Author's Note: A Santana/Teresa (Santaresa) ficlet set after Don't Want To Wake Up Lonely and before the ficlet If I'm A Fool For Love.
It's All How You Use It
If God is a DJ,
life is a dance floor.
Love is the rhythm.
You are the music.
If God is a DJ,
life is a dance floor.
You get what you're given.
It's all how you use it.
~God Is A DJ, P!nk
It's always a little weird for Teresa to be on the wrong side of the bar. The bitters in her Old Fashioned are just a touch too strong, a standard maraschino cherry decorates her glass instead of the brandy soaked cherries that she prefers, and she knows that she could have (and has) mixed a better drink than this, but she also knows that she's unnecessarily critical of any bartender that isn't—well, her. But Santana seems happy enough with her tequila while Quinn slowly sips a glass of the house wine and Rachel clutches a highball of 7 and 7 that Teresa suspects is mostly 7-Up and ice. They're not really here for the drinks anyway—they're here for the piano and the drunken warbling that fills the downstairs of The Duplex every night after nine.
Teresa has been dating Santana for almost a month, and so far, it's going so much better than she ever would have anticipated when she'd agreed to that first meeting for coffee. Honestly, despite the assurances given to her by Santana's friends and a surprisingly enjoyable first phone conversation, she'd been expecting the same cocky grin, overinflated ego, and familiar variation of an invitation into the woman's bed to follow not long after sitting down across from her at the coffee shop. What she'd gotten instead had been an older, obviously wearier, but still unfairly stunning and unarguably confident woman who wasn't afraid to lay everything out on the table from the get-go. The in-your-face approach and unapologetic flirtation had felt like a breath of fresh air after her last relationship, and Teresa has never been with anybody who can make her laugh the way Santana makes her laugh. Santana Lopez has changed for the better—or maybe it's Teresa who's changed. Either way, this feels like it might be turning into something really wonderful.
Admittedly, Santana spends more hours at the hospital than Teresa personally thinks is healthy, but she understands how important Santana's career is to her, and she sure as hell isn't the kind of woman who needs to be with her partner every minute of every day. That much togetherness would probably drive her insane, and anyway, she has a tendency to get lost for hours at a time in front of her canvases when she's feeling inspired, and she still has to work odd hours behind the bar to earn a steady paycheck and tips. Even if she didn't need the income, she actually likes the human interaction and the stories that she hears from some of her customers. Teresa is never going to be a nine to five kind of girl, so it doesn't bother her in the least that Santana can't be either. She's more concerned that Santana's demanding schedule will cause her to burn out or pass out or run herself into the ground. Yeah—one month in and Teresa is already worried about Santana's health and happiness. Who would have thought?
She automatically glances at Rachel, who's making a disgusted face at either her drink or the tipsy guy currently butchering the lyrics to "Hey Jude," and has her answer. Rachel had thought. Santana hates to admit that Rachel did them both a really big favor by approaching Teresa at the art gallery on Santana's behalf, but Teresa has no problem giving credit where credit is due. She's really glad that she gave Rachel and Quinn her phone number, and she's definitely very glad that Santana called her.
She likes Santana's friends. Of course, she'd liked Rachel the first time that she'd walked into Ten Degrees and sat her cute, little ass down next to Santana, and not merely because it was an easy way to get under Santana's skin at the time—though that had definitely been a nice bonus. Quinn had been another story, but after their first uneasy interaction, Teresa had developed a grudging respect for the generally aloof blonde. Now, thanks to their double date tonight and the lively dinner that they'd shared before coming here, Teresa can see the easy way they interact with each other and with Santana. It's pretty clear that they all just seem to fit together, and she really wouldn't mind becoming a permanent fourth wheel to their dynamic.
Mostly, she likes Santana. A lot. And they haven't even had sex yet, although it's getting harder and harder for Teresa to remember why she'd wanted to take things slow on that front.
It turns out that Santana really is a hell of a lot more than her fantastic boobs, overconfidence, and often abrasive personality. She's fierce and loyal and extremely protective of the people that she cares about, and Teresa has been noticing more and more of that squishy, emo crap that Santana hates to admit to feeling start to slip out around the edges of her occasionally bitchy exterior. She really likes that side of Santana, and she hopes that she'll get to see a lot more of it in the future.
"I think my ears are actually bleeding," Santana grumbles over the music, making a show of pressing two fingers to her left earlobe and pulling them away in search of blood. "Someone call Sugar, because that guy just stole the nails-on-the-chalkboard award right out from under her very pronounced nose."
Obviously, Teresa won't be seeing much of that emo side tonight.
"Who's Sugar?" she asks, mildly curious—it's a name that she hasn't heard yet, and she's already heard a lot of names ticked off the list of Santana's conquests.
Rachel grimaces again before leaning forward across the small table that they'd only managed to commandeer after the guys who'd been sitting there had recognized Rachel and, being huge fans of her Fanny (with absolutely no pun intended), had willingly given up their seats for an autograph. "Sugar was someone with an unfortunate tonal dissonance who was briefly a member of our award-winning, high school show choir. Needless to say, we made certain that she merely swayed in the background."
Santana snorts into her tequila. "Rachel tried to make sure everyone not named Rachel swayed in the background."
"That is a gross fallacy," Rachel argues. "You and Quinn both had solos. In competitions, if might I remind you."
"Mine was a duet," Quinn corrects with a shrug.
Santana turns to Teresa with a smirk. "With her boyfriend. When she was still pretending she could drive stick." Teresa can't help smiling at that—seeing Quinn with Rachel now, it's hard to imagine either one of them being with anyone else.
"My boyfriend that you started dating as soon as we broke up," Quinn reminds her evilly.
"You mean, as soon as he dumped you?" Santana challenges.
"We all made questionable dating decisions in high school," Rachel is quick to intercede in an attempt to steer the conversation back to safer waters. "And it was a lovely duet nevertheless," she compliments Quinn with a loving smile. "Obviously, it would have been so much better had it been with me, but hindsight is twenty-twenty after all."
Teresa has heard Rachel sing live on a Broadway stage twice and watched her on the Tonys last year, and Santana has briefly mentioned her own stint in their high school glee club, though Teresa hasn't been given a sample of her singing yet, but she didn't realize that Quinn had been a singer too. "You guys should go up there and sing something now," she suggests amiably, watching the affectionate grin that Quinn has directed at Rachel disappear in the same instant that Rachel's smile widens with excitement.
"Yes!"
"No," Quinn protests at the same time.
"Please, baby," Rachel whines. "We make such beautiful music together."
Santana chokes on her tequila as she barks out a laugh, wiping a small bit of the liquid from the corner of her mouth. "Yeah, Lucy Q. Why don't you go on up there and make musical love with your wife in front of all these people?"
Quinn aims a playful scowl at Santana. "I'd rather keep those performances private, thank you." Then she flashes an apologetic smile to Teresa before addressing her pouting wife. "I'm sorry, Rach. You know I'm not really comfortable singing in public after all these years, but you should absolutely go up there and show them how it's done. I know you're dying to."
Rachel's disappointment quickly transforms into unconcealed interest. "Well, if you really think I should."
Quinn laughs and nods. "You know how much I love to listen to you sing," she urges before she leans over and brushes a fleeting kiss of encouragement across Rachel's lips.
"Like she really needs to be talked into it," Santana mutters, rolling her eyes.
"I'll be back," Rachel promises with a grin before she shimmies out of her seat in the corner and makes her way up to the piano just in time for the final chorus of tipsy guy's horrendous performance. Quinn leans forward with one elbow on the table and her chin propped against her hand as she stares after her wife with a besotted smile on her face.
"Fifty bucks says it's 'Don't Rain On My Parade,'" Santana wagers.
Quinn's eyes narrow as she turns her attention to Santana. "Rachel is actually pretty burned out on that one after singing it over six hundred times in the last two years."
"She sounds amazing singing it though," Teresa adds appreciatively, remembering the seamless way Rachel had hit those high notes at the performance she'd attended last year.
"She sounds amazing singing everything," Quinn agrees.
"Except 'The Climb,'" Santana adds with a snicker.
Quinn barks out a spontaneous laugh before she gets ahold of herself with a shake of her head. "We were sixteen," she explains to Teresa. "And Rachel was coming down with a case of laryngitis. It was…not her best performance."
"But it was the best week ever," Santana muses fondly.
"I somehow doubt that," Teresa comments, amused. She already knows that there isn't anything Santana wouldn't do for her friends, so she doesn't take any of the woman's teasing remarks seriously.
Santana flashes her a devilish grin. "You wouldn't if you'd had to listen to her mouth flapping everyday since elementary school."
Whatever Quinn might or might not have said in defense of her wife is tabled when the pianist announces, "We have a very special guest tonight requesting a turn at the microphone. Everyone please welcome, direct from her Tony-winning run in Funny Girl, Ms. Rachel Berry."
Quinn lets out a loud hoot, cheering enthusiastically for her wife amidst the sea of applause, and Teresa grins because Santana is doing the same thing. Best week ever, her ass. When the piano begins to play, it becomes clear that Quinn should have taken Santana's bet, because it would have been an easy fifty bucks.
"Come on, babe,
why don't we paint the town?"
Rachel points at Quinn with the hand that isn't cradling the microphone, sending her an exaggerated wink before fully engaging the rest of her audience.
"And all that jazz."
"I'm gonna rouge my knees,
and roll my stockings down.
And all that jazz.
"Start the car.
I know a whoopee spot…"
Rachel picks up the pianist's tumbler off the top of the piano, lifting it into the air.
"Where the gin is cold,
but the piano's hot."
She slams the tumbler back onto the piano exactly on beat.
"It's just a noisy hall
where there's a nightly brawl,
and all…that…jazz."
Rachel playfully runs her fingers through the pianist's messy hair to the hoots and hollers of the nearby patrons.
"Damn, she's good," Teresa breathes in awe, watching Rachel effortlessly turn the bar into a Broadway cabaret. All of the rowdy conversations that had been buzzing around them since they'd arrived have fallen silent—everyone's attention focused solely on Rachel Berry.
Quinn only smiles, silently nodding her agreement without removing her eyes from her wife, but Santana glances back at her with a thoughtful frown. Teresa grins at her girlfriend—because really, like she's not going to state the obvious—before she sits back to watch the free show. And Rachel is certainly giving them one. She'd make one hell of a Velma Kelly if Chicago ever has another revival. It's clear that she loves to perform as much as Teresa loves to paint—probably as much as Quinn loves to write. By the end of the song, everyone in the bar is lending their voice to every all that jazz while Rachel shimmies, shakes and—well, all that jazz.
"No, I'm no one's wife."
Rachel shrugs almost guiltily and looks directly at Quinn as she sings, "but oh, I love my life.
"And all. That. Jazz!
That Jazz."
Teresa cheers along with everyone else as Rachel does an adorable little curtsey before handing the microphone back to the pianist. Santana slips out of her chair with a mumbled, "Be right back," that Teresa doesn't so much hear over the rising noise around them as read on her lips —a trick she'd learned from tending to her own customers over the din of drunken shouts and pounding music. She frowns as she watches Santana slither through the crowd, meeting Rachel before she's even taken three steps away from the piano. Santana leans in to say something close to Rachel's ear, and Rachel smiles widely, nodding before she turns back to talk to the pianist again.
"What are they up to?" Teresa asks Quinn.
"No idea," she responds with a shrug, but the expression on her face is slightly wary.
It becomes pretty clear what's happening when Santana moves around the piano to pick up the microphone while Rachel thanks the pianist with a pat on his shoulder before cutting a path through the crowd back to their table. Quinn slides over into the chair Rachel had previously occupied to make it easier for her wife to sit down, and Rachel falls into the empty chair with a happy grin before she steals a kiss from Quinn that's much less chaste than the one they'd shared before she'd gotten up to sing. Apparently, Rachel's performances get both of their motors going.
"You were amazing," Quinn says breathlessly when they part.
"I know," Rachel answers with a smug grin. "But how was my performance?"
Teresa would probably find them too adorable for words if her attention hadn't been immediately captured by the sensual timbre of Santana's voice suddenly filling the bar.
"I don't want you to be no slave.
I don't want you to work all day,
but I want you to be true.
And I just wanna make love to you."
Teresa laughs, shaking her head because of course Santana would pick this song. She's staring straight at Teresa with that sexy smirk of hers and those smokey, bedroom eyes. And oh, God, her voice! She might not be a classically trained vocalist, but Teresa can feel the power of it vibrate through her body, tickling her stomach and heating her blood. The buzz of conversation has dimmed once again, and more than one pair of eyes is suddenly glued to Santana as she attempts to seduce Teresa from across the bar.
"All I want to do is wash your clothes.
I don't want to keep you indoors."
Santana runs a hand over her body suggestively, every bit the performer that Rachel was.
"There is nothing for you to do,
but keep me making love to you.
Love to you, ooh, ooh..."
"Woo! Yeah, babe, you can make love to me anytime!" shouts some drunken guy from the back of the bar.
Teresa whips her head around to glare in the general direction of the, "Asshole." She's fully aware that Santana is hot as hell, but it's just fucking rude to catcall her in the middle of a song, especially when she's already taken!
"Down girl," Quinn teases with a knowing smirk, one arm around Rachel who's snuggled into her side with a pleased grin of her own.
Teresa blushes, shrugging sheepishly before returning her full attention to her girlfriend, only to find Santana's heated gaze still on her.
"And I can tell by the way you walk that walk.
I can hear by the way you talk that talk.
And I can know by the way you treat your girl
that I can give you all the lovin' in the whole wide world."
And yeah, maybe Teresa is completely seduced. The heat pooling in her belly tells her that she and Santana are about to be done taking things slow. She's never had someone serenade her before, and as much as she knows that Santana had initially picked this song as a joke, the way she's singing it and the expression on her face tell Teresa that she wants a lot more than sex with her. There are a hundred promises hidden beneath the obvious lyrics.
Santana is a woman of many hidden talents. Teresa never would have guessed that she could command an audience nearly as effortlessly as Rachel Berry. Their high school glee club must have been something to see. She makes a mental note to ask Santana if she has any old recordings stashed away. If she doesn't, Teresa has a sneaking suspicion that Rachel will. She wonders if Santana and Rachel had ever done a duet—that's something she really thinks she'd like to hear. She definitely wants to hear more of Santana.
If the woman had thought to serenade her four years ago, Teresa might have fallen into her bed without much protest, despite the fact that it would have meant breaking her own rule to never knowingly become anyone's temporary fling. Okay—so she probably wouldn't have actually done it, but Santana definitely would have been a much bigger temptation.
When Santana belts out the final notes, the bar erupts in applause again, and Quinn and Rachel both cheer loudly for their friend. Teresa watches Santana walk toward them with an arched eyebrow and a cocky grin, and she finds herself standing up just as she reaches the table.
"So, did you…?" Santana starts to ask, but Teresa is already moving, stepping into Santana's personal space and sliding her fingers into soft, dark hair to pull her closer and stop her words with a kiss. She's vaguely aware of the hoots and hollers from the bar-goers around them who are watching, but she doesn't care. She's too busy feeling the sparks ignite all through her body when Santana's arms slip around her waist and her lips part against Teresa's mouth.
It's certainly not their first kiss. They've been doing quite a lot of that after every date, along with other things that leave them both hot and bothered and in need of a cold shower. Santana's tongue is talented at so much more than forming snarky barbs and sexual innuendos. It's been pretty clear to Teresa since their first date that physical chemistry isn't something that she and Santana have to worry about at all.
"Get a room," Quinn heckles loudly enough to draw Santana's attention, and Teresa feels the exasperated sigh flutter against her lips as Santana breaks their kiss.
"She's still such a prude," Santana snarks, rolling her eyes as she smiles lazily at Teresa.
"It's called payback," Quinn corrects, having heard her comment over the drunken revelry around them. "And no one deserves it more."
"We're very sorry that you have to be caught in the crossfires, Teresa," Rachel apologizes, but she doesn't really look very sorry at all.
"You're lucky I like your friends," Teresa quips, idly curling a strand of Santana's hair around her finger.
Santana shakes her head, still smiling. "They are pretty annoying, aren't they?"
"Not really," Teresa admits honestly. "But even if they were, I think you'd probably still be worth it."
"Probably?" Santana echoes in exaggerated outrage. "There's no probably about it, hermosa. I'm a fucking catch," she boasts.
Teresa silently agrees, increasingly determined to be the one to catch her permanently. Of course, she's not about to give Santana the satisfaction of admitting to that out loud—not yet. "That ego's not getting any smaller, is it?"
"Maybe you could try stroking it a little," Santana suggests with a wicked grin. "You know, calm it down some."
Teresa laughs. "Yeah, I don't think it works that way." She brushes another soft kiss across Santana's lips. "But you were really incredible up there," she admits, wanting Santana to know how much she'd loved hearing her sing.
Delight plays over Santana's face, but she attempts to cover the effect of Teresa's praise with her typical brazenness. "I'm incredible in a lot of ways. I can demonstrate any and all of them whenever you want."
Teresa lets her own lips curl into a sexy smile. "I think I might just take you up on that offer in the very near future," she teases, and she feels Santana's breath hitch before she slips out of her arms and reclaims her chair, leaving Santana to stare down at her with darkening eyes.
Santana pushes her own chair closer to Teresa before dropping into it. "How near in the future are we talking?" she asks hopefully. "'Cause we can ditch the Faborings right now if you want a private performance of that song."
"We're sitting right here," Quinn reminds them.
"And we are not boring," Rachel protests, offended.
Santana rolls her eyes but keeps her attention on Teresa. "Seriously. Say the word and we'll be out of here and on the subway back to my place."
Teresa chuckles and pats Santana's thigh. "Later, tiger. We have plenty of time." She's really enjoying this whole double date thing and getting to discover the side of Santana that comes out to play when her friends are around. "Let's see where the night takes us."
"So…it could possibly take us back to my place?" Santana stubbornly questions.
Teresa laughingly leans in and pecks Santana's lips. "Possibly," she concedes. "Now," she drawls, leaning back in her chair and glancing at Quinn and Rachel, who are trying not to be too obvious with their voyeurism, "how many drinks do we have to buy Quinn to get her up to the microphone next? I think I need to hear the trifecta tonight."
Santana laughs at Quinn's stunned expression and Rachel's calculating smile. "That's my girl," she crows, lifting up her tequila glass in a proud toast.
Yeah, Teresa could definitely get used to being Santana's girl.
"All That Jazz," from the musical Chicago
"I Just Want To Make Love to You," Etta James