AN: Thank you for all your reviews here is the next chapter I hope you enjoy.
It was rare, very rare for Frannie to find someone in the office when she was ready to go home, but there was Santana working on something. "You know—I'm not paying you overtime. You were supposed to have gone home hours ago."
Santana looked up at Frannie and sighed. "I'm working on the essay portion of the applications, the due date is soon and I just find it easier to work here."
Frannie raised a brow, "Well, Joe's trying to purge my system of all harmful toxins and some other new age nonsense to increase my fertility. I don't know. But if you want to have dinner with Joe and I, then that's perfectly acceptable."
Santana smiled at this, "No, I have to go home eventually. Britt's got a late night tonight working with Dani, and Charlie is well—I don't know what Charlie's plans are."
"I don't even think Charlie knows what she's doing most of the time," Frannie admits. She pauses and pulls out her wallet and pulls out Charlie's credit card that she borrowed and put it down on the desk. "Give it back to her next time you see her, she's probably forgotten that she's given it to me."
Santana blinks and takes the card, "I'll give it back to her," she promises.
Frannie sighs and waits for a few more moments but she really does need to go home unless she wants Joe to complain about something or another. "Well lock-up when you're done Santana," Frannie says and moves to leave. "Congratulations by the way." Santana looks up at her. "About the claim. My sister may be an idiot of the highest order, but she loves you both of you."
Santana smiles and nods, "Thanks Frannie." She watches Frannie leave and relaxes in her office chair. It's not like she didn't have the space at home where she could work on this, Charlie even made sure to switch to the keyboard which had a pair of headphones so she wouldn't get distracted. But she didn't want to go home to her new—dominant just yet. Things were still awkward and she knew that Charlie was still disappointed and a bit angry and she didn't quite know how to fix it. Sure she had signed the papers but she had made such a mess of things and she had been hurtful last night. She goes back to her essay and begins to focus on it, to help clear her mind because she doesn't really want to think about last night. Not really. She sniffs and pauses for a moment at the smell of fried dumplings assaults her senses and she looks up to see Charlie opening her office door with a bag of takeout.
Charlie doesn't even really hesitate to lay the bag on her table and open the bag pulling out the various containers and placing them on the table quietly for a moment. She flicks her eyes to Santana for a moment, "Were you going to come home tonight or stay in the office?"
Santana flicks her eyes to Charlie for a moment immediately feeling defensive, it's her new dominant. "I was going to come home. I told Puck I'd give him a call when I needed him—or I was going to take a town car home."
Charlie hummed and took a carton and popped it open, shoveling some of the fried rice into her mouth and chewing rapidly and watching her. "You signed." It's a statement and she watches the various emotions cross through Santana's face.
Santana swallows and nods. "I did. You're my new dominant." Santana flashes a small smile that doesn't meet her eyes. She waits, for a moment, she's not quite sure what she expected from Charlie but she doesn't smile she just continues to watch her. Legally if Charlie wanted to punish her for last night she could, and there would be nothing she could do about it.
Charlie taps the container that's Santana's. "I got your favorite. I thought you might be hungry and I was too lazy to make dinner tonight." She doesn't quite feel like telling Santana just yet that she isn't her dominant.
Santana reaches for the box and takes it, still watching Charlie as she opens it. The tension between them is palpable but she reaches for the chopsticks that Charlie pushes over to her and sighs biting her lip. She doesn't quite know what to say, or what she's going to do. She opens her mouth to say something but the words don't come out and she instead just pushes a fried dumpling into her mouth. "I'm sorry for what I said last night—"
Charlie sighs and puts down her carton of fried rice and opens her jacket pocket and pulls out an envelope and places it on the table. "You shouldn't be as my father so kindly pointed out to me today. I am a screw up. Brittany told me that she might have forced the issue and even though I have what I want—what I want even more is for you to want to be mine. Nothing has to change Santana. I just want you to have the protection you need when I'm gone for four months. But you're right it is a big decision and you shouldn't just do it because you feel obligated to do it because Brittany really wants it. So when you're ready I'll hand the forms in and not a day before. Take your time and let me prove to you that I'm not a screw up. I'm not going to touch drugs again and you're not going to see me in the tabloids again. Well I can't really control what they want to print but I mean you aren't going to see me there doing stupid stuff."
Santana looks at the envelope. "I shouldn't have said it, not like that. Throwing your mistakes in your face was shitty of me to do. I just—I love you. Don't think for a moment that I don't it's just that I—"
"You just don't trust me," Charlie says finishing the sentence. She looks down at her food. It hurts.
Santana frowns and sighs. "It's not you, not really. I just don't really trust most dominants. It's silly but I can't just—I know that Frannie isn't going to hurt me. I mean she might get irritated by me but it's Frannie. With you it's not that I don't trust you it's—complicated. I know you're not going to do anything to hurt me—but the idea of giving up all control, to not have say in what my life will go. You'll have complete control over my life. Whatever punishment you deem fit you can give me, if you wanted to slap me right now, you could. If you decided to treat me like nothing more than your personal whore. You could. No one would stop you, you'd have complete control over my life. There are places where submissives have run away from their dominants because they have broken them, and nothing really gets done. You don't even have an idea what you want from me and Brittany—"
"You're right I don't know what I want from you and Brittany like that. Which means I'm not going to punish you until it's something we've talked about Santana. Communication is the key, and we're not ready to take that step yet. I would never ever raise my hand against you in anger. I would never punish you unless we talked about what I expect from you and we discussed it in full," Charlie promised.
Santana is quiet thinking about it for a moment, "Brittany said that I needed help—do you want me to go? Get some help that is."
Charlie was quiet, "I think—that you should. I think that we all need to go to couples counselling, so we can learn to communicate better. I think that you probably do need to talk to someone who knows how to help you, just like I need to go to someone who knows how to stop me going through one of my self-destructive benders."
"You're going to go to therapy?" Santana asks crinkling her nose a bit.
"I don't know what starts the self-destructive benders that I go on. I just do it and it may have been barely tolerable when I was single and young but I have you and Brittany to think about and it's not okay. It's not okay for me to be using or doing stupid stuff. So yes I'm going to make sure that I'm healthy mentally and I am in a position where you can trust me to not have another epic meltdown."
Santana smiles a bit and she exhales, even if Charlie does go through all that to prove to her that she can be trusted, she's not sure if she could not the way she is now. "I'll go."
"You'll go?"
"To therapy. I want to trust you. I know you're not him—I'm just afraid and I don't know how to stop being afraid and thinking the worst possible thing is going to happen. Just—promise me that nothing is going to change. That nothing will be different after you hand those papers in." Charlie blinks at this. "I want you to hand the papers in tomorrow. I think I need to show a bit of trust that things are going to turn out okay."
Charlie grins widely at this, "So you want to—?" Santana nods and Charlie leans across the desk that's in between them and kisses Santana deeply for a moment. "I love you Santana, I promise I'm not going to do anything to hurt you or Brittany."
Santana nods and smiles at this letting out a shaky breath as she glances over at the documents. She's not ready completely but she needs to start somewhere. "I love you too and you better not," she mumbles against Charlie's lips. Charlie moves to kiss her again and Santana pulls back after just a moment. "So we're clear. I am not having sex with you, in this office anyway."
"But Santana! We just made up, and make up sex is really, really, really fun." Charlie pouted but Santana just shook her head and she sat back down grumbling. "Can I at least have a dumpling?"
"Nope," Santana said with a teasing grin laughing when Charlie groaned. Nothing had to change between them not yet.
Brittany opened the door to apartment and sighed because Charlie was playing on her keyboard with her headphones on which meant that Santana was back home. But there was some Chinese on the coffee table beside her and Brittany moved to get some, jumping on the couch beside Charlie who turned to her and grinned. Brittany reached for the box and curled up against Charlie's arm as she pulled off her noise cancelling headphones. "Did you talk to San?"
"I did. You're going to be claimed tomorrow, we talked about it and she's agreed to see a therapist. I'm seeing a therapist as well, and we'll all go to counselling together. To make sure we're doing this right." Charlie explains watching as Brittany smiles.
"So we're yours?" Brittany asks and Charlie nods causing her to throw her arms around Charlie tightly. "And we still get to tease you?" she asks.
"Even if I said no you'd still do it anyway," Charlie replies and Brittany laughs at this and kisses her gently. Charlie wraps an arm around her as Brittany begins to eat her dinner as Charlie begins to play with one hand absentmindedly. "I know that I've been spending a lot of time dealing with Santana's needs and trying to navigate those and I know I'm asking you to put your needs second to hers sometimes." Charlie begins rubbing Brittany's hip gently. "But I want you to know that I love both of you equally."
Brittany's quiet for a moment and she watches Charlie's fingers play on the keyboard. "I know," but her voice isn't nearly as believable as she'd like. "I'm not jealous you give me and Santana time equally and I know if that I were in Santana's shoes you'd be doing everything in your power to make sure I felt safe with you. But Santana wasn't the only time who had a hard time with dominants. I just managed to get myself out of it by playing stupid." Brittany sighs and nuzzles Charlie for a moment. "I'm okay nothing ever happened, some people were like you horrified about what was being done to me. Others weren't so kind but when you act stupid most of them get turned off, and for those that didn't care I just screamed really loudly so they had to sort of let me go. It sucked that I'd go to auditions and I'd never get them because no one wanted someone unclaimed. Like we're catnip for dominants."
"Well when I saw you I thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world, but I was still horrified that they had dragged you to my trailer." Charlie sighs. "Did it happen a lot?"
Brittany is quiet, "A lot more times than you think. If I got the part it's because people found out that I was unclaimed, which means that they could in theory do anything to me. It's why I didn't like going to all these auditions. Not really anyway. That's why I like doing the work I do now. San—knows about some of it, but nothing bad ever really happened. You even made sure I was paid even though I didn't work for it. I knew you weren't a bad person, and I did feel bad for lying to you."
"You know the saying no to me thing doesn't only apply to Santana, you're allowed to say no to me if you want to. If you need to." Charlie says immediately.
"I know you're not going to force me to do anything I don't want to do Charlie," Brittany says with a smile. "Just like you're not going to force San to do anything she doesn't really want to do. Even if it it's good for us."
"I'm not an expert on things that are good for you, I just know I made you a promise that you could always say no to me. If you think I'm being unfair then we—can talk about it."
"And you'll never punish us when you're angry?"
"I'll never punish you when I'm angry," Charlie says with a nod of her head.
Brittany smiles at this and relaxes and watches Charlie's fingers on the keyboard and reaches and touches the keys trying to match the movement of Charlie's fingers. "So did you and San totes have make up sex?" Brittany asks after a moment.
"No," Charlie says grumbling. "She said she didn't want to do it in her office."
"But that would have been so sexy!" Brittany protests grinning as Santana finally leaves her office and takes a seat next to her. "You should have totally had sex in your office San."
"My door is made out of glass, that entire wall is made out of glass Brittany and I wasn't going to let the janitor see me naked," Santana said with a roll of her eyes.
"We didn't have to get completely naked," Charlie points out.
Santana rolls her eyes, "Not everyone has the courage to pee in a potty in the middle of a store Charlie," she smirked when Brittany laughed and Charlie turned a bright red.
"I—she told you?" Charlie grumbles as they both laugh at her. "I was a toddler!"
"What about the ball pit?" Brittany asked.
"It was Quinn's idea," Charlie says, which only causes Santana and Brittany to laugh a bit harder. "I was wearing pants."
"On your head doesn't count Charlie," Santana snorts at the image.
"My mom is never allowed to talk to you again," Charlie grumbles.
AN: Stuff happens please review.