Title: Makin' Music
Pairing: Rachel/Santana, Quinn/Brittany
Rating: T (may change as the story progresses, depends how I am with writing actual smuttage...)
Summary: The aftermath of Rachel and Santana's deviation from attending school like all good girls should. *snort*
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. If I did, Ryan Murphy would have been sacked long ago.
A/N 1: Hi again. The reviews for the last chapter were awesome, thank you for all of them. Also, thank you for the sheer amount of favourite alerts, too. That was pretty cool to wake up to. So, I originally intended this to be a one shot, but a couple of reviews suggested that I should add to this. I thought about leaving it as it is and writing a sequel; there are a few unanswered questions about the girls' home lives and a whole lot of Brittana subtext, but if I'm honest, I quite like the title and can't be bothered to think of a new one. Titling things is just plain difficult. And naming a sequel 'Such and Such 2' is just kind of lame, no?
A/N 2: So anyway, here's a second chapter for you. I need to get my shit together and find a direction for this fic to go in because I fear I may never know how to end it, so I'm basically just setting up foundations for things to come, so hopefully that'll whet your appetites. I just don't want to leave you guys high and dry, because I know how annoying it is when authors don't update regularly. But I'll give you a fair warning that I'm a bit of a procrastinator and have other things to keep on top of... so yeah... Sorry.
Makin' Music
"So, where were you and Rachel yesterday?"
Santana turned to see Quinn standing behind her, wearing her Queen Bitch smirk. She hadn't seen that for a while, now. Great. She's definitely planning something. "It's called food poisoning, Q," she lied easily, trying hard not to let her frustration seep into her voice. "I don't know about Rachel, though."
Quickly, she grabbed her towel and shower gel, hoping Quinn would get the message and not follow her to the cubicles. It wasn't that she had a problem with Quinn – or anybody, really – seeing her naked due to her lack of shame. And besides, she'd been a Cheerio for two years, now; you get used to it after about a month, unless you become a skilled shower ninja.
Santana had enough of the third degree from Coach during practice; for missing yesterday afternoon's practice, she was ordered to run suicides for the entire duration of this morning's practice, but not before Coach had degraded her in front of the entire squad. She deserved it, and it was so worth it; plus, seeing as she was already at the bottom of the pyramid, she didn't have much to lose. Unless Coach decided to literally beat Santana into the ground.
"Are you sure?" Quinn continued, still smirking, and followed Santana to the shower block.
"Do you mind, Q?"
"I'll shut my eyes," she grumbled. Quinn placed a hand over her eyes and stood with her back to the showers as Santana stood under one of the heads and turned it on, relishing in the feel of the warm water running over her skin.
"You know, I don't think spending all day in bed is classed as an illness," Quinn shouted, over the sound of water splashing against the cool tiles. She bit her lip to keep from laughing as she spoke; all she could think of, besides Santana's reaction, was the fact that Brittany had concocted several reasons for Santana and Rachel's disappearance (all of which included the words 'sex', 'a lot' and 'whipped') as pillow talk last night. And then she thought of what happened afterwards...
"What?"
"Nothing," Quinn snickered.
Santana shut the showers off harshly and wrapped herself in her towel, drying off. "Come out with it, Fabray. And I know you're dating Britt."
"So does the whole school," Quinn retorted, inspecting her nails. She elaborated, upon seeing Santana's shocked face. "She basically outed us while we were discussing where you and a certain diva were yesterday and naturally, Kurt and Mercedes spread it around."
"So you're not mad?"
"How could I be?"
Good point. "What about your mom?"
"We decided to tell her yesterday in case she found out somewhere else," Quinn shrugged, "She accepts it but she's not crazy about it. I didn't expect her to be. And before you try and change the subject again, my Dad doesn't know. Do you think I'd be standing here if he did?"
Santana gave Quinn a sympathetic smile and shut her locker, having finished getting changed. "I'm happy for you, Q, but you'd better not hurt her."
"I won't," Quinn replied, grabbing her things and falling into step with Santana as they left the changing room, "So you'll give me the real reason you and Rachel were MIA yesterday later on?"
"I already did," Santana snapped.
She and Quinn parted ways at the door to the locker room, thankfully, and Santana made it to American History without a hitch. Not that anybody would dare get in her way anyways, but still; it was nice to know that everything was going smoothly. She hadn't heard hide nor hair of Rachel being slushied – she had settled a deal to put a moratorium of any slushies within ten feet of Rachel with Quinn as soon as they'd met up that morning – and she also hadn't heard any rumours of Finn being a douchetard and asking her out. Yet.
But of course, Finn would be sitting by the only available seat in the room. That was the crappy part about missing even one Cheerio's practice, even if she was having the best day of her life instead. She didn't care about being late, but sitting next to Finn as a result of it was like purgatory.
Santana thought Finn would be stupid enough to forget that he was in this class (again), and that she'd have an easy ride, dishing out snarky comments and ice cold glares to whoever looked at her the wrong way. Finn seemed to be immune to some of them, due to the large chasm of stupid where an otherwise normally functioning human brain would sit. She sat as far away from him as she could manage at the table and pulled her stuff out, creating a wall of books between them.
"Hey, Santana," Finn drawled, resting his arm on the books, "So, what about you and Rachel?" Finn looked unsure of what to expect from the cheerleader, but was still curious. Finn didn't quite get what Puck kept laughing at him for; he only asked him what he thought was so hot about both Santana and Rachel being MIA when they should've been in Glee. Something about lady babies. But ladies can't make babies together, his biology teacher said so. Puck needed to get to class more often.
"What about me and Rachel?" Santana glowered at the boy. She watched as his face drifted off into some little dream world; probably something about Power Rangers playing football in Call of Duty or something. Whatever. Finn wasn't interesting enough for you to overanalyse the tumbleweed in his hollow noggin.
"Well, you weren't in yesterday and I thought you wanted to win that dinner at Breadstix... And Rachel never misses Glee." Finn's eyes narrowed accusingly at her. "Were you tormenting her again?"
"Shut up, Finnocence," she snapped, "There's a moratorium on Rachel getting slushied." She growled in exasperation as she saw Finn scrunch up his face in confusion. She elongated each word, just to make sure Finn caught all of them. "It's not allowed anymore."
He nodded; apparently he'd picked on some useful information lately. "Well, I know you; you've been a bitch to her."
"And you haven't? Jeez, Hudson, you've dumped her time and time again, plus you can't even defend her in public? And you don't even apologise," Santana snarled. "At least I do that much. Plus, I'm trying to make amends." Yeah, unless 'amends' suddenly means 'Rachel scream so loud she burns her vocal cords but not because her singing voice is so spectacularly sexy'.
"Yeah, well, don't forget that there's one thing you did that can never be erased." Finn whispered, his mouth curling into a tight grin. His eyes flashed with victory. He knew Santana wouldn't be able to top that.
Santana winced as her stomach flushed foul green with nausea; she should have seen this one coming, but then, she never thought Hudson would have the balls or the brain to say it. Quickly, she steeled herself and leaned over to Finn, "And let's not forget that it takes two to tango, huh?" Finn was certainly disconcerted by her dangerously soft voice; usually, it was just dangerous.
After a long, heavy silence, Santana and Finn exchanged one final cold glare and turned away with each other, jaws clenched. It was on.
"So, Berry..." Puck sidled up to Rachel as they took their places in English, "You decided to show up today?"
"Yes, Noah," she answered easily, before furrowing her brow together and looking back at him. "Wait... why are you in English?"
"I figured I'd get to see my favourite hot Jew, is why," he flirted, wiggling his eyebrows at her. "Did Santana make it in, too? Or did you wear her out?"
Rachel blushed furiously and was about to make a cutting remark to him, but Mr. Wallace entered, clutching a cup of searing hot coffee and a fearsome scowl, effectively shutting the shut the whole class up. You didn't mess with Mr. Wallace, that's for sure; nobody messed with him after he took out all the windows in his room with several chairs after six people failed to hand in their midterms on time. He feared only Sue Sylvester, after she constructed a pile of every single one of his textbooks into an effigy of the man himself and set it alight in his backyard for hitting her car with one of his chairs. (The leg of one left a small dent on the right side, just above the front wheel; apparently her insurance didn't cover rogue chairs).
Rachel turned her head to the front of the class and tried not to focus on Noah's smirk teasing her in the corner of her eye, but to no avail. William Shakespeare would have to wait until Noah got whatever it was off his chest, and that would only happen if Mr. Wallace had the good grace to leave, perhaps for another coffee. Or maybe some therapy.
Rachel was not, under any circumstances, having this conversation in a crowded hallway. If the news was relayed to Kurt and Mercedes – or worse yet, Jacob Ben Israel – before she and Santana had talked this through, she was pretty sure she'd about die.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Noah," Rachel hissed, as Mr. Wallace left the room for some errand or another. Score. Try as she might, Rachel couldn't stop a blush erupting on her cheeks at the thought of what she and Santana had done yesterday. She'd managed to get away with skipping school and then running to the janitor's closet instead of going to Glee like she planned, but the closet was secluded and they hadn't planned a duet anyway... It was the most amazing vicious circle ever.
What she did find annoying was that her fathers were home from their conference last night, so Santana couldn't stay over. They did manage to get away with Santana pressing Rachel up against the door as she bid the Cheerio goodnight, shoving her tongue down her throat. You know, one for the road. She was glad her fathers were blinded by the fact that she had a friend and not what she was actually doing with said friend behind a slightly ajar door on the porch for the rest of the world to see.
"Oh, I think you do," he chuckled. His eyes met hers for a second and he had hit the jackpot. For a great actress, Berry sure was open as a book. Or maybe she wasn't trying to hide her thing with Santana... "But hey, if it's not serious, I'd like to take you out sometime."
"Noah, I am quite simply not interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with you, despite your endeavours, so please refrain from asking me that ever again." Rachel tried to sound as angry as she could without alerting Noah as to why she wouldn't date him. Well, she figured he already knew, but the boy had no filter whatsoever – she learned that when they dated before – and she and Santana hadn't ever discussed the whole relationship aspect of their recent activities.
Rachel had been yearning to have that talk with Santana as soon as that thought had popped into her head as she took her post-elliptical shower at six twenty AM on the dot, however, her thoughts only ever boiled down to the fact that she'd never once known Santana to be interested in a serious relationship. She thought last year that she and Brittany would be the perfect matches for each other, but things change... things most definitely change. That was obvious. She didn't know what had changed and how much, though. Was Santana even over Brittany?
"Sure thing, babe," he smirked. "Guess I'll just try Quinn and Britt instead."
"They're out?" Damn. She wondered when that happened... it was only two days ago that they were begging Rachel to distract Santana so she wouldn't know (and people would be more interested in why Santana Lopez was spending longer than necessary within ten feet of Rachel Berry).
"Hell yeah, but Quinn's not into sharing... yet. Third time's a charm, right?"
Rachel shook her head at Puck's hopefulness. There were other things clearly etched into his facial expressions, but she wasn't planning on going there. "Your boneheaded optimism astounds me, Noah."
"Uh, thanks..."
With that, the bell rang and Rachel was out of the classroom like a shot; Puck was left staring after her. He was still trying to process why on Earth she was calling him boneheaded, if she was the one so blatantly fucking McKinley's resident bitch and still denying it. Only a bonehead would do that.
Rachel quickly scurried through the crowds, managing to avoid slushies and jocks in general (in case Puck was following her) and made it to her locker. She hadn't seen Finn all morning, either, and hoped she would be able to avoid him. He was what she was worried about as far as the rumours – she still hoped they were rumours – were concerned.
Santana appeared thirty seconds later, leaning against the cool metal of the lockers. Her hair was swept up into the impossibly high ponytail and she had her duffel bag swung over her shoulder and her arms folded over her chest. She took in a deep breath before uttering the famous last words. "We need to talk."
Rachel spun to face Santana, her eyes full of hurt. "W-what...?"
"I'm not breaking up with you," Santana added hastily, placing her hands on Rachel's shoulders, locking their eyes together. "Actually... we're not even together... are we? That's what I want to talk about, I guess." Her voice faltered on the last few words; Santana had never had the relationship talk. Ever. It sort of freaked her out, but seeing as Rachel usually had a plan for everything, it wouldn't be too hard. But the degree of honesty that was required to make this a justifiable two-way thing sort of made Santana want to curl into a ball and melt into the floor.
"Oh, thank goodness," Rachel let out a sigh of relief. "I was hoping we would." Rachel smiled and removed Santana's hands from her shoulder, giving each a squeeze before she let them drop back down to the Latina's sides.
"But, uh, Rach?"
"Yes, Santana?"
"Maybe we could go to Breadstix, seeing as you owe me at least one a day for the next month," Santana wiggled her eyebrows and gave her that crooked smile she loved.
"You can't hold me to that, Santana," Rachel hissed, closing her locker and falling into step with the Cheerio as the covertly made their way to the car park. "I was blatantly under the influence."
"Babe, I did all the giving. Of course you owe me for the next month." Santana withered under the intense glare of her quasi-girlfriend. "Or at least just today..."
"That's more like it," Rachel replied. She resisted claiming Santana's mouth with her own right there and settled with giving her a bright, genuine smile instead. Santana returned it and reached out to pull Rachel into a hug.
"No, that's more like it."
"Quinn!" Brittany bounded over to her girlfriend and kissed her soundly by the shorter girl's locker. She wrapped her arms around her waist and pulled her in closer. "I haven't seen you in forever," she breathed against Quinn's lips, as she pulled away.
"We saw each other an hour ago, babe," Quinn laughed, tightening her grip on Brittany, as pale blue melted into hazel. She loved Brittany's need for staying close to her. She felt like she had purpose, to protect Brittany from whatever she could. She would as long as Brittany would have her.
The girls separated from their tight embrace and moved to walk down the hallway. Quinn entwined her fingers with Brittany's and let herself be pulled along with Brittany's longer, more powerful stride.
"So, I was thinking, in Math, that we could go on a double date with Rachel and San!" Brittany enthused, "I was getting distracted, because I thought that my cat had stolen my notes... then I realised I never make any, and then I tried to do a quadratic equation and then I thought how awesome it would be if we all double dated."
"We can't Britt, they aren't out," Quinn sighed. She tugged a little on Brittany's hand, pulling her closer. She hated the disheartened look on Brittany's face, after she'd been denied. "Look, we just need to find a way to get them out, is all. Then I promise we can double date."
"Really?" Brittany's face lit up. "Thanks, Quinn." She placed a kiss on her girlfriend's lips and proceeded to pull Quinn through the corridors once again.
"Hold up," Quinn pulled Brittany into step with her; they were fixated on a point in the midst of the car park.
"Oh my God!" Brittany squealed; she clasped Quinn's hand tighter, buzzing with excitement. Santana and Rachel's quick hug in the car park was a sure sign of things to come, even if they were most likely going to be spending the afternoon... elsewhere. She didn't want to get into what elsewhere was, exactly, but she had an idea that it probably wasn't calculus or Spanish.
"That's it, Britt. We have to make a plan."
Breadstix was surprisingly empty in the middle of the day; that was, if you discounted the old people and notorious junkies shifting their eyes around the warm room, crunching away on free breadsticks, without a care in the world or an immediate link to their much-needed medication. Sure, maybe a lot of the junkies and old people milling around the place also served the food, but Santana knew that they'd pretty much take the shit she gave them and bend to her iron will with a quick snap of her fingers. By the time McKinley students were able to dine n' dash, most of these guys would passed out drooling in front of the TV, anyway.
Santana picked at her breadstick, as Rachel finished up her salad. She dreaded what was about to come. At least she wasn't at school and Cheerios practice wasn't scheduled for today. Something about Coach having to pre-record more hate messages – or, as Sue liked to phrase it, 'prime viewing material' – for WOHN.
Rachel pushed her plate of salad to the side, and gave met Santana's eyes with her own. She reached out and took the taller girl's hand in her own, hoping something would elicit a response from her.
"Santana, you were the one that suggested we talk," Rachel began. She had been thinking about this talk since the crack of dawn, but that didn't mean she was the one to initiate it. She almost had, if Santana hadn't mustered up the courage to ask her if they should talk. Rachel's heart swelled at the thought of Santana contemplating a serious monogamous relationship with her, despite what their peers might have to say about it. The slushie moratorium was also very sweet, but the first thing was the cherry on the cake.
"I guess I just don't know where I stand. It feels weird... I've never had this talk before..."
"Oh." Rachel felt a little better that Santana hadn't had this frank emotional discussion with Brittany... it felt nice to be Santana's first for something, rather than the other way around. "So I guess I'll start?"
Santana merely nodded and gave Rachel a small smile. It was better than nothing; at least Santana didn't look as if she was on the verge of tears anymore.
"Have you still got feelings for Brittany?"
Santana was caught off guard with that one, no doubt about it. She furrowed her brow and tried to look deeper into sumptuous swirls of chocolate, but saw nothing more. Rachel was being completely open with her. She had just admitted her biggest fear, at that moment at least. Now, it was Santana's turn to be frank.
"Rachel, Brittany and I are best friends..." she let out a deep breath and kept her unwavering gaze on Rachel. She squeezed Rachel's hand and reached out for the other; she was more than aware that she sounded as if she was breaking up with Rachel for the second time in one day. "I'll always love her on some level, you know... but I'm not into her... not like I'm into you."
"Thank you for being honest," Rachel whispered; her voice was thick with emotion. "You don't know how good it feels not to be lied to, or cheated... I feel like, when I'm with you... you'll keep me safe and warm."
Santana smiled, swallowing the lump in her throat. Rachel leaned over and pecked her on the cheek, signalling her support. Being one that was always honest with her emotions, she had no real idea what it was like to keep everything so bottled up. She talked to her fathers about everything. She'd come to realise that this fact, due to the new direction (pardon the pun) her relationship with the Cheerio had taken, may not be the best thing in the world.
"Do you think this is based on sex?" Rachel mumbled. Santana might have missed it, had she not been blocking out the rest of the world and focusing solely on the petite diva sat in front of her.
"Baby, no... I mean, you're excellent..." Santana's eyes glazed over with her memories of their recent activities. "I think there's a lot more to us than just great sex."
"So... you'd be willing to try this out?" Rachel looked expectantly into Santana's eyes. This hadn't been the rocky road she'd been anticipating... it was quite wonderful.
"Definitely," Santana replied, leaning over and capturing Rachel's lips with hers. It was only a chaste kiss and didn't last as long as she'd had liked it; if they were at her empty mansion, they'd be half-naked and frenching already.
"Is there anything you'd like to ask me?"
"Am I supposed to?" Santana's answer came out a little abrupt; she was utterly engrossed in Rachel's eyes, lips and hair. You couldn't blame the girl for being a little pissed that she'd just been blown out of her reverie, even if said girl she was transfixed on was the one who did it.
Rachel let out a giggle, and leaned in closer. "Not unless you really want to." The girls continued to stare into one another's eyes until Santana finally pegged that there was in fact something that she should be asking Rachel.
Finally, the penny dropped. "Would you like to be my girlfriend?"
Rachel pulled back and folded her arms across her chest. "I expect something slightly more romantic, Lopez, or you're paying."
Santana laughed and shook her head at the girl. "Fine... Rachel Barbra Berry, would you do me the honour of being my girlfriend?"
"Of course," Rachel replied. They girls kissed again; it was a little more heated than usual, but it wasn't as direct as all the others. This wasn't just sex anymore – it was a proper relationship. All that mattered to one another, was that they had each other, and that they would keep each other safe.
No sooner had they acquired the bill and left a twenty to cover their short meal, the girls were walking steadily through the mall, hand in hand. They were being given disbelieving looks by some of the other mall-goers, but that was only to be expected in such a small town. Lima would probably be the capital of conservatism if somebody nuked Sarah Palin and Texas.
"That was really romantic, you know," Rachel sighed dreamily, resting her head on Santana's shoulder. "I didn't know you had it in you."
"Good thing I did, 'cause I left my purse at home."