DJ Snowflake and Scrooge
December 16
1:12 am
"What is wrong with this town?" Santana paced back and forth across Mercedes' bedroom. Santana had fled the town square right before chaos broke out. Despite the yelling and excitement from the crowd, Mercedes had found her best friend. She had driven Santana back to her house in town. "You are all crazy and obsessed with weird things like lighting up trees, Rachel Berry, and -"
Santana didn't even know what to say about Sugar holding that sign next to Mercedes' boyfriend.
"Well if you would have told me even one detail about your mystery girl, I could have told you right away that it was Brittany S. Pierce. Everyone knows who she is. I could have solved that for you in an instant and told you that she was DJ Snowflake." Mercedes answered simply, but her mind was on the other hundred questions she had for Santana. "And what the hell are you doing being Scrooge?"
"Oh! Like I had a choice? Like I wanted to be called Scrooge?" Santana threw her hands up. "All I wanted was to listen to some music that wasn't all about Christmas!"
"Santana." Mercedes pressed her pointer fingers to her mouth in exasperation. "I have a Bluetooth player – a cd player – I still have my old boom box from when we were in the dorm together! You could have borrowed them! You didn't have to keep calling into a radio station to be the "scrooge" of Christmas music."
"It wasn't like I had a choice! Bri-" Santana quickly adjusted the name so she didn't have to think about how she just got played by a radio host. "- that Snowflake person wouldn't stop with all the Christmas music and the talking and the elves and the Santa stuff!" Mercedes narrowed her eyes, but allowed Santana to keep talking. "And no one else called into the radio station! I thought I was going crazy and I was the only person who was listening! If I hadn't called in, you probably would have found me talking to a painting of Rachel Berry or something. You have no idea how creepy quiet it is in that room."
"Yeah, but according to - "Mercedes glared at the door as if Sam could feel her ire from upstairs. She would deal with him later. "- Sam you corrected the phone number to Brittany and other callers started to call in. You still called in! You were the one who started the morning show take over! Do you know how many calls I got demanding that I call the National Guard to storm the station to stop that weird chipmunk song? Sue hasn't stopped calling my office to get Brittany banished from town. She says there's a town ordinance from 1843 that's still in effect. It states that if the town council perceives that someone has willfully attempted to damage the mental well-being of the town populace, the council can choose to banish the offender from the town perimeters."
Santana lifted her hands up with exasperation and recognition, but she didn't want to tell Mercedes that she had found that ordinance in the town records last Wednesday and that Sue had a point.
"Why did you keep calling into the station?" Mercedes put her hand on her hip and waited.
"I-" Santana froze, searching for an answer to a question she had never given any thought. "I don't know. It was nothing. I just called."
Mercedes looked her friend over and shook her head. "So what happened between you and Brittany off the air?"
"Nothing. She was at the bed and breakfast and we flirted and she gave me her number." Santana rolled her eyes at herself. "I had no idea she was DJ Snowflake and that all of that -" She waved her hand in the direction of the very visible tree in the center of town. "-would happen."
Santana leaned against the window and breathed on the cold glass with a sigh. She had never been more embarrassed in her life and she had done some really stupid things.
"So what?"
Santana opened her eyes and turned around. She had expected sympathy, outrage, or anything else from Mercedes except indifference. Her confusion must have been evident on her face because Mercedes repeated.
"So what?"
"What do you mean 'so what'? DJ Snowflake is Brittany and I was a puppet for her radio show!"
"Santana, I've known you for a very long time and in all that time, I've never seen you be anyone's puppet."
"But sh-"
"When I saw you the other day, you were practically beaming with excitement. You were even up before 10 am. You can't tell me that was fake. Sure, she's full of tinsel, garland, and peppermint -"
The vivid freshness of the chocolate peppermint drink came back to her. Santana dropped her eyes to hide the way it sent a chill through her entire body. Santana thought about their entire conversation at the bed and breakfast - how easily Brittany had broken any barrier between them, the way her voice tickled the edges of Santana's glass, and how Santana couldn't think of anything except how blue her eyes were.
Before Santana couldn't fathom Snowflake and Brittany as the same person, but her pulse quickened as she remembered Brittany had been so quick in their conversation - challenging and curious to every word Santana said.
Just like Snowflake.
Santana remembered how dull WMHS 97.3 sounded when they took...Brittany off the air.
Fuck.
Mercedes continued talking. "-but clearly that didn't stop you from letting her flirt with you when you didn't even know her name."
"Yeah, but-"
"Did you ever think there was a reason she gave you her personal number unless she wanted you to call her and not the radio station. Why else would she have given that to you?"
Santana closed her mouth and opened it unable to formulate a comeback. "So you think I should just call her?"
"Why not?" Mercedes rolled her eyes. Santana could be so stubborn.
"Because!"
"Santana, I'm gonna break it down for you." Mercedes crossed the room. "That crazed group of fans was there for both of you and clearly, they were right about something because when you didn't even know Brittany was DJ Snowflake, there were sparks flying between you. She's obviously into you. She left in the middle of her own comeback show to chase you down. And let's be real - the girl's got legs." Mercedes teased. "I mean, you could do worse."
Santana rolled her eyes and batted Mercedes back. Everything Mercedes said could be true, but how would she ever know?
Quietly, Santana whispered the gnawing thought that had been eating at her since she accepted Snowflake and Brittany were the same person. "I just don't want to be someone's holiday special."
Before Mercedes could respond, Santana walked away from the window and her friend.
"Can I just spend the night here? I'll sleep on the couch."
"You're staying, but you're not sleeping on the couch." Mercedes bunched the comforter off her bed and grabbed a pillow. She opened her bedroom door and shouted. "Sam! You're sleeping on couch tonight!"
Without waiting for a response, Mercedes threw the bedding down the stairs and closed her door.
10:01 pm
"Totally caught last night's show. What happened? Where's Scrooge?"
"When is Scrooge coming on?"
"Hey, DJ Snowflake, I totally thought your show was lame, but my friend told me to come to the tree lighting and it was insane. What's up with you and Scrooge?"
"Hi, DJ Snowflake, this is Marissa. I just wanted to know why you weren't taking requests for The Chipmunk Song anymore."
"I heard you and Sue were going to have candy cane duel under the holiday tree tomorrow night? Is that true?"
"Yo, Snowflake, I saw you run off last night. Tell me the truth. Isn't this whole Scrooge thing a ratings grab? I heard from my grandfather that the radio station is shutting dow-"
Brittany flipped her finger on the feed and cut off only the latest of callers trying to find out what happened the previous night at The Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony. Their ratings had never been better, but Brittany couldn't shake the way Santana looked at her or the way she had disappeared.
"Britt, babe." Holly's voice echoed in the sound booth. "You can't keep answering the phone and then hanging up on people."
"Sorry, Holly. It's just every time the phone rings, I think maybe it's her and it's not."
Brittany turned her mic back on and ignored her desire to answer all five of the calls waiting to get through. What if one of them was Santana?
"This next song goes out to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah. Happy holidays to all of our listeners!"
How lucky are we that we have lights so we can see
Although the day is done
"Britt, let it go. Clearly, she was a little surprised you were DJ Snowflake, but probably not as surprised as we are that she's Scrooge. I mean like damn, girl! Could you believe that? I'm still not over that she's Scrooge. On the crazy/hot scale, she's high on both sides!" Holly whistled under her breath. "You sure know how to pick'um."
"But she thinks I staged the DJ Snowflake-Scrooge thing." Brittany sighed and looked at her cell phone again. "And all I wanted was her number."
Her mood instantly adjusted as the song came to an end. Without missing a beat, Brittany pushed her headset back into place and leaned forward. "Hello, listener! You're on the air with WMHS 97.3! What song can I play for you tonight?"