.

"That's a shame," remarks Santana, unsure of what else to say. But Brittany smiles at her anyway and holds her fists up in the way that Santana has told her to.

They spar for a little while and Brittany actually lands a couple of hits; okay, so Santana is holding back to give Brittany a fighting chance, but it's still kind of impressive. When they're done, Santana is feeling a little hot under the collar, and it isn't just because of the training. There are beads of sweat rolling down Brittany's flushed face and Santana struggles to drag her eyes away. If Brittany notices, she doesn't say anything.

"What's next, boss?" asks Brittany teasingly as the two women flop down on the ground.

It's a surprisingly nice day; not too hot and not too cold. They're currently occupying a small clearing in some kind of national park that Santana spotted as they drove. It seemed like the perfect place to teach Brittany a couple of things before Santana thrusts her willingly into danger for a second time. It would have been a better idea if Brittany hadn't turned out to have the most bizarre phobia of the ducks that were waddling around the pond they passed. Honestly, she'd looked more frightened than she had in the cemetery. Santana would have laughed if she hadn't thought it would just further upset her new companion, and upsetting Brittany is something she has no desire to do.

"I kinda thought we could just stay here for a few more minutes," says Santana, picking at the coarse grass underneath her hands. It's not often she gets to relax like this.

"Okay," Brittany agrees. She shuffles over so she she's laying next to Santana and links their pinkies together. Santana has never known anyone to be quite so…tactile with her before without their goal being to get into her pants, and she finds it just a little unnerving but in no way unpleasant.

She closes her eyes and tries to ignore the bubbly presence beside her. It's harder than Santana anticipates, but she's confident that given time she can get over this little crush she has on her new friend. Yeah, so she's super hot and everything, but Santana meets new people all the time. Maybe she'll try and pick someone up in her next hunt. Someone equally hot. Work some of the building sexual frustration out of her system.

"What are you thinking?" says Brittany next to Santana's ear. She shivers a little and hopes that Brittany doesn't notice.

"That I should probably teach you how to shoot a gun at some point," she lies.

"Oh," says Brittany thoughtfully. "Guns are really loud."

"Yep," Santana agrees. "We'll have to find somewhere away from civilisation to practice."

"Whatever you want, Santana," says Brittany. A chill runs up her spine.


It takes a full three weeks before Santana decides that Brittany is ready for her first hunt. A long, torturous three weeks of Brittany becoming more and more touchy feely with Santana and not realising the deeply uncomfortable effects it has. Or she does realise and just doesn't care. Santana is sure it's the former, because she suspects if Brittany understood the reason why it makes her nervous she'd be running in the opposite direction. From what Santana gathers from tales of Brittany's sexcapades in college, Santana it totally barking up the wrong tree. And that sucks, but she can deal with it. No problem.

Sleeping so close together in her cramped car at night isn't exactly making it easy though.

They're sat in a diner much like the one that Brittany has left behind when Santana tells her the news. Brittany practically squeals with excitement and Santana has a feeling that she'd be on the end of another bone-crushing hug if there wasn't a table between them. A smile tugs at her lips as Brittany's eyes sparkle enthusiastically. She looks between Santana and the laptop she's brought in with her.

Santana suspects Brittany is looking back on their experience with the ghost through rose-tinted glasses.

"Okay," says Santana, opening the lid of her computer. "I've been looking around and I've found a couple of possibles." Brittany nods, rapt with attention. "I think we should go here." She spins the laptop around so Brittany can read the article.

"Bryan Ryan, thirty-four, blah blah blah," Brittany reads aloud. "Died of lung cancer…blah blah blah…no prior medical symptoms…That is pretty weird."

"Yeah," says Santana in agreement. She takes the laptop back and switches the tab and then returns it to Brittany.

Brittany scans the article and bites down on her bottom lip in concentration. "Two people dying from lung cancer in the same town without anyone knowing they had it is really weird, right?"

"Sounds like my…our kind of case," Santana adds.

"I didn't know ghosts could give people cancer," says Brittany blandly. She takes a sip of her orange juice and gazes at Santana with expectation.

With a shrug, Santana says, "They can do all kindsa weird shit. I don't really understand how it works."

"Maybe we should ask one of them?" Brittany replies with a grin, and Santana is only half convinced she's joking. "Have you ever tried talking to them? Maybe they're just misunderstood, like Professor Snape or Lenny."

Santana blinks. "Well I don't know who they are, but I'll definitely put 'talk to them' on my to-do list."

There's a definite giggle at that and Santana smiles a little. She really likes having Brittany around. It's nice to have somebody to talk to for a change. Naturally, Santana doesn't tell Brittany this; she doesn't want to make it harder for her when she inevitably decides to leave. Some people just aren't cut out for the life of a hunter and Santana has a feeling that Brittany is one of those people. She doesn't want to be responsible for the slow destruction of Brittany's happiness and easygoing nature.

They sit in silence for a few minutes and finish off their breakfast. Something else Santana has learned about her new friend is that it doesn't seem to matter how much junk food she eats, it doesn't put a dent on her fantastic figure. While Santana is forcing down a healthy breakfast of mixed fruit, Brittany is wolfing down a bacon sandwich with a look of indecent enjoyment on her face. Despite the gratuitous amount of exercise Santana does, she has learnt the hard way that if she doesn't as least try to keep her calorie count down, her weight increases rather quickly. She guesses her metabolism is just awful. Brittany, on the other hand, clearly has some kind of thyroid problem because there is no way she should be so skinny with the amount of sugar and fat she crams into her mouth on an hourly basis. The endless supply of peanut M&M's the woman seems to carry around with her is frankly astonishing. Santana has never seen her buy any.

"How do people become ghosts?" asks Brittany after a while.

Santana thinks about this for a minute. "Nobody knows for sure, I don't think," she says. "Popular theory is that they're people who are too afraid to move on and get stuck on earth. Then they just get angrier and angrier until they become vengeful spirits."

"That's kind of sad," says Brittany, finishing off her orange juice with a large gulp.

Santana hums in agreement but honestly doesn't much care. "I guess the moral of the story is to go into the light."

"That's a little morbid," Brittany remarks.

"A bit of morbidity is a drawback of the job I'm afraid," says Santana wearily.

The sparkle in Brittany's eyes dims a little as she gives Santana one of those long stares, like she's seeing something that nobody else can. Then she smiles weakly. "We'll see."

"Don't worry," says Santana reassuringly. "Saving the world has plenty of perks too."

"I'm gonna be a hero," says Brittany in a sing-song voice.

"Totally," Santana agrees.

"You've got a head start though," says Brittany, then she pouts her lips in a way that makes strange feelings arise in Santana's stomach.

"I sure do," she says with a flash of a smile.

"How long until I catch up?" asks Brittany. Santana laughs a little.

"You're never going to catch up, Britt," she says cheerfully. "Every extra day you put in will be an extra day I will have too."

Brittany huffs childishly and crosses her arms over her chest. "How long until I catch up to where you are now then?"

"Erm," Santana mutters, doing some quick math in her head. "Since I turned eighteen so…five years, give or take."

"Wow," says Brittany, her eyes widening a little. "That's a long time."

"Mm," replies Santana with a grim smile.

"Although it does mean we're the same age," adds Brittany, her cheer returning almost instantly. "When's your birthday?"

It pains Santana a little to register that she actually has to think for a few moments to remember. It's been so long since she celebrated her birthday that she can barely recall when it is.

"November second," she says finally. Brittany quirks an eyebrow, probably at how long it took Santana to answer. "How about you?"

"June the eighth," Brittany replies quickly. "It was a couple of months ago."

"Happy belated Birthday, then," says Santana lazily as she turns back to her laptop to search Google maps for directions.

"Thanks!" says Brittany warmly.

"No problem," says Santana.

She pulls out a little notepad and pen from her pocket and begins to write down a series of instructions. One of the benefits of no longer hunting with her father is that Santana is no longer forced to wander lonely roads with no idea where they're going. Her father had some strange aversion to ever checking maps to find places. He seemed to believe he could get to where he wanted to go on instinct alone. Santana, of course, thought he was insane. Her father would have none of it though.

"All right," says Santana when she's finished. "Road trip?"


When Santana and Brittany pull into the small town just outside New Orleans, Brittany is absolutely fascinated. She's only ever been to a couple of places outside of her hometown before, so she is positively enthralled by the new location. The novelty has worn off for Santana so she's far more interested in finding a motel so she can have a shower, but she can't deny that she feels some second-hand enjoyment from Brittany. She doesn't think she's ever seen an adult enjoy something with such childlike enthusiasm before and it fills the air with uncommon lightness.

The town itself has a certain smoky yet sophisticated quality about it. Santana notes that the further from the centre they go, the shabbier everything seems to become. The difference between the rich and poor areas in the same place has always amused Santana. Well, amused may be too strong a word; Santana has been on the receiving end of a so-called 'class war' in one of her schools and it wasn't an experience she particularly enjoyed.

"That place is pretty," says Brittany, pointing to a giant white building as they drove through the centre of town. Santana slows down and takes a closer look.

"It's a museum," she says.

"Can we go?" asks Brittany excitedly.

"If you want," replies Santana with a laugh. "I wouldn't have thought museums would be your thing though."

Brittany nods. "Mummies are the coolest."

Santana wouldn't really know about that; she's never been to a museum before. Maybe a little trip with Brittany after the hunt is over will be fun. Assuming Brittany hasn't already run away as fast as she can; which Santana has learnt is pretty damn fast. Damn those impossibly long legs.

A bit further out of town and Santana spots a motel. She sighs in relief and pulls into the car park. Brittany is staring at it a little dubiously but says nothing as Santana practically scrambles out the door and stretches her aching limbs.

"Ow," says Santana emotionlessly. "I don't know about you, but I can't wait to sleep in a proper bed tonight."

Brittany smiles vacantly. "Sleeping in the car isn't too bad."

"Let's see if you still feel that way in a couple years," Santana remarks darkly. Brittany shoots her a rather smug look that Santana can't quite decipher.

"Can we share a room?" Brittany asks as they make their way to the front desk. Santana looks at her in question and Brittany shrugs. "We don't have to," she says in a small voice. "I just didn't want to be on my own while there are ghosts and stuff out to get us."

"Of course we can share a room," says Santana quickly. She takes a deep breath and tells herself that she can push past her own discomfort. Brittany smiles at her and then holds the door of the reception open so Santana can walk through it.

The guy at the desk looks up and his eyes light up at the sight of them. It's a look that Santana is intimately familiar with and she resists the urge to roll her eyes. No way is this guy getting into either of their pants. Even if he didn't look about thirteen it would so not be happening. The greasy ginger hair and bad case of acne is just a bit of a turn off.

"Hello there, ladies," he says in a surprisingly high pitched voice. "How can I help you?"

"Twin room," says Santana. She's not at all in the mood to chat with this kid.

His face falls a little bit and she hears Brittany giggle as he spins around on his chair and consults his computer. His computer that looks about fifty years old. A confused look crosses the boys face and he taps a couple of times on the enter button.

"Um…" Santana doesn't like the sound of that um at all. "We only have double rooms and a couple of single rooms left."

"We'll take the double room," says Brittany quickly. The boy looks surprised but goes back to tapping away on his computer.

Santana swallows and twitches uncomfortably. What the hell is the girl trying to do to her…?

The boy gives them a price and Santana pays on one of her fake credit cards in exchange for a key. Brittany is practically bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement.

"Calm down," says Santana with a laugh as the two make their way to their room, bags slung over their backs. "You'll draw attention to us."

"People are already looking at us," says Brittany with confidence. "We're hot."

Santana knows full well that she's super hot, but hearing it from Brittany causes a flush to creep up her neck and she slams her mouth shut. Thankfully, Brittany doesn't seem to notice and continues to literally skip towards their room.

Oh yeah. This is going to be fun.

The first thing Santana does when they get in the crappy room is go for that freaking shower she's been desperate for. It's actually the first time she's spent more than fifteen minutes away from Brittany since they started travelling together, and as she steps under the hot spray of water, she can feel tension leek out of her body. It's tension she hasn't even realised has built up until this point.

She lets out a deep sigh and picks up her shampoo.

Brittany is a distraction. The kind of distraction likely to get her killed.

If her dad could see her now, Santana knows that he'd be ashamed of her. Like a hard slap across the face and a stern dressing down kind of ashamed. She's breaking about four of the ever important ground rules that he'd laid out when she first began hunting with him, but she honestly can't find it in herself to care. Despite his amazing hunting skills, Santana has never seen her father as someone she wants to be. She doesn't think she'd be able to cope with living in such misery for the rest of her probably short life. Maybe breaking his rules is a good thing.

She rinses the coconut shampoo from her hair and moves on to lather in the conditioner.

The thing is, now that she has Brittany she doesn't think she can happily go back to travelling alone. Travelling with Brittany is nothing like travelling with her father was. Santana thinks it's to do with the fact that Brittany is her equal, whereas her father was her boss and superior in every way. Or at least he liked to imagine he was. It's only been a few weeks, but Santana feels a pull in Brittany's direction that she's never felt before. She doesn't necessarily understand it, but she knows it's going to hurt when she leaves. Not that she'll be admitting this fact out loud anytime soon. Or ever, in fact.

She supposes she could hunt with Quinn for a while, but she suspects they'd end up killing each other before they even have a chance to kill any evil. Plus, Quinn's a bitch and Santana hates her. She's pretty sure that Brittany couldn't be a bitch if she actively tried. For this reason, she and Santana shouldn't really get along as well as they do.

Santana switches off the shower and quickly dries herself off on a rather questionable looking towel. She usually has her own, but in her haste to escape Brittany for a few minutes she's forgotten it. As a general rule, using anything provided in motel rooms is a huge mistake. She might live out of her car for the most part, but Santana's still a girl and she does have some standards.

Once she's dressed, Santana leaves the tiny bathroom and discovers Brittany laying on the bed…their bed…with her arms folded behind her head. She looks up and smiles at Santana.

"Do you feel better now?" she asks.

Santana nods. "I feel less like plants are going to die when I walk past them."

With a giggle, Brittany jumps to her feet and brushes past Santana on her way into the bathroom. "I'll be quick," she says brightly. "Then we can start hunting stuff!"

Before Santana can respond, Brittany has closed the door and Santana hears her switch the shower on. She shakes her head in amusement; nobody should be this enthusiastic about actively looking for trouble.

It's getting late, so Santana isn't actually planning to go anywhere today. She's found that the police are less receptive to her when she bustles into their office when it's already getting dark outside. She possibly should have told Brittany that before she disappeared into the bathroom, but never mind.

She looks around their room; it's pretty much identical to every other one she's slept in over the years. In some ways, it's a comfort to Santana that something remains constant in her life. The rest of it seems so haphazard that something as simple as the layout of her room staying consistent is always something she's appreciated. There is one minor difference to this one though; apparently while she was showering, Brittany had taken the liberty of unpacking some of her own and Santana's clothes and hung them up in the wardrobe. Santana tilts her head and wonders how it somehow makes the room more homely.

Deciding not to dwell on it, she pulls out her laptop and begins to research some local history. It's more difficult that it had been in Brittany's home town because the area is a lot bigger, but she plugs away until she hears the bathroom door open.

Brittany steps into the room, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped firmly around herself and Santana begins to choke into her water bottle. Brittany rushes over to her and wraps her long fingers around Santana's shoulders.

"You okay, Santana?" she asks fearfully. Close proximity not helping, Santana thinks as she coughs violently.

"I'm fine," she forces out between coughs. It takes a few moments, but her spluttering eventually stops, leaving her face red and her throat aching. "Water just went down the wrong way. I'm okay now."

Brittany looks a little dubious, but squeezes her shoulder reassuringly and wanders over to the wardrobe.

"What do you think I should wear?" she asks, throwing a glance at Santana over her shoulder.

"You can wear whatever you want," Santana tells her. Her voice sounds hoarse. "We aren't going anywhere tonight."

"How come?" says Brittany, sounding genuinely disappointed. Santana chuckles.

"It's almost seven o clock," she points out. "A bit late to start questioning the locals."

Making a quiet noise of displeasure, Brittany picks out a pair of jeans and a tight fitting white t-shirt and then walks over to the set of drawers and pulls out some clean underwear. Naturally, Santana expects Brittany to go back into the bathroom to get dressed.

Of course, this isn't what happens.

Brittany drops her towel and Santana almost starts choking again. She quickly focuses her attention back onto her laptop screen, but out the corner of her eye, she can most definitely make out Brittany's naked back. Her cheeks begin to burn and Santana resists the urge to shift uncomfortably. Why the hell does this woman have absolutely no sense of personal boundaries?

She can't help herself. She glances back over at Brittany, who is thankfully at least wearing underwear now. No, we don't perv on our friends, Santana tells herself while forcing her eyes back onto the computer screen. Oh God…this is an absolute nightmare.


Author's Note(s): Okay, so I wasn't planning to post this until I'd finished the entire story, but that's just not really working for me at the moment. Plus it's Christmas and I haven't updated any of my fics in an eon. I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading!

Also, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Holidays and all that jazz.