(no subject)
Title: Bizarre Love Triangle
Fandom: Glee
Pairings: Pezberry, Blainchel and some very light Sebtana
Words: 9,200+
AN: Santana’s POV.
Big huge thank you to thankyesoulmate for beta reading for me. I would not have finished this without her help.
Santana would really like to blame Sebastian Smythe and Blaine Anderson for the whole horrible mess, but if she sits back and really thinks about it, she’s the one that kind of gets the ball rolling on the whole thing.
It’s her senior year at Crawford Academy, and she and Rachel are exactly where they need to be on the social ladder, right at the fucking top, because after two years of practice, hard work and kissing the right ass the two of them are finally leads of The Crawford Hummingbird Glee Club. It’s the academies only real claim to fame, because unlike the school Santana attended for most of her freshman year of high school, this one didn’t have an award winning cheerleading squad and everybody knows that girls sporting teams are the highest level of lameness.
They’d made it to regionals the year before, but had lost to their companion school, Dalton Academy. Not necessarily because the boys were better than them, but because the two airheads that were leading the Hummingbirds didn’t have half a brain between them, not to mention half the talent that Rachel had in her little finger.
She remembers being up on stage watching the Dalton Warblers parade their first place trophy around like it was the frigging Olympic torch, and she remembers Sebastian (although she hadn’t known that was his name at the time) smirking over at her like he was the boy king of the blazer wearing jerkoffs, when he was in reality just like her, a body swaying in the background, back up to undeserving leads.
She remembers wanting nothing more than to wipe the shit eating grin off his face.
Her first order of business as new co-lead Hummingbird is taking her club to pay a little visit to their companion school to show them that things were going to be very different with Lopez and Berry in charge and that the Warblers better be getting used to second place.
It’s not really a competition, not in the strictest sense of the word; Rachel refers to it as more of an impromptu showcasing of talent, but either way the Hummingbirds kick ass.
They rock up to Dalton looking as fierce as they can in what can only be described as the most unflattering private school girl uniform ever invented and wipe the superior smirks off every single one of the repressed blazer sporting closet cases with a rendition of Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ that’s both heartfelt and a little sexy, on account of the fact that her and Rachel have some pretty smoking performance chemistry.
Kurt Hummel, or Lady Fabulous as Santana likes to sometimes call him, Rachel’s best friend forever is practically glowing by the end of it but really that’s to be expected; he’s Rachel’s biggest fan just like Rachel is his and Santana can’t remember a time when one or the other didn’t cheer in diva solidarity for the other.
But Hummel’s reaction isn’t the reaction she’s interested in. Her eyes search out the Boy King to find him sitting next to a darker haired boy (who she’ll later come to know as the person she hates most in the world), his face set somewhere between a grimace and a frown and really that’s all the reaction she’d ever wanted.
Victory had never tasted so sweet.
---
The high of victory lasts exactly one week to the day before she comes crashing down to the ground in the worst way possible.
Fucking Hummel and his unifying the team’s bullshit, traitorous little shit. Going behind her back and approaching her teammates without her or Rachel-his supposed best friend’s-knowledge. She’s going to burn his collection of designer scarves the first chance she gets.
Glee was supposed to be her sanctuary for crying out loud, the Hummingbirds were her team, well hers and Rachel’s anyway, but now she had to spend Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in a room with not only her teammates but the goddamn Warblers as well. One of which can’t seem to keep his shifty hobbit eyes away from her midget girlfriends perfect ass.
She wonders how Kurt even got the idea in the first place, he’d never given any indication before that joining the Hummingbirds and the Warblers together as one team was something he thought about. But when she’d asked-or rather demanded-that he tell her what his angle was, he had merely shrugged and mumbled something about it making sense, and how it was for the good of both teams and how this way there didn’t have to be some great big competition.
But Santana was still fuming, she had wanted the competition, she’d wanted to get up on that stage at Regionals this time and take the victory from right under Dalton’s feet. She wanted to lead Crawford Academy to glory, her and Rachel, the way it was supposed to be because they’d both worked so damn hard for it.
Santana didn’t need, nor did she want, these new additions to her club, and she was intent on letting them know just that as she stomped up to where Hummel was talking with the two Warblers she probably disliked the most, ignoring Rachel’s quiet advice of taking a second to calm down.
Except what came out of her mouth was something entirely different. “Pucks having a party tomorrow night,” she said in Kurt’s general direction, even as her eyes were directed at the other two. “Bring the hobbit and the twink along.”
Surprise registers itself discreetly on her friends face before he starts shaking his head vigorously “Oh no, they wouldn’t want to go to a McKinley party.”
“Yeah we would.” Sebas-tard chimes in, leer affixed on his face as he gives her the once over, meant more as an intimidation she’s sure rather than a show of real appreciation for her admittedly perfect figure, she just glares back before turning to Kurt again.
“See they do,” she ignores the way the smaller sized Warbler next to Sebastian shakes his head. “Besides it’s not a McKinley party, it’s a Puckerman party.”
Kurt’s scoff is equal parts amused and annoyed. “Is there any difference?”
“Huge, huge difference,” she answered unnecessarily before turning to the others briefly, “you two can get the details from lady fab over here before the big night.” She turned back to Kurt, effectively blocking out the other Warblers completely before continuing, “now you, me and Rach are heading to Stix for a little gossip session, let’s hustle Hummel.”
She doesn’t wait for the boy to reply, just wraps her hand around his delicate looking wrist and drags him away. She doesn’t bother saying goodbye to Kurt’s schoolmates and she doesn’t allow him to either.
She really should have listened to Kurt when he hisses into her ear, once they’re out of earshot, that inviting Blaine and Sebastian along is a bad idea, but she has something to prove, some urge to show the two Warblers who was boss and she’d be damned if she’d let any warning given to her by Kurt deter her.
---
The next night she finds herself sat in between her two once-maybe still-rivals in the back of Kurt’s SUV as they all make their way to Puck’s house for a little rest and relaxation. Hummel had begrudgingly offered the two boys a lift and since he spent every Friday in Lima at Rachel’s house with her and the diva, they’d been forced to go along with it.
Her girlfriend’s in the front passenger seat, a rule instated by Kurt a while ago that Santana was never allowed in the spot at all after an incident with a bottle of spilt nail polish and his immaculate seat covers, an incident she’d apologized for at least a hundred times to no real avail.
Rachel hates attending parties outside of Dalton and Crawford, doesn’t feel comfortable or welcomed, especially at parties where McKinley students will be attending. Even though Rachel has known Puck for almost as long as she’s known Kurt, being that they were both Jewish and the community was rather small in Lima and on top of that she was the girlfriend of Puck’s best lesbro, so she had more right than anyone else to attend the soirees at the Puckerman abode if not more so.
They make it to the party all relatively unscathed and in good spirits, Kurt only having to threaten Sebastian once with death by strangulation to get him to shut up when the other boy makes one too many comments about how Kurt drives like a Golden Girl and dresses like one too.
By the time they pull up outside the Puckerman house she’s pretty ready to begin the night and get her drink on; in fact she’s the first one out of the car and bounding up the walkway. Puck swings open the door and holds out his fist which she bumps enthusiastically with her own, before he ushers them inside and introductions are quickly made.
Rachel’s the last one inside, right behind Blaine and Sebastian, and Santana finds herself standing a few meters away from them with Kurt watching as the darker haired of the two helps Rachel out of jacket. The way he smiles slightly down at her girlfriend makes her grit her teeth as she leans into Kurt. “I don’t like that boy.”
“Blaine?” Kurt raises an eyebrow glancing over at the three others “He’s harmless, if I were you I’d worry about the sneaky meerkat over there instead.”
“The sneaky meerkat isn’t the one eye fucking my girlfriend.” She replies, her eyes slanting as Blaine’s hand rests on the small of Rachel’s back as he guides her toward where Kurt and Santana are situated.
Just before they’re with in hearing distance Kurt lets out a chuckle “Relax, Satan, he bats for my team.” And while she’s not comforted by that fact, it does quell her jealousy slightly.
Still when the three stragglers gather around, Santana pulls Rachel to her side quickly, flinging an arm around her shoulder and nuzzling into her neck a little for show.
The party, for once, is surprisingly pretty tame compared to Puck’s other forays. There’s minimal fights and lots of laughter and dancing and by the time 11 pm rolls on through most people have started to leave, only the members of the McKinley glee club remaining and her and her four private school companions.
Someone suggests Spin the Bottle, a game she’s never really liked to participate in even though kissing is on her list of favorite things to do with her mouth. She opts to watch instead, sitting on a couch behind Rachel as the smaller girl perches on the floor joining the circle.
The last time they’d played Rachel had ended up landing on Kurt and the sheer awkwardness that radiated from the kiss, who for all intents and purposes were as close to brother and sister as two non-related people could get, had been hilarious and she’s kind of hoping it happens again just so she can have something to tease them about for a good week or two.
Unfortunately she’s not that lucky, and once it’s Rachel’s turn to spin, Santana finds herself wanting to shout out a string of Spanish expletives so vile her Abuela would not only wash her mouth out with soap but also have her calling up her priest to book an exorcism.
The only conclusion she can come to as Rachel leans over to place her lips against the one person in the room Santana is least happy for it to be, is that she must have really done something horrible in a past life to have to sit through her girlfriend kissing Blaine Anderson.
It starts out innocent enough she supposes, a light brushing of lips, a few giggles, but the stirring in her stomach, the red lights flashing in mind’s eye, the metaphoric sirens ringing in her ears start to go haywire as light pecking shifts into something deeper.
He kind of nibbles on her lower lip before diving back in and when his hands move up, one weaving itself into her hair as he brings her further towards him while the other cups her cheek, from an objective stand point Santana has to admit, it looks like one hell of a hot time and she’s torn between pulling Rachel away and socking the Warbler in the eye, or pulling the warbler away and replacing his lips with her own.
She settles for downing the wine cooler she has in her hand and chanting a mantra of ‘stop’ in her head, because gay or not, kissing another person’s girl that way isn’t kosher.
She doesn’t really know why she’s letting one stupid kiss during a game of spin the bottle get to her so much, she’d never been so insanely jealous of a boy she personally knew before, and especially not of one whom she’d been told wasn’t even remotely hetero inclined.
She’d never felt the surge of anger she was currently feeling when Kurt and Rachel snuggled together during their movie nights, or when Puckerman would bear hug her girl in greeting for a good two minutes every time he saw her before moving on to do the same to her, not even when Hummel’s not so secret, secret boyfriend Dave would pick Rachel up and twirl her around goofily once he’d had a few drinks and relaxed enough to be himself.
But this boy, he’s different, he doesn’t have the years of friendship and history behind him like Puck or Kurt, or the almost brotherly affection that Dave displays, he’s new, just a visitor into their world really and in her opinion he’s really starting to over stay his welcome.
She’s relieved when the two of them finally come up for air, pulling apart slowly and returning to their respective seats, she’s not so surprised to see that Blaine’s eyes have an almost glassy dazed quality to them, but she’s kind of shocked when she hears her girlfriend sigh softly sounding every bit as overcome as the boy she just kissed.
---
After what she’s now dubbed the hobbit kiss of doom at Puckerman’s party she keeps a closer eye on Blaine Anderdouche for reasons entirely justified. Somehow he and his friend manage to worm their way into some sort of quasi friendship with herself and her diva, and they start hanging together after practices and occasionally during the weekend.
He’s subtle about the whole thing, friendly even, but she’s pretty damn sure that underneath his charm and his wit and his 50s movie star good looks there lurks a sneaky, devious little personality that rivals that of his smarmy, smirky best friend.
She starts to notice little things at first, like how he gets Rachel’s coffee order right the second time they meet at the Lima Bean, how during practice he’ll reach over to tuck a stray lock of dark chocolate hair behind her girlfriends ear and his fingertips linger for just a few seconds too long, how when he’s performing he always singles Rachel out to give his attention to, even though there are a dozen other girls in the room he could be throwing his puppy dog eyes at that would lap that crap up like warm milk.
Hummel and Puckerman tell her all the time she’s too possessive, that she gets too jealous of other people paying attention to her girl, and she supposes if she were to think about it objectively, they’re not half wrong.
But the thing is before Rachel Berry she’d never really loved anything or anyone, she’d just kind of floated between people, staying while they held her interest only to leave when they no longer did.
Santana was a player, when it came down to the bare knuckles truth of it, she broke hearts at a rapid pace, no one else’s feelings mattered but hers, everyone else’s desires came second to her own.
But Rachel was, is different to the rest. She’d gotten under her skin and wormed her way into her heart so completely, she had taught her how to love somebody, to enjoy the simple moments not just the passion, she’d taught her how to be the best possible incarnation of herself, and sure Santana knew she’d always be just a little bit of a bitch but Rachel had shown her that she didn’t have to be a heartless one.
So really it isn’t any big shock that the thought of someone coming into their lives and maybe replacing her in her girlfriend’s eyes drives her to insanity. That someone trying to take her away would make her want to kill.
Most of the time her fears were misguided, but this time, she just knew that they weren’t, she knew she wasn’t imagining this interest the Warbler has in her girlfriend and for all his claims of being a hundred percent gay, she couldn’t help the tiny jealous voice inside her head telling her he was in fact a hundred percent full of shit.
Rachel is the first one he smiles at when the Warblers and Hummingbirds meet to practice together, she’s the first one he’ll pick to duet with and have as a dance partner and she’s the one he watches when he mistakenly thinks that no one’s watching him.
She hates that she has to pretend that she actually likes Blaine and Sebastian because Rachel’s under the illusion that they’re all friends now.
She hates that she has to sit at the Lima Bean with the fakest smile she can muster on her face and pretend that she’s okay with having Rachel anywhere in Blaine Anderson’s general vicinity.
Somehow the little fucker has managed to sit himself right next to her crazy little diva, and Santana really, really wants to throw her scalding hot caramel latté all over his soft looking red cashmere sweater, the one that just happens to be the exact shade of red Rachel’s knitted jacket is.
Because it’s not enough that he harmonizes perfectly with her, that when they dance they’re perfectly in sync and that they have enough common interests and goals to write a book about. No, now he even looks the part of a perfect Rachel Berry partner, all adorable and matching and it makes her physically sick.
And there’s a small part of her, a somewhat selfless part, a part that worries sometimes what would happen to her girlfriend if she ever returned to her old ways, that thinks maybe he’d be better for Rachel than she could ever hope to be.
But just because she has the fleeting thought it doesn’t mean she’ll just hand her to him without a fight.
---
She’s the one that starts upping the stakes, inviting the Dalton boys to hang with them more often than usual, their coffee dates doubling, adding movie nights and group dinners to their activity list, you keep your friends close but your enemies closer becoming her mantra.
She will grudgingly admit to not hating their company as much as she should. Sebastian actually has a pretty good sense of humor, his level of snark almost rivals hers and he’ll flirt with anything that moves so he’s more often than not a source of entertainment if not anything else, and Blaine, when he’s not trying to seduce her girlfriend, is pleasant, polite and so damn charming she sometimes thinks if she wasn’t so set on hating him on principal and he wasn’t so set on wooing away her girl, they could build some sort of honest to goodness friendship.
So maybe she genuinely does enjoy the time they spend together, she and Sebastian are locked in one of their new games, trading insults and innuendo back and forth until one of them cracks or Blaine and Rachel order them to stop.
Usually it’s the latter because both Sebastian and Santana are not easily shocked.
“At least half a dozen times a week, he may look like an apple pie kind of guy, but my dapper friend over there is a total dominating topper” Sebastian finishes a long, sexually charged monologue gesturing in Blaine’s direction.
She hears a faint chocking sound coming from Rachel as her girl almost chokes on the sip of chai she’d just taken.
Blaine’s hands are running soothingly up and down Rachel’s back as he glares daggers in Sebastian’s direction, and she’s pretty sure her hands are gripping the side of her arm chair in a vice like grip, nails digging into the fabric her hands clenching every time he strokes up and down her goddamn girlfriends back, caressing the little diva in a way that should be reserved for Santana and Santana only.
She decides then and there that she’s had enough and it was time to make it clear just who had claim when it came to Rachel Berry.
---
When Santana Lopez wants to make a point, she makes it big or not at all. She makes a quick phone call first, leaves a message on Sebastian’s voicemail, than hunts down her girlfriend and drags her into the choir room to set her little ploy in motion.
She’s three seconds away from rounding on to second base when they turn up, right on schedule. She has Rachel pinned against one of the choir room walls, the brunettes tiny hands fisting into her hips as she nips and licks a trail from her neck to her collarbone.
There’s the sound of a throat clearing in the distance and Rachel shrieks as her startled eyes stare over Santana’s shoulder at their, or rather her, invited guests.
Sebastian is smirking saucily from his spot by the door; it shouldn’t surprise Santana as much as it does because after a few months of playing friends she’s come to realize that Sebastian Smythe tends to be an equal opportunity pervert even if he does prefer directing those tendencies toward the male population more often than not.
Blaine’s reaction, however, doesn’t surprise her at all, in fact it’s basically everything she hoped it would be and so, so much more. Anger, jealousy, lust all flash through his eyes in rapid succession before the spark of recognition ignites and she knows that he knows that he’s been set up, that there is no group number they needed to discuss, that Santana had wanted him to see her devour the object of both their affections, wanted to show him that she won.
What she doesn’t expect to see a second later is a smirk to rival Sebastian’s grace his usually non-threatening features or the challenging look that has flared up in his eyes, and she starts to think that maybe she once again should have thought her plan through before acting because things were now not going as planned and she really, really dislikes when that happens.
He was supposed to see just how very close she and Rachel were, was supposed to get that their relationship was solid and passionate and everything he couldn’t even hope to compete with, he was supposed to back down and admit defeat.
She hadn’t meant to give him the spark he needed to fight.
She really hopes there’s something she can do to deter him, if there’s anything she can say to make him back off.
Because she has the distinct feeling that she just may have witnessed the birth of a girlfriend stealing monster.
---
Santana decides to confront the Dalton hobbit two days after he and his friend caught Rachel and her in the Hummingbirds choir room. Rachel is stuck in English class, but Santana has a period free, so she figures the timing is perfect, she kind of wants her girlfriend to remain oblivious of the tension mounting around her.
She doesn’t really know her way around Dalton but she’s pretty sure the co-lead Warbler spends most of his time in their choir room anyway and she knows her way to that fairly well. She’s pleasantly surprised when she gets there to see her guess was correct.
Blaine’s sitting on one of the overstuffed couches littered around the room, with his head buried in what looks like a large text book. She stomps her way over to him; moving to the other end of the couch and propping herself down onto the arm of the couch so she can look down at him and maybe appear a little more intimidating.
He doesn’t acknowledge her though, just continues reading his book and she’s not sure if it’s because whatever he’s reading has him engrossed or if he’s just ignoring her to work her up.
If it’s the latter, it works remarkably well.
“Alright Ander-douche,” she starts, and he looks up at her closing his book slowly as she huffs, “you and me are about to have some serious problems.”
Blaine places his textbook down onto the couch next to him turning slightly in Santana’s direction as he leans back and folds his arms against his chest. “Is that so?” he asks, his tone so condescending that she’s sure he’s taking lessons in how to be an asshole from Smythe because in all their past interactions she’s never once heard the inflection in his voice be anything but warm and friendly.
“I’ve put up with a lot of crap over the past few months watching you chase after my girlfriend like some love sick teddy bear while you have your fucking little sexual identity crisis and I’ve had enough.”
It feels good to let rip all the anger she’s been bottling up for the past few months and now that she’s started she keeps thinking back over every time she’d watched him get too close to Rachel, every time he’d made her blush or smile or giggle and she finds that she can’t stop .
“I will not let you try and use my girlfriend as some experiment to see if you prefer lady parts to play with, you want to fuck someone? I go to a school full of over eager slutty straight girls, pick one of them to discover the joys of hetero sex with.”
The boy looks like he’s ready to laugh in her face, his lip twitching up into a half smirk her fist itches to strike off his face, but she holds back because she’s sure if she did give in to the urge to punch him once or twice he’d have no qualms about letting Rachel know why he had a face littered with bruises, and her girlfriend has a very strict no violence policy that Santana tries her best to adhere to, even though sometimes, like now for instance, it’s really fucking hard.
“First of all Santana,” he spits out her name like its distasteful “I’m not having a sexual identity crisis, I know exactly who I am and I know exactly what I want.”
The way he says it, like he is indeed incredibly sure of himself is enough to set her on edge and as he continues she’s not entirely sure being up front with him was the best idea.
“And secondly, the only girl I’m interested in is leagues above any over eager slut you could throw in my path.”
“She’s also happily taken and that won’t be changing anytime soon.” There’s a quiver in her voice though and the moment he picks up on it she can see the wheels in his head turning.
He leans in slightly, not too close but enough to appear threatening and she tries to quell the trepidation she feels as he opens his mouth to speak again.
“While we’re sitting here being a hundred percent honest with each other, why don’t we address the issue that you found it necessary to confront me about Rachel, a fact that proves you’re not so sure of that.”
It’s like he’s delving into her mind and picking out all her little insecurities to use against her, and that fact that someone could do that to her, use something so personal against her, especially a person she wasn’t entirely sure was capable of that level of maliciousness up until a minute ago, rattled her.
“Face it Lopez, Rachel and I are better suited for each other than the two of you will ever be and it’s only a matter of time before she realizes that.”
She’s momentarily stunned to hear the thoughts she didn’t like to dwell on but sometimes did be spoken for the first time out loud, especially when they were spoken by one of the two people in the world she never wanted to hear them said by.
By the time she gets herself together Blaine is halfway across the room, so she has to raise her voice in order to get her message across.
“She’s mine, Anderson.”
Blaine just shakes his head slightly, a small smile on his face and she almost thinks he looks slightly sorry for her, which she finds just as angering as the cocky attitude he’d displayed before.
“Not for long.”
He’s out the door before she can deny his statement or fire back one of her own.
---
It’s not that she doesn’t trust Rachel, she does, she trusts her with her life, but she can see that Blaine has some kind of effect on her, even if Rachel hasn’t acknowledged it or isn’t even aware of it, Santana knows that her girlfriend cares more about the Warbler than she should.
She gets this twinkle in her eye and this soft smile on her face when he’s close to her, the same soft smile she gets when they’re alone snuggled together in one of their dorm rooms and it’s disorientating to see that smile aimed at anyone that isn’t her.
She doesn’t mean to spy on them; she stumbles upon them entirely by accident truth be told. But what she sees makes her heart feel like its smashing into a thousand miniscule pieces with no hope of ever being able to reform.
They’re standing in the center of the room, voices weaving together as they sing about missed opportunities and being in love so much it hurts, the air between them virtually crackles and she can feel the connection between them from her hiding spot in the shadows of the hall.
Rachel’s hand is in Blaine’s, fingers curled together, they aren’t touching anywhere else, yet Santana gets the feeling she’s witnessing some deeply intimate moment between them, something too intimate for her liking.
The song ends, but they don’t pull apart, they just kind of stand there staring at each other and Rachel has a look she’s never seen before on her highly expressive face while Blaine looks back at her like she is his most cherished possession.
She can’t watch anymore, she’s sure if she doesn’t make herself known to them soon, she’ll witness something horrible and devastating like the two of them falling into each other’s arms with all the pent up passion of a truly great love story and she doesn’t want to see that, doesn’t want it ever to happen.
She steps into the room, clears her throat and watches as whatever trance the two of them were in is quickly broken. Rachel turns to her quickly, guilt flashing across her face before her features clear and her mouth twists into a small smile as she says, “hello.”
She watches Blaine with hawk like eyes as he squeezes Rachel’s hand before dropping it, gathering his things into his satchel bag before saying good bye, he barely acknowledges Santana at all, just throws a glance at her she finds hard to read before heading off.
The silence that falls over them once he leaves is painfully awkward, Rachel stands in the same spot she’s been in since Santana walked into the room, her hands clasped in front of her as her eyes dart around the room before falling onto Santana’s face. She looks so nervous and worried and if this was any other situation Santana wouldn’t even think twice before closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around her.
But she’s so tired, and she’s suspicious and she’s sick of feeling like her world is going to end at any given moment, she’s been on edge for months and whether Rachel knows it or not, it is at least partly her fault.
“If you’re falling in love with him Rach, at least have the decency to tell it to me straight.”
“Falling in love with him?” her girlfriend questions, her voice timid and unsure, a slight twinge of guilt lacing her voice, “San I don’t…I’m not.”
“Every time he opens his dreamboat a capella singing mouth you look like you’re about five seconds away from ripping your clothes off and jumping him.” It comes out sounding just as harsh and accusing as she feels and Rachel’s eyes widen a little.
“I wasn’t aware.” Her girlfriend tries to explain, but she’s stumbling over words and starting to sound less innocent with every word she speaks “Santana I would never… I could never cheat on you.”
She doesn’t want to hear anymore, doesn’t want to be lied to, she wants the truth, she wants Rachel to admit that there’s something going on, and that she’s not crazy and imagining everything. “Look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t thought about him.” Her voice is high, verging on breaking she imagines, her eyes unrelenting and beginning to harden as she stares across at the girl she thought was her forever despite how wanky the idea of forever was, “tell me that when the two of you sing together you don’t imagine what it would be like to feel his lips brush against your own again, like they did at the party.”
“I love you.”
“That wasn’t a denial!”
Rachel’s eyes glance down quickly, her lashes lowering almost like she’s too scared to have Santana look too closely at her, like she’s trying to hide the truth. Santana can’t stay in the room, she can’t handle anymore, can’t be around Rachel right now. She needs to get as far away as possible.
She leaves her girlfriend standing in the middle of their choir room, she knows that she’s confused her, hurt her even, she can picture the tears welling up in those big crystal clear brown eyes she adores so much, but she’s so incredibly angry and hurt herself that part of her just doesn’t care anymore.
She’s not sure how long she walks around the campus for, her feet pounding against the pavements as she tries to clear her head, tries to shake the image of Blaine and Rachel in that choir room, looking so comfortable with each other, so intimate and in love but no matter how fast she walks or how much she wants the memory gone it just stays there, taunting her.
Her cell phone gets pulled out of her pocket and she’s scrolling down her contact list to the ‘S’ section before she really has a minute to think about what she’s doing and as she types out a quick text she fails to see that what she’s about to do might just be the biggest mistake she’s ever made.
She’s too blinded by what she perceives as Rachel’s ultimate betrayal.
---
Sebastian Smythe, it seems, is an excellent tool for distraction. For all his flirting and overtly sexual remarks, Santana had still figured it’d be a little harder to talk him into actually having sex with her than it actually was.
In fact, he hadn’t really needed much convincing at all, from the moment he’d climbed into the window of her dorm room, it was like he knew exactly what she wanted, what she needed really, a release, something she could use to hurt her girlfriend with as much as Rachel had hurt her.
She feels nothing during the actual act itself besides her body’s natural responses to the rhythmic ritual of love making. There’s no connection with Sebastian, no love, not even friendship really and the whole thing ends up making her feel empty and a little filthy.
Her only consolation after it’s over-beside the fact that Sebastian at least is one of those lovers who cares if their partner physically gets off-is the fact that he’s also not one of those lovers that likes to cuddle after, because she thinks somehow if he was, she may just feel dirtier than she already does when she makes her way out of bed to scrounge around her floor for the clothes she had been wearing.
There’s a soft gasp from the general direction of the door and Santana doesn’t even need to look up from the other side of the room where she’s slowly doing up her shirt to know who the gasp belongs to.
“San?” Rachel’s voice falters and Santana finds her eyes sharply connecting with those of her girlfriends as she hears the heartbreak in that one questioning word. “Santana what is this?” and those eyes, those beautiful chocolate colored eyes, the same eyes she’s used to seeing sparkling and full of life, they look almost dead.
“Come on Rach,” Sebastian’s voice cuts through her inner turmoil, she glances over in his direction to see him throwing on his t-shirt as he gets off the bed “I know you’re naïve but even you can look at the scene and put two and two together.”
“You can leave now Smythe.” Santana snarls, dismissing him from the room as she desperately tries to avoid her girlfriend’s dejected stare.
“Like I really want to stick around for this,” the boy snorted making his way over to her window, “It was fun Lopez, but let’s not do this again.”
He climbs out the same way he entered, leaving Santana and Rachel alone in a space that suddenly feels much too small.
“Why?” Rachel is looking at her like her whole world has just come crashing down around her feet, and it fills Santana with such an unspeakable feeling of anger. Because this is Rachel’s fault as much as it is hers, she never would have slept with Sebastian if Rachel hadn’t have been making love heart doe eyes at that stupid shit Anderson.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Santana is actually a little surprised at how snarly her voice sounds. “Anyways, now we’re even.”
‘How does this make us even?” She can tell by the way that Rachel’s voice is starting to rise in volume that her girl is very close to one of her famous meltdowns, but Santana can’t stop herself now, even if the voice inside her head is screaming at her, telling her to ‘Calm the fuck down and just take everything back.’
“You cheated on me first; I was just returning the favor.”
“Returning the?” she braces herself for the inevitable blow up and she is sadly not disappointed “I have never cheated!”
Santana knows she should put a stop to this now, she knows she should be grabbing Rachel’s hand and begging for her forgiveness, but scenes from earlier in the evening, her girlfriends hand in Blaine’s, the sound of their blended voices in her ear, they urge her on, makes her dig her metaphoric grave a little deeper.
“Maybe not physically, but in your head you did, and in your heart.”
“It’s not the same and the fact that you’re comparing the few confusing feelings I have for Blaine-” It’s the closest Rachel’s come to admitting it, it should at least make Santana glad this attraction isn’t all in her head, but it doesn’t, just fills her stomach with bile, “to sleeping with someone who you can barely tolerate spending more than an hour with disgusts me.”
It took Santana a second to realize Rachel was on her way to storming out and another to get her wits about her and realize what a mistake letting her go would be.
“Where are you going?”
Rachel turned, unshed tears threatening to spill from her eyes, a hint of desperation in her voice which sliced right through Santana’s anger and her guilt and pierced her heart. “I can’t be near you right now; I have to go.”
Her hand shoots out and wraps around her girlfriends, not tight but enough to slow her movements. “Rachel wait…” she wants to say more, wants to say anything really to make the other girl stay there, but nothing will come out.
“Let me go.”
“Rach…” she tries, she really tries but as much as she wants to say them the words I’m sorry won’t push themselves past her lips.
Rachel seems to have had enough of her inability to really do much of anything as she rips her wrist from Santana’s grip and forces herself backwards until her back hits the solid wood door.
“You know what Santana?” her voice is soft but filled with fury, heartbreak and several other depressing emotions and Santana knows, she just feels like something very bad is about to happen “Maybe I do sometimes feel something other than friendship for Blaine, maybe I sometimes do wonder what it would be like to be with him,” and every single word being uttered from her girlfriend’s mouth is like a punch in the eye, “But I would never have acted on it. I would never have cheated on you, Santana.” There’s truth in those words, shining out of her girlfriends eyes along with all the pain and it feels like Rachel is literally tearing her apart. “I loved you too much.”
“Loved, as in you don’t anymore.” Santana’s own voice sounds foreign to her ears, choked up and suppressed. There’s nothing she can do to stop this, she knows exactly where this conversation is going to lead.
“No, I still love you.” She almost breathes a sigh of relief but then Rachel’s next words stop her, making her want to hurl things across the room and cry and rage instead. “But I’ll never be able to trust you again.”
“Please Rach, we can work this out, I know we can!” But Rachel is already shaking her head and backing out the door.
“I don’t think we can, San,” she mutters and Santana actually does feel her heart shatter, a sob bubbling up in her throat as Rachel delivers the blow she’s been waiting for, for what seems like forever, at least since she’d started noticing Anderson and her girls connection. “I think…I think we’re over.”
-------
The first time she sees Rachel after their break up is three days later, at choir practice. The other girl is surprisingly the last to arrive, ten minutes after Santana herself had arrived only to be stuck sitting awkwardly across the room from Sebastian who was throwing smirks in her direction, and Blaine who looked like he was stuck between wanting to apologize or hit her, so clearly he’d at least spoken to her wayward ex-girlfriend in the three days she’d been absent from Santana’s radar.
Rachel looks nothing like her vivacious self as she makes her way into the choir room, eyes red rimmed and lacking their usual shine, hair pulled back into a ponytail instead of flowing free, her uniform is wrinkled and creased and Santana can tell she doesn’t really want to be in the room.
Her eyes scan the seats, first over at Sebastian and Blaine, slowly making their way to the other side of the room and falling onto Santana and she looks like she’s about to turn around and run back out the door before Hummel seems to come out of nowhere, grabbing his best friends hand and ushering her into a seat beside him, all the while his judgey eyes pinning Santana with a look of loathing.
She’d be up in arms about it if she doesn’t notice the same look being thrown in the direction of his fellow Warbler’s a second later.
Her ex- girlfriend, and boy does it just really fucking kill to be calling her that, looks at Kurt like he’s the Christ’s second coming, resting her head on his shoulder as he wraps his arm around her and pulls her into his chest, as one of the Hummingbirds stands up to sing some cheesy old pop song about her boy making her heart go giddy up.
Rachel doesn’t sing, just stays glued to her best gays side. Not only does Blaine not sing, but he spends the entire time staring at Rachel and Kurt like he’d give his entire collection of dapper bow ties to swap places with the other boy and Santana well she doesn’t feel like doing much of anything unless it’s beating Anderson to a bloody pulp or begging Rachel on her hands and knees for another chance.
Sebastian is the one out of the four team leads that takes to the floor next. But it’s not to inspire the rest of the team with an iconic 80’s anthem or to be helpful in any way.
His stares alternate between Rachel and Santana as he starts singing the lyrics to Carrie Underwood’s ‘Before He Cheats’ with a cocky little grin on his face. He doesn’t make it to the second verse before she’s out of her chair and racing at him, her pent up frustration finding the perfect outlet as she tackles him to the ground.
“¿Cómo te atreves? Hijo de puta!” she lands blow after blow, slapping him across the face, pulling at his hair, but it seems to shock him more than anything.
It’s Blaine that pulls her off Sebastian and drags her back a little, and not even a second passes before her ire turns on him “And you!” she pushes out of his arms and spins, jabbing her finger into his chest, “if you had of just fucking kept away from her to begin with!”
“You’re the one who fucked around on her, not me.” He retaliated grabbing her wrist lightly and pushing it away, “I had nothing to do with it!”
“We were fine before you came along, we were happy and in love and you had to ruin everything by being so fucking obvious about your feelings for her.”
“San, stop.” It’s Rachel’s voice that brings her back down to herself and makes her realize where she is again. Their teammates have gathered around all wearing varying degrees of confused looks but it’s Rachel, smack bang in the middle of all of them, tears making tracks down her face that causes her to lose the ability to breathe for a second.
She takes one last look at Blaine standing in front of her with his arms crossed, her eyes jump to Sebastian perched on the floor watching everything through hooded eyes with a pensive look on his face and then over to Rachel standing so close to Kurt one would think they were conjoined before she races out of the room, not once looking back.
---
After her blow up in the choir room, both teams try to put it behind them and concentrate on preparing for Regionals. It’s difficult for her to pretend not to notice when Blaine and Rachel once again start to gravitate toward each other.
It isn’t long before they’re sitting together during choir practices, Kurt usually taking a seat on the other side of Rachel, she sees as the male diva slowly warms up toward the other boy and soon it’s like Kurt’s not just tolerating him, but has given him his diva blessing and Blaine has taken over her spot with not just Rachel, but with Kurt as well.
She watches the way Rachel will shyly look over at him while they’re working in different groups and the way his eyes will always peer at her back, like he can feel when she’s watching. She watches how their hands will brush against each other’s as they sit together and how over the course of a few weeks it morphs from brushing to actual clasping.
The first time Rachel sings in glee club it’s to sing a duet with the Warbler and Santana thinks that may be more significant than anything else she’s witnessed.
Funnily enough Sebastian and herself manage to actually form a friendship, he comes up to her one day after they’ve finished practicing for the evening and tells her since they’ve now slept together and been in a physical fight, it kind of obligates them to give their friendship a real go.
She thinks he’s lonely, she’s noticed that he and Blaine barely speak anymore, they’d had some kind of falling out and Sebastian doesn’t like to talk about it but she can tell he misses the companionship. Really, when she thinks about it, she’d been the one to use him, no matter how willing he had been, so spending a few hours with him a week commiserating together of their wrecks of lives wasn’t really any big deal.
It’s on one of their regular outings to The Lima Bean she finally see’s what she’s been dreading to see since the night Rachel and her broke up.
Sebastian is grabbing their coffee and she’s scanning the seating area for somewhere they can sit comfortably and bitch for an hour or so when she spies two brunette haired heads pressed close together on a couch in the far corner.
Their faces a mere inches apart and Blaine is whispering something that makes Rachel smile so sweetly she feels her eyes start to well up. The minute Rachel closes the small distance between them she wants to turn her head away because part of her feels like she’s intruding onto something she no longer has any right to intrude on.
But she can’t, so instead her eyes stay glued. It’s different from the kiss that had happened at Puckermans party, which had seemed fiery and passionate, this was just a light brushing of lips really, but when Blaine pulls back and settles back down into his seat, with the same awe struck look on his face he seems to wear around the girl, Santana gets a pretty good view of Rachel’s blushing face and the happy little smile that appears on her lips.
She’s not sure if it’s their first official kiss or not, somehow with how comfortable they are with each other she doubts it, but the fact remains she’s just bore witness to the last shred of hope she had slowly ebbing away.
Because she knows what the look on Rachel’s’ face means, she knows that Rachel Berry is head over heels in love.
Sebastian comes up behind her and he has the decency to not make a smart ass remark, and for that she is grateful. He just grips her elbow lightly and steers her away from the none the wiser couple and out the doors of the coffee house before she can be spotted.
He also has class enough not to comment on how the sobs overtake her body once she’s safely in the passenger seat of his car and away from the prying eyes of everybody else.
---
By some divine miracle they end up winning Regionals, although it’s not the sweeping victory Santana thought it would be. They manage to keep their shit together long enough to run through their three songs flawlessly and as Rachel’s voice joins hers to harmonize during the group number she thinks the smile the other girl bestows upon her is actually real, so she’ll count it as progress.
Their names are called as the winners and suddenly the whole group is mushed together in one big winner’s circle of jumping and embraces. Kurt even manages to forget he still hates her for a second to give her a quick congratulatory hug as he makes the rounds and Sebastian throws an arm around her shoulder and musses up her hair before going back over to admire the trophy.
She’s super surprised when Rachel disentangles herself from her new boyfriend and makes her way over to her cautiously. They stand there for a second, neither knowing what to say before they both break into awkward giggles, hugging each other, the first bit of contact between them in so long that Santana feels like she’s suddenly floating on air.
“I miss you.” She whispers as they pull away, her hand clasps Rachel’s as she wills the other girl to not leave just yet.
“Me too.” Rachel admits, her face scrunching up adorably as she continues to speak “You were a pretty great girlfriend Santana Lopez, but besides Kurt, you were my best friend as well”
And that is possibly the one thing Santana regrets more than anything, the thing she misses more than sweet lady kisses and the late night dorm room sneak ins. “I’ll always be your friend Rach, that’s if you want me to be?” she suddenly feels anxious and awaits the girls answer with something resembling bated anticipation.
Rachel grins nodding her head enthusiastically “I’d love that.”