Fic: Where the Music Matters (part 4)
Title: Where the Music Matters (part 4)
Words: 3.6k
Pairing: Santana/Brittany
Summary: Santana's a DJ, remixer and aspiring record producer who's never made an album of her own. With a new locale, new job, and a certain club owner that won't leave her alone; she's never been so inspired.
A/N: Much love and infinite thanks to abnab and lemasquerade for their beta ninja skills. Any remaining faults are mine. Cross posted to AO3. Sorry it's shorter, but that's just the way the chapters break. *shrug*
previous chapter
"Yo, Snix, I've got nothin' against you gettin' your lady grind on, but I'mma hafta draw the line at returnin' clothes to you." Artie threw something in Santana's direction. She was too confused by his sentence to react in time and had to pick the black cloth off her laptop. The cloth formed black capri's with a thick red ragged stitched line down the side of one of the legs.
Her brows furrowed and her hands moved to find the tag. There wasn't one. She flipped the capris over, looking for some sort of identifier, and found one. There was a single back pocket on the left side, and on the upper right side of that pocket was a red-stitched TK. Her eyes widened and her mind flashed back to the other night, to Brittany removing something from underneath the bench of the gondola. Santana had completely forgotten why they were at the wheel in the first place. She had just assumed that it was some elaborate-and somewhat adorable-plan of Brittany's to spend some more time together. Especially since, by the time they had gotten off of the wheel, they realized how late in the day it was and needed to get ready for their respective jobs. They were too focused on finding a cab to take Brittany back to her car and Santana back home to even think about why they'd been there. Even on her long ride back home, Santana was too distracted to think about anything but Brittany's shy smile and blushing cheeks after having placed a kiss upon Santana's cheekbone in goodbye. Santana felt warmth in her cheeks again at recalling the moment. She tried to fight the smile from forming on her face before Artie could comment on it.
"These aren't mine." Santana held the pants up and raised an eyebrow at Artie.
"You sure?" Artie shrugged, "They certainly look like they'd fit you."
Santana looked back at the pants and held them up in front of her. She couldn't deny that they did look like they'd fit, but that would be too weird. Brittany had pulled them from a hiding place. Who knew how long they'd been there, there's no way they'd actually fit her.
"I'm telling you, I've never seen these before in my life." Santana looked at Artie again in confusion. He gave a rueful smile and shook his head.
"Why don't you go try them on?"
Santana eyed the capris she'd placed flat on the table. She squinted her eyes and pursed her lips, then looked up and over at Artie, who was sitting in his wheelchair behind his row of monitors, watching her. She smirked and pulled down the slightly baggy jeans she'd been wearing.
"Whoa, hol' up, what are you doing?" Artie held up a hand in front of his eyes.
"Whatever, Wheels." Santana rolled her eyes and stepped out of her jeans. She picked up the capris to put on. "First off, those monitors would block any goodies you could possibly hope to see. Secondly, please."
"Good point." Artie brought down his hand and Santana noticed that he apparently couldn't help himself from glancing in her direction. "Didn't know you were a gamer."
"It's something to do." Santana shrugged as she pulled up the waist of the black capris over her blue and gold Alliance boxer briefs. "Kinda goes with the territory of the music we create, you know?"
"I would've figured you for a Horde."
"Why, because I'm a bitch?" Santana laughed out and buttoned up the fly of the capris. They felt great. They fit perfectly, as if they had been made specifically for her. The legs came down to just above her knees and the seat molded to her ass like a glove. Santana was in awe. It usually took her hours of searching for bottoms that weren't too snug nor too loose, but these capris, taken from beneath the seat of a gondola, fit her like they were custom tailored for her.
"Damn, break me off a piece of that Snix-Kat bar!" Artie called out. Santana shot him a look, to which he coughed into his fist and said, "Yeah, let's forget I said that, shall we? Wasn't my finest of phrases."
"Ya think?" Santana laughed at him. "Where'd you get these?"
"I was at Holly's and Britt gave them to me." Artie shrugged. He looked at his watch. "It's about that time."
"I guess I'll leave these on then." Santana moved back to her laptop and started making sure that her programs were running properly, "How you and boss lady getting on?"
"I do not know how I got to be so lucky, let's just keep it real." Artie grinned and put his headphones on. He then pushed a button that played their show's introduction.
"You definitely got swagger, Wheels." Santana winked and held up her fingers, starting the countdown to their being live.
"Don't act like you don't, future Mrs. Pierce." Artie slipped in just as Santana's finger hit one. Her eyes bulged and then squinted at his obnoxious grin. She'd get him back for that.
"Hey there you beautiful and not-so-beautiful listeners." Santana purred in her radio voice. It wasn't too different from her normal speaking voice, but for some reason it always dipped slightly lower when she was on the air. "First person to tweet in chooses tonight's theme."
"Actually, Snixxy, I think I've got the perfect theme for us." Artie cut in with a smirk.
"Oh, really, Fiddy? And what would that be, your secret love of Barry Manilow decided to come out?" Santana raised her eyebrow. This was going away from script, but it's not like they really had much of a script to begin with. She wasn't worried, in the brief bit of time that she'd known him, Artie had quickly become like a brother to her.
"Oh hell no, that shit's whack." Artie laughed out and scrunched his nose like he'd smelled something horrible. "Get outta here with that stank."
"I'll find your musical kryptonite one of these days." Santana joked.
"Hey, perfect segue into what I think our theme should be."
"I'm not spending our entire show playing the numerous Superman theme songs."
"Not Superman, specifically." Artie grinned, "A geek theme. Not only has geek chic been hijacked by the mainstream masses to feed corporate pockets and is therefore quite trendy right now, but I've recently learned that a certain someone has been hiding their inner gamer."
"Please, I haven't been hiding shit." Santana rolled her eyes, but immediately started searching for music she could use for their battle. She loved the station's catalogue, millions of songs stored on a server for them to take and play with how they wanted. Santana and Artie brought in their own wireless hard-drives as well. Those were full with music more aimed towards their signature styles, but they had willingly shared access to those drives with each other in the spirit of better competition. Santana basically had Artie's drive memorized and was pretty sure that he had done the same with hers. It was easy to do so; they really did have a lot in common musically, so all it took was memorizing what audios were different. "I gave you a gift, Wheels, and this is how you repay me?"
"And what a beautiful gift it was." Artie grinned, his eyes twinkled with mirth. "Don't front, you know you want to do this."
"Oh, you know I do. Almost as much as I want to whoop your ass." Santana grinned and nodded, having chosen the songs she wanted to play.
"Now let me break this down for you, just in case we've got anyone new to this party. When DJ FiddyFiddy and I do our live battles like this-"
"As we tend to do to start off every show." Artie cuts in.
"Keeps it fresh," Santana nods, "we usually get a theme provided by our sexy bitches."
"Twitter followers, she means to say." Artie's hands are quickly typing through his computer for songs.
"I said what they are, Pookie." Santana rolled her eyes, "Then we each pick out a group of songs."
"Five."
"I got five on it." Santana sings out.
"I totally set you up for that." Artie shoots a wry look in her direction.
"And I spiked it down like Misty May in a bikini, baby." Santana grinned. "Anyway, we each pick out five songs with the theme in mind and put song up against song for five rounds." Santana sees Artie nod and she hits submit on her computer, posting the tracks she'd picked for the battle next to the ones Artie had chosen. She leaves it up to Artie to look for any duplicate choices between their two lists as she continues explaining, "Now, as with any battle, we need to let the man I co-host with pretend like he even has a chance."
"Whatever, I totally have more twitter followers than you."
"And you still lose." Santana winked, "Your job, with that obviously quality auditory taste you have for even tuning into this show-"
"Preach!" Artie grinned and Santana chuckled.
"Is to tweet with the hashtag of the DJ you think won the round and who is winning the battle." Santana looked up at Artie for confirmation. He nodded and gave her a thumb up, he liked her choices. She grinned. While getting the approval of their listeners was nice, Santana was quite impressed by Artie's musical taste and it always felt nice to impress him with her choices.
"Y'all, this is going to be a fierce battle." Artie took over while Santana took a moment to look over the songs he chose. "Honestly though, I don't think this first round is going to be close at all. Snixxy is going hard from the start."
"Hashtag DJ Snixx." Santana supplied.
"I'm jealous of your geek, Snixx. I didn't even think of this record."
"Yeah, this round is dedicated to a special someone." Santana ducked her head. Artie had to mute his microphone to keep his laugh off the air. She flipped him off. Then she remembered that this was also a video-podcast and her head shot over to the camera that was recording everything and gave it her best innocent looking smile.
"No one's going to believe you're innocent for a second, woman."
"Let's just start this smackdown, shall we?" Santana placed her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows.
"I think we should switch up the hashtags for this battle." Artie spoke up suddenly, looking apologetically at Santana. They really needed to get with playing the music soon. "You know, in honor of the theme?"
"Do I want to know?"
"Snixxy's hashtag will be ‘For the Alliance’ and mine will be ‘For the Horde.’" Artie grinned.
"Dude, yours is shorter and easier to spell!" Santana argued.
"Are you saying our listeners are stupid, Snixxy?"
"Hell no, clearly our listeners are brilliant 'cause they listen to us." Santana sent a wink to the camera.
"Then let's do this. FOR THE HORDE!" Artie shouted out and pumped his fist in the air.
"This is so lame." Santana laughed and shook her head.
"You love it." Artie grinned, "Now come on, deal the death blow for the first round."
"Only because you asked so nicely, Fiddy." Santana looked over things on her computer, making sure they were set to go. "I'm bringing out the Orbital, babies. This is a deliciously old track, but always quality. Fill those feeds with hashtag ‘For the Alliance’, this is "Doctor ?" so sit back and enjoy your trip through time, space and relative dimensions." Santana hit the mute on her mic and started the track, then looked over to Artie with an arched eyebrow and a smirk, "You're such a fucker."
"I know, isn't it fabulous?" Artie wiggled his eyebrows and grinned. Santana let out a loud laugh and shook her head.
"You're ruining my cred." Santana crossed her arms over her chest.
"Please, I'm helping you." Artie scoffed and, at Santana's non-believing look, he continued, "Once word spreads of tonight's theme, we're gonna get hella downloads."
"Good point."
"Also, it gave you the perfect opportunity to woo a certain someone." Artie sent her a knowing grin.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Santana looked down at her computer and started pretending to play with things on her screen.
"What I'm really interested in is how you know she's into the show."
"I don't think it was something she planned on." Santana grinned coyly.
"Oh no!" Artie laughed, then sobered his expression. "Listen, I like that you're still trying to impress her, even when you know you don't need to."
"Artie-" Santana sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
"No, I know, we're bros and I don't want it getting awkward, but I'm not going to ignore shit either." He sent a brief look over to the clock, making sure he had enough time before the track ended. "I've seen the both of you doing this dance of yours for some time now. Hell, I was there when y'all first met." Artie smiled softly, and made sure that Santana looked him in the eye before he continued, "You earned so much respect that day, you know? So many people would've-and have-taken advantage of Brittany's honesty. But you didn't, and haven't, and it's obvious that it's not because you’re not into her, you know? Like, girl, you obvious." Santana rolled her eyes, pushed some hair behind her ear and looked down. "You've more than proved that you're trying to do things right, so woman up and go getcho girl."
"You make it sound like it's easy."
"I'm not saying to be lying in her bed wearing T.A.R.D.I.S. underwear when she gets home," Artie rolled his eyes, "though, do remember that for some time down the line...and don't tell me about it." He shook his head. "But your gig at Nemo's is coming up, right?"
"Yeah." Santana nodded and checked their time, she was suddenly thankful that she had chosen such a long track to start with.
"So, like, dedicate it to her or something." Artie shrugged, "I don't know, woman." He looked at the time and held up a closed fist, indicating to Santana that they'd have to stop their conversation and get back to work. He hit the button and came in perfectly after the song's end, "That record just makes me feel like I'm flying through air, I can't compete with that. I can't."
"Yeah, you should give up now, you've got no chance." Santana winked.
Santana looked down at the message that had just popped up on her laptop, "No chance at all, seeing as how ‘For the Alliance’ is apparently a worldwide trend right now."
"Say what?" Artie asked in shock. Santana couldn't wipe the gob smacked expression from her face and forwarded the message she'd received from Quinn on to Artie for him to see.
"I didn't realize we had such an international audience?" Santana turned to the camera, as if it could answer their perplexed situation.
"The gamers must be more confused than we are right now." Artie supplied as he went to search the hashtag. "Shit, Snixx, I knew you were known in the community, but I didn't..."
"Wait, what?" Santana went to the hashtag herself and couldn't believe the things she saw there. She didn't realize that she had that large of a base-one that apparently had exponentially expanded with the revelation that she had an inner love for science fiction and gaming.
--+--
The sky was grey, overcast, but it wasn't misting or anything. It was a relatively nice day, nice enough for Santana and Quinn to sit out on the patio of the cafe they were at and leisurely enjoy their coffees. The cafe was just down the street from the main entrance to the campus. So, it made it easy for Quinn to meet Santana in between their weirdly busy schedules.
"You're an idiot." Quinn rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Shut up." Santana groaned and sank down into her chair.
"You're overthinking things." Quinn took a sip of her coffee, and lowered the cup just enough for her to stare at her friend over the rim of the porcelain cup.
"Am I?" Santana raised an eyebrow, she didn't believe that Quinn was right, just making light of the situation. She took a drink from her own cup and broke eye contact. She decided that looking at the red bicycle across the street felt better than Quinn's knowing gaze.
"You are, and you're scared to accept it." Quinn nodded, continuing to stare at Santana, who remained quiet, "Listen, you're just not used to this. You've been fighting for so long that you've grown accustomed to that restless feeling, but Santana, that's not..." Quinn sighed.
She followed Santana's line of sight to find a red beach cruiser bicycle. There was nothing overly fascinating about it, but if Santana would rather stare at that, Quinn wouldn't push it. They'd long ago learned each other's limits in regards to certain things. Quinn wasn't going to stop talking because she knew that Santana needed her help in sorting things out, but she wasn't going to force Santana to look at her either. It would be too much for Santana's sometimes skittish and confrontational nature to handle.
"You're on the precipice of something completely amazing, Santana. Everything you've been working so hard for all of these years is finally paying off. On top of all of these amazing things happening in your professional life, you've found this amazing woman who is perfectly crazy enough to want you so unabashedly." Santana briefly flicked her eyes over to Quinn at that.
"Santana, I've never seen you so happy and inspired, ever." Quinn reached over and placed her hand on Santana's, "I get that you're scared, suddenly having things go right after fighting for so long would freak anyone out. Especially since it’s all happened in the timespan of weeks and not months. But you need to grab onto these things with both hands and not let them go."
"What if I mess them up, Q?" Santana whispered, she had returned her gaze to the bicycle.
"The only way you could fuck this up is if you didn't try, S."
The bicycle had been joined by a man and a young boy. They shared similar traits; Santana figured them to be father and son. The man handed his cloth bag of groceries to the young boy, who grabbed onto the bottom of the bag with both arms. He looked like he might topple over, but stood his ground. The man unlocked the bicycle from the post and took the bag of groceries from the boy, putting them in the basket on the front of the bike. The boy, impatient from waiting so long to get onto the bike, used the man's somewhat baggy pant leg to crawl up to his special seat's height. He stuck his foot on the cargo pocket of the pants to gain just the right amount of leverage to launch him onto the seat. The man had been watching, making sure that nothing bad could happen to the boy, and simply shook his head and laughed at the boy's victorious summit.
"Life is this frustratingly beautiful experience. You can plan and fret and try to control it all you want, but it's going to do what it wants. You just need to learn when to let go and enjoy the opportunities it offers you."
"Okay Yoda, you've been reading too much philosophy again." Santana returned her gaze to Quinn and smirked.
"Yeah, well, someone has to keep your ass on the right side of the force."
"Light side, Q. Light side." Santana snorted.
"Whatever." Quinn winked.
Their conversation paused for a moment, both of them taking in their coffees and their surroundings. Quinn was just trying to give Santana some time to center before she brought up another topic. "I think you should use your newly realized popularity." Quinn said it softly, not sure how Santana would react, even after having time to calm her thoughts.
"How so?" Santana leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
"Change your upcoming gig at Nemo's into an album release party." Quinn stroked a finger around the rim of her cup; she knew the idea was a huge suggestion. She wasn't about to attempt eye contact.
"You've got to be shitting me."
"I shit you not." Quinn looked up wryly.
"Q, I don't need that pressure."
"What pressure? Your album has been perfect since those first tracks you let me listen to."
"That was the roughest of roughs, Q." Santana ran a hand through her hair and let out a frustrated huff, "And only a couple of tracks, not an entire album."
"True, but I know you've been working practically non-stop up in your little studio. So, I'm fairly confident that you're at the point where you're needlessly tweaking things that don't need to be tweaked, because you're over thinking instead of actually listening." Quinn raised an eyebrow and dared Santana to prove her wrong.
"Whoa, Q, I'll know for next time that 'want to get a coffee' is actually code for 'lecture Santana on her life choices' time." Santana scowled and looked back across the street; the bicycle was no longer there.
"Oh, whatever, Ms. Huffsalot." Quinn rolled her eyes, "Just think about it."
"Only to keep you from nagging me incessantly about it."
Words: 3.6k
Pairing: Santana/Brittany
Summary: Santana's a DJ, remixer and aspiring record producer who's never made an album of her own. With a new locale, new job, and a certain club owner that won't leave her alone; she's never been so inspired.
A/N: Much love and infinite thanks to abnab and lemasquerade for their beta ninja skills. Any remaining faults are mine. Cross posted to AO3. Sorry it's shorter, but that's just the way the chapters break. *shrug*
previous chapter
"Yo, Snix, I've got nothin' against you gettin' your lady grind on, but I'mma hafta draw the line at returnin' clothes to you." Artie threw something in Santana's direction. She was too confused by his sentence to react in time and had to pick the black cloth off her laptop. The cloth formed black capri's with a thick red ragged stitched line down the side of one of the legs.
Her brows furrowed and her hands moved to find the tag. There wasn't one. She flipped the capris over, looking for some sort of identifier, and found one. There was a single back pocket on the left side, and on the upper right side of that pocket was a red-stitched TK. Her eyes widened and her mind flashed back to the other night, to Brittany removing something from underneath the bench of the gondola. Santana had completely forgotten why they were at the wheel in the first place. She had just assumed that it was some elaborate-and somewhat adorable-plan of Brittany's to spend some more time together. Especially since, by the time they had gotten off of the wheel, they realized how late in the day it was and needed to get ready for their respective jobs. They were too focused on finding a cab to take Brittany back to her car and Santana back home to even think about why they'd been there. Even on her long ride back home, Santana was too distracted to think about anything but Brittany's shy smile and blushing cheeks after having placed a kiss upon Santana's cheekbone in goodbye. Santana felt warmth in her cheeks again at recalling the moment. She tried to fight the smile from forming on her face before Artie could comment on it.
"These aren't mine." Santana held the pants up and raised an eyebrow at Artie.
"You sure?" Artie shrugged, "They certainly look like they'd fit you."
Santana looked back at the pants and held them up in front of her. She couldn't deny that they did look like they'd fit, but that would be too weird. Brittany had pulled them from a hiding place. Who knew how long they'd been there, there's no way they'd actually fit her.
"I'm telling you, I've never seen these before in my life." Santana looked at Artie again in confusion. He gave a rueful smile and shook his head.
"Why don't you go try them on?"
Santana eyed the capris she'd placed flat on the table. She squinted her eyes and pursed her lips, then looked up and over at Artie, who was sitting in his wheelchair behind his row of monitors, watching her. She smirked and pulled down the slightly baggy jeans she'd been wearing.
"Whoa, hol' up, what are you doing?" Artie held up a hand in front of his eyes.
"Whatever, Wheels." Santana rolled her eyes and stepped out of her jeans. She picked up the capris to put on. "First off, those monitors would block any goodies you could possibly hope to see. Secondly, please."
"Good point." Artie brought down his hand and Santana noticed that he apparently couldn't help himself from glancing in her direction. "Didn't know you were a gamer."
"It's something to do." Santana shrugged as she pulled up the waist of the black capris over her blue and gold Alliance boxer briefs. "Kinda goes with the territory of the music we create, you know?"
"I would've figured you for a Horde."
"Why, because I'm a bitch?" Santana laughed out and buttoned up the fly of the capris. They felt great. They fit perfectly, as if they had been made specifically for her. The legs came down to just above her knees and the seat molded to her ass like a glove. Santana was in awe. It usually took her hours of searching for bottoms that weren't too snug nor too loose, but these capris, taken from beneath the seat of a gondola, fit her like they were custom tailored for her.
"Damn, break me off a piece of that Snix-Kat bar!" Artie called out. Santana shot him a look, to which he coughed into his fist and said, "Yeah, let's forget I said that, shall we? Wasn't my finest of phrases."
"Ya think?" Santana laughed at him. "Where'd you get these?"
"I was at Holly's and Britt gave them to me." Artie shrugged. He looked at his watch. "It's about that time."
"I guess I'll leave these on then." Santana moved back to her laptop and started making sure that her programs were running properly, "How you and boss lady getting on?"
"I do not know how I got to be so lucky, let's just keep it real." Artie grinned and put his headphones on. He then pushed a button that played their show's introduction.
"You definitely got swagger, Wheels." Santana winked and held up her fingers, starting the countdown to their being live.
"Don't act like you don't, future Mrs. Pierce." Artie slipped in just as Santana's finger hit one. Her eyes bulged and then squinted at his obnoxious grin. She'd get him back for that.
"Hey there you beautiful and not-so-beautiful listeners." Santana purred in her radio voice. It wasn't too different from her normal speaking voice, but for some reason it always dipped slightly lower when she was on the air. "First person to tweet in chooses tonight's theme."
"Actually, Snixxy, I think I've got the perfect theme for us." Artie cut in with a smirk.
"Oh, really, Fiddy? And what would that be, your secret love of Barry Manilow decided to come out?" Santana raised her eyebrow. This was going away from script, but it's not like they really had much of a script to begin with. She wasn't worried, in the brief bit of time that she'd known him, Artie had quickly become like a brother to her.
"Oh hell no, that shit's whack." Artie laughed out and scrunched his nose like he'd smelled something horrible. "Get outta here with that stank."
"I'll find your musical kryptonite one of these days." Santana joked.
"Hey, perfect segue into what I think our theme should be."
"I'm not spending our entire show playing the numerous Superman theme songs."
"Not Superman, specifically." Artie grinned, "A geek theme. Not only has geek chic been hijacked by the mainstream masses to feed corporate pockets and is therefore quite trendy right now, but I've recently learned that a certain someone has been hiding their inner gamer."
"Please, I haven't been hiding shit." Santana rolled her eyes, but immediately started searching for music she could use for their battle. She loved the station's catalogue, millions of songs stored on a server for them to take and play with how they wanted. Santana and Artie brought in their own wireless hard-drives as well. Those were full with music more aimed towards their signature styles, but they had willingly shared access to those drives with each other in the spirit of better competition. Santana basically had Artie's drive memorized and was pretty sure that he had done the same with hers. It was easy to do so; they really did have a lot in common musically, so all it took was memorizing what audios were different. "I gave you a gift, Wheels, and this is how you repay me?"
"And what a beautiful gift it was." Artie grinned, his eyes twinkled with mirth. "Don't front, you know you want to do this."
"Oh, you know I do. Almost as much as I want to whoop your ass." Santana grinned and nodded, having chosen the songs she wanted to play.
"Now let me break this down for you, just in case we've got anyone new to this party. When DJ FiddyFiddy and I do our live battles like this-"
"As we tend to do to start off every show." Artie cuts in.
"Keeps it fresh," Santana nods, "we usually get a theme provided by our sexy bitches."
"Twitter followers, she means to say." Artie's hands are quickly typing through his computer for songs.
"I said what they are, Pookie." Santana rolled her eyes, "Then we each pick out a group of songs."
"Five."
"I got five on it." Santana sings out.
"I totally set you up for that." Artie shoots a wry look in her direction.
"And I spiked it down like Misty May in a bikini, baby." Santana grinned. "Anyway, we each pick out five songs with the theme in mind and put song up against song for five rounds." Santana sees Artie nod and she hits submit on her computer, posting the tracks she'd picked for the battle next to the ones Artie had chosen. She leaves it up to Artie to look for any duplicate choices between their two lists as she continues explaining, "Now, as with any battle, we need to let the man I co-host with pretend like he even has a chance."
"Whatever, I totally have more twitter followers than you."
"And you still lose." Santana winked, "Your job, with that obviously quality auditory taste you have for even tuning into this show-"
"Preach!" Artie grinned and Santana chuckled.
"Is to tweet with the hashtag of the DJ you think won the round and who is winning the battle." Santana looked up at Artie for confirmation. He nodded and gave her a thumb up, he liked her choices. She grinned. While getting the approval of their listeners was nice, Santana was quite impressed by Artie's musical taste and it always felt nice to impress him with her choices.
"Y'all, this is going to be a fierce battle." Artie took over while Santana took a moment to look over the songs he chose. "Honestly though, I don't think this first round is going to be close at all. Snixxy is going hard from the start."
"Hashtag DJ Snixx." Santana supplied.
"I'm jealous of your geek, Snixx. I didn't even think of this record."
"Yeah, this round is dedicated to a special someone." Santana ducked her head. Artie had to mute his microphone to keep his laugh off the air. She flipped him off. Then she remembered that this was also a video-podcast and her head shot over to the camera that was recording everything and gave it her best innocent looking smile.
"No one's going to believe you're innocent for a second, woman."
"Let's just start this smackdown, shall we?" Santana placed her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows.
"I think we should switch up the hashtags for this battle." Artie spoke up suddenly, looking apologetically at Santana. They really needed to get with playing the music soon. "You know, in honor of the theme?"
"Do I want to know?"
"Snixxy's hashtag will be ‘For the Alliance’ and mine will be ‘For the Horde.’" Artie grinned.
"Dude, yours is shorter and easier to spell!" Santana argued.
"Are you saying our listeners are stupid, Snixxy?"
"Hell no, clearly our listeners are brilliant 'cause they listen to us." Santana sent a wink to the camera.
"Then let's do this. FOR THE HORDE!" Artie shouted out and pumped his fist in the air.
"This is so lame." Santana laughed and shook her head.
"You love it." Artie grinned, "Now come on, deal the death blow for the first round."
"Only because you asked so nicely, Fiddy." Santana looked over things on her computer, making sure they were set to go. "I'm bringing out the Orbital, babies. This is a deliciously old track, but always quality. Fill those feeds with hashtag ‘For the Alliance’, this is "Doctor ?" so sit back and enjoy your trip through time, space and relative dimensions." Santana hit the mute on her mic and started the track, then looked over to Artie with an arched eyebrow and a smirk, "You're such a fucker."
"I know, isn't it fabulous?" Artie wiggled his eyebrows and grinned. Santana let out a loud laugh and shook her head.
"You're ruining my cred." Santana crossed her arms over her chest.
"Please, I'm helping you." Artie scoffed and, at Santana's non-believing look, he continued, "Once word spreads of tonight's theme, we're gonna get hella downloads."
"Good point."
"Also, it gave you the perfect opportunity to woo a certain someone." Artie sent her a knowing grin.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Santana looked down at her computer and started pretending to play with things on her screen.
"What I'm really interested in is how you know she's into the show."
"I don't think it was something she planned on." Santana grinned coyly.
"Oh no!" Artie laughed, then sobered his expression. "Listen, I like that you're still trying to impress her, even when you know you don't need to."
"Artie-" Santana sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
"No, I know, we're bros and I don't want it getting awkward, but I'm not going to ignore shit either." He sent a brief look over to the clock, making sure he had enough time before the track ended. "I've seen the both of you doing this dance of yours for some time now. Hell, I was there when y'all first met." Artie smiled softly, and made sure that Santana looked him in the eye before he continued, "You earned so much respect that day, you know? So many people would've-and have-taken advantage of Brittany's honesty. But you didn't, and haven't, and it's obvious that it's not because you’re not into her, you know? Like, girl, you obvious." Santana rolled her eyes, pushed some hair behind her ear and looked down. "You've more than proved that you're trying to do things right, so woman up and go getcho girl."
"You make it sound like it's easy."
"I'm not saying to be lying in her bed wearing T.A.R.D.I.S. underwear when she gets home," Artie rolled his eyes, "though, do remember that for some time down the line...and don't tell me about it." He shook his head. "But your gig at Nemo's is coming up, right?"
"Yeah." Santana nodded and checked their time, she was suddenly thankful that she had chosen such a long track to start with.
"So, like, dedicate it to her or something." Artie shrugged, "I don't know, woman." He looked at the time and held up a closed fist, indicating to Santana that they'd have to stop their conversation and get back to work. He hit the button and came in perfectly after the song's end, "That record just makes me feel like I'm flying through air, I can't compete with that. I can't."
"Yeah, you should give up now, you've got no chance." Santana winked.
Santana looked down at the message that had just popped up on her laptop, "No chance at all, seeing as how ‘For the Alliance’ is apparently a worldwide trend right now."
"Say what?" Artie asked in shock. Santana couldn't wipe the gob smacked expression from her face and forwarded the message she'd received from Quinn on to Artie for him to see.
"I didn't realize we had such an international audience?" Santana turned to the camera, as if it could answer their perplexed situation.
"The gamers must be more confused than we are right now." Artie supplied as he went to search the hashtag. "Shit, Snixx, I knew you were known in the community, but I didn't..."
"Wait, what?" Santana went to the hashtag herself and couldn't believe the things she saw there. She didn't realize that she had that large of a base-one that apparently had exponentially expanded with the revelation that she had an inner love for science fiction and gaming.
--+--
The sky was grey, overcast, but it wasn't misting or anything. It was a relatively nice day, nice enough for Santana and Quinn to sit out on the patio of the cafe they were at and leisurely enjoy their coffees. The cafe was just down the street from the main entrance to the campus. So, it made it easy for Quinn to meet Santana in between their weirdly busy schedules.
"You're an idiot." Quinn rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Shut up." Santana groaned and sank down into her chair.
"You're overthinking things." Quinn took a sip of her coffee, and lowered the cup just enough for her to stare at her friend over the rim of the porcelain cup.
"Am I?" Santana raised an eyebrow, she didn't believe that Quinn was right, just making light of the situation. She took a drink from her own cup and broke eye contact. She decided that looking at the red bicycle across the street felt better than Quinn's knowing gaze.
"You are, and you're scared to accept it." Quinn nodded, continuing to stare at Santana, who remained quiet, "Listen, you're just not used to this. You've been fighting for so long that you've grown accustomed to that restless feeling, but Santana, that's not..." Quinn sighed.
She followed Santana's line of sight to find a red beach cruiser bicycle. There was nothing overly fascinating about it, but if Santana would rather stare at that, Quinn wouldn't push it. They'd long ago learned each other's limits in regards to certain things. Quinn wasn't going to stop talking because she knew that Santana needed her help in sorting things out, but she wasn't going to force Santana to look at her either. It would be too much for Santana's sometimes skittish and confrontational nature to handle.
"You're on the precipice of something completely amazing, Santana. Everything you've been working so hard for all of these years is finally paying off. On top of all of these amazing things happening in your professional life, you've found this amazing woman who is perfectly crazy enough to want you so unabashedly." Santana briefly flicked her eyes over to Quinn at that.
"Santana, I've never seen you so happy and inspired, ever." Quinn reached over and placed her hand on Santana's, "I get that you're scared, suddenly having things go right after fighting for so long would freak anyone out. Especially since it’s all happened in the timespan of weeks and not months. But you need to grab onto these things with both hands and not let them go."
"What if I mess them up, Q?" Santana whispered, she had returned her gaze to the bicycle.
"The only way you could fuck this up is if you didn't try, S."
The bicycle had been joined by a man and a young boy. They shared similar traits; Santana figured them to be father and son. The man handed his cloth bag of groceries to the young boy, who grabbed onto the bottom of the bag with both arms. He looked like he might topple over, but stood his ground. The man unlocked the bicycle from the post and took the bag of groceries from the boy, putting them in the basket on the front of the bike. The boy, impatient from waiting so long to get onto the bike, used the man's somewhat baggy pant leg to crawl up to his special seat's height. He stuck his foot on the cargo pocket of the pants to gain just the right amount of leverage to launch him onto the seat. The man had been watching, making sure that nothing bad could happen to the boy, and simply shook his head and laughed at the boy's victorious summit.
"Life is this frustratingly beautiful experience. You can plan and fret and try to control it all you want, but it's going to do what it wants. You just need to learn when to let go and enjoy the opportunities it offers you."
"Okay Yoda, you've been reading too much philosophy again." Santana returned her gaze to Quinn and smirked.
"Yeah, well, someone has to keep your ass on the right side of the force."
"Light side, Q. Light side." Santana snorted.
"Whatever." Quinn winked.
Their conversation paused for a moment, both of them taking in their coffees and their surroundings. Quinn was just trying to give Santana some time to center before she brought up another topic. "I think you should use your newly realized popularity." Quinn said it softly, not sure how Santana would react, even after having time to calm her thoughts.
"How so?" Santana leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
"Change your upcoming gig at Nemo's into an album release party." Quinn stroked a finger around the rim of her cup; she knew the idea was a huge suggestion. She wasn't about to attempt eye contact.
"You've got to be shitting me."
"I shit you not." Quinn looked up wryly.
"Q, I don't need that pressure."
"What pressure? Your album has been perfect since those first tracks you let me listen to."
"That was the roughest of roughs, Q." Santana ran a hand through her hair and let out a frustrated huff, "And only a couple of tracks, not an entire album."
"True, but I know you've been working practically non-stop up in your little studio. So, I'm fairly confident that you're at the point where you're needlessly tweaking things that don't need to be tweaked, because you're over thinking instead of actually listening." Quinn raised an eyebrow and dared Santana to prove her wrong.
"Whoa, Q, I'll know for next time that 'want to get a coffee' is actually code for 'lecture Santana on her life choices' time." Santana scowled and looked back across the street; the bicycle was no longer there.
"Oh, whatever, Ms. Huffsalot." Quinn rolled her eyes, "Just think about it."
"Only to keep you from nagging me incessantly about it."