FIC: I Don't Want to Jump In (Unless This Music's Thumping) (2a/3) Rachel/Santana, Glee
Title: I Don't Want to Jump In (Unless This Music's Thumping)
Author: Misty Flores
Pairing: Rachel/Santana, implied Quinn/Santana
Teaser: Years after they were roommates in a cold loft in New York, Broadway Rachel Berry and Superstar DJ Santana Lopez reconnect on the other end of the success spectrum.
Spoilers: Through S4 of Glee
Rating: M
Note: For the Santana Anthology. Sorry I missed the deadline! Title is taken from Cake's 'Love You Madly'. Also, a Glee Girls Smut Meme fill for this gif.
Also I really REALLY didn’t want to post this as a WIP, but honestly it’s a three chapter story and it’s been my primary focus to get it done, so I figured I’d at least post the start of it so it wouldn’t any later (sorry, Kay. I had to go with instinct instead of logic). I apologize for the lateness of the other stories, honestly, there just hasn’t been time, but they’re by no means forgotten and I’ll update them all when this story is done posting.
Chapter 1a | Chapter 1B
Chapter 2
PART 02.
I can taste the fake, the shame
I've heard this story before
And while you dig yourself a hole
It's the same shit, different girl
Repeat - David Guetta, featuring Jessie J.
--
Paralyzed with anxiety, Rachel has to take several deep breaths, filling her lungs to capacity with desperately needed oxygen and pushing them back out again, before she regains the mental and physical serenity to be able to drive.
That meditated calm lasts for about five minutes, enough for Rachel to back out of Santana’s driveway and make it past the traffic at Wilshire and Westwood, before her tongue glides against her swollen, tingling chapped lips in distraction and she’s suddenly overtaken by the acute physical memory of Santana sucking sweetly on her lower lip.
Rachel doesn't see a light change from yellow to red until the very last minute. Scrambling, she slams down hard on the brake, something that the Lexus behind her does not appreciate, and makes it known with a loud, angry honk. Rachel can only offer a weak wave in the mirror as apology.
She’s acutely aware of her right nipple. It feels so achingly SENSITIVE. She’s shifting in her seat because the little make out session she has just engaged in has turned her on a distracting amount, and now she’s going to die in a horrible car accident or the victim of road rage in West Los Angeles because she can’t keep her mind from going Santana-sexual.
“Okay,” she breathes, more to her heated body and her furiously beating heart than to anything else. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s just… call reinforcements.” The light goes green, and Rachel steps gingerly on the gas, and instructs the blue tooth to dial the last number that called her.
Her eyes fixate on the road, but her teeth chew hard on her raw lower lip as the phone takes it’s time to connect the number.
She taps nervously at the steering wheel until the line connects and she hears a groggy and grumpy, “Rachel, it is 10AM in the morning!”
Kurt sounds furious, tired, hung over, and very displeased.
Rachel doesn't care.“That is a perfectly reasonable time to call someone!”
“Not when you went to bed at 8AM!” Kurt snaps, and Rachel rolls her eyes.
“Well that’s not my fault!” she exclaims. “You’re the one that embraced the gay club twink stereotype!”
“I’m hanging up now,” he grumbles, apparently too hung over to be patient.
“No, Kurt please!” she pleads, because the panic is really starting to set in now and it’s making her a little color blind; not the best thing when one is dealing with traffic lights. “I really need to talk to you. I’m kinda freaking out right now.”
She reminds herself to breathe, huffing in and out and keeping a wild eye out for the freeway entrance as she waits for Kurt to decide to hear her out. And he better. Distance shouldn't matter with one's best Gay.
He sighs in defeat.
“Is this a freak out like ‘I don’t know which song to audition with’ or a freak out like ‘I have another premiere and no one will style me’?”
Rachel swallows painfully against the lump that’s lodged itself in her throat and forces herself to speak. “It’s a ‘I Made Out With Santana’ freak out.”
The loud thud, flop and squeal that amplifies over the speaker makes her jump in her seat. Rachel’s hands stay carefully in the ten and two position on the wheel, but she notes with wild eyes that her knuckles look a little white.
“… Go on.”
Rachel sighs raggedly, and finds herself brushing her hands rapidly through her bangs in a nervous tick. “I went to her place tonight to work on our song,” she begins, because it seems the easiest place to start. “And … I don’t know it just… somehow we ended up kissing in her hallway before I was supposed to leave.” The other line remains quiet, but Rachel finds she’s lost her ability to care, because now she’s just thinking about Santana’s tongue swiping against her tingly mouth and that hand against her breast. “Like… heavy kissing,” she admits. “With tongue.” Again, there’s no response. "And she felt up my breast." Rachel presses her lips together. "Kurt?”
“…How does that even happen?” he sputters so loudly into the speaker she actively winces.
“I don’t know!” Rachel snaps, frantic. She’s thoroughly flabbergasted and bewildered. Her heart is hammering like she’s about to have a heart attack and she’s legitimately weak-kneed, and… there’s this crippling panic that won’t go away and insists she go back and reanalyze every bit of interaction that’s occurred between her and Santana since Drew’s party. “It’s just… ever since we met up again we’ve been texting back and forth…” Rachel trails off as she recalls the late night text sessions, the smiles that everyone would comment on and the way her stomach twisted in delicious pleasure with each increasingly playful reply. She also distinctly remembers referring to this evening as a date. Her stomach twists now in very different fashion. “And I now realize in retrospect that it may have come off like flirting.”
“Oh My God, I’m too hung over for this.”
“And then we wrote this song,” she confesses, and once again the echo of that refrain washes over. Her voice breaks with the emotion, and Rachel sighs, head falling back against her head rest as she considers the music. “- and… Kurt it’s just… somehow the music is like a drug and she has this tiny intimate little studio where it was just us and this song and I swear to God, Kurt, it's like she leaks pheromones because she’s so beautiful and then we sang together and-“
“Okay stop!” Kurt snaps, ripping into her subconscious just enough to bring her back to her reality and make her realize that somehow she has managed to get herself back to her condo and is now sitting in her assigned parking space with the car running. “You’re going screechy and it’s rupturing my eardrums.”
Rachel’s head flops back again. She moans in tortured agony.
“Calm down,” Kurt instructs her, and she nods blindly, waiting for her best friend to get his bearings on this and react accordingly. “Just… Okay, you and Santana made out,” he says finally, and God, it sounds even more ridiculous when HE says it. “Did you like it?”
Rachel’s eyes open. She considers the question, and feels her heart beat erratically in response. “… No?” she says, sounding out the word awkwardly, like she has marbles in her mouth.
“Rachel.”
She groans, feeling the lie sink back inside of her with her along with her scruples. “Of course I liked it, Kurt!” she snaps miserably. “She’s a fantastic kisser, we all knew that. Brittany wouldn’t shut up about it in high school,” she adds with more annoyance than what should be appropriate, considering she used to think Brittany and Santana were actually kind of romantic, in a gorgeous slutty lesbian kind of way.
“True,” Kurt muses, and Rachel rolls her eyes. “But are you attracted to her?”
Rachel sighs, thumbing against the leather of her steering wheel as she considers the question. “I don’t know,” she mumbles, and then shakes her head because she knows herself better than that. “Maybe?” she concedes instead. “I mean it’s been years, but…” The image of Santana is conjured up easily. She’s gorgeous, confident, a little tragic and ridiculously talented. “I’ve never quite seen her like this and…she’s a woman, Kurt! And she’s not just any woman she’s… she’s Santana!”
“… You of all people are having a gay panic right now?” he drawls flatly.
“This isn’t a gay panic,” she snaps because just the thought is ridiculous.
“Then why are you freaking out?” Kurt is so calm it’s infuriating.
“Because the tabloids are already all over us! Because we’re friends! Because I have a career to worry about and I don’t want to be Anne Heche!!” she adds. That’s an actual phobia now. Rachel distractedly wonders if it could be a classified condition - death by Anne Heche.
“…Allrighty.”
Rachel thinks about that tabloid; that ugly magazine that Santana shook so gleefully in her face. It creates a sour emotion that tastes like nausea on her tongue.“Look,” she breathes thickly. “Santana has this… reputation okay?” Rachel chapped lips actively hurt now, but she ignores them as she feels the emotion come close to gutting her a little. “She goes through girls the way you go through… belts. And I don’t want to be a notch on her belt!”
“Because of your career or because you actually like her?”Kurt asks, and it’s annoying, how he’s trying to position this.
“… my career, Kurt!” Her voice snaps like flint. “Santana and I are just friends. You know I’m with Troy!” Troy, her boyfriend.Troy, her boyfriend that she just accidentally cheated on. Rachel groans, slumping back in her seat. “Oh shit, Troy!”
“You just now remembered you have a boyfriend?”
“Shut up! I barely see him!” It’s not much of a justification, but it’s all Rachel has.
“Okay, look calm down. You’re freaking out over nothing.”
A dry, annoyed laugh blurts out of her. “I’m not-“
“Santana is a bitch but she isn’t a predator,” Kurt says firmly, and it shuts Rachel up completely. “Just nip it in the bud,” he advises. “Your friendship will be fine if this is as far as you take it.”
His tone is so even, the sentences so simple and logical, like that’s all there is to it. The part of Rachel that likes to be difficult about this sort of thing wants to fight it, but she finds she doesn’t have the strength. “… Right,” she whispers, and thinks about Santana and that gorgeous song that she wrote just for her.
God, it would be so much less confusing if just the very thought of it didn't leave her breathless.
“Tell her that you were caught up in your music moment and it was a mistake and move on.”
Rachel sits quietly in her car, fingers running idly over the knob that has placed the car into Park.
“That sounds… reasonable," she admits.
“I know. God, I’m so hungover," he adds, sounding so completely miserable, it’s affecting.
Rachel's suddenly overwhelmed. She misses him. She misses him a lot. She wishes he were here in the car with her, so she could whisper that she wants to be his boyfriend and hold him close.
He’s safe and sweet and she knows exactly where she stands with him.
“Thanks, Kurt," she whispers quietly, doing her best to mask the sudden tears that taint her voice.
Kurt takes a moment to respond, and Rachel wonders if he's heard it anyway. “You’re welcome, Rachel," he says, softer than before. "And for the record? I’m going to give you SO much crap later once I’ve actually woken up and processed this.”
Rachel laughs, chest rising and falling in weak giggles before she sighs, pressing her palm against her mouth and nodding.
“I guess that’s fair.”
--
At 7AM the next morning, Rachel, fresh out of the shower and scrubbed clean, sits with her hair wrapped in a towel and studies her phone.
Rachel's nearly religious moisturizing ritual has been all but forgotten as she considers exactly how she could even begin to bring up what needs to be said.
She has had a sleepless night, and it’s convenient to blame THAT for her current bout of anxious indecision, instead of the tight knot of nerves that burns in her stomach.
The little dash on her cellphone just blinks at her mockingly as her thumb hovers over the call button. She's been staring at Santana's name for the past five minutes.
Rachel thinks she knows Santana well. They were roommates for years, and possibly friends before that (though high school was notoriously inconsistent when it comes to their friendship), but Rachel understands that time has changed quite a few things for them both.
Particularly in how they view each other. Rachel can’t imagine that Santana would have considered pressing her against a wall and kissing her as seductively as she did, even in her drunkest moments, back in New York.
And now it had happened while they were both sober.
Rachel hadn’t known what to expect in the wake of it, especially considering the way she had fled so quickly afterwards. There had been nothing from Santana all night, and Rachel knows at least part of her inability to sleep came from the way she obsessively checked her for phone for confirmation of that.
She knows she needs to take the advice that Kurt gave her, but God, it would be so much easier if she had a cue from Santana on how to respond. She had no idea on what Santana is thinking, and if Rachel takes a gamble and sends her a text that comes off as condescending and stupid… well…
Despite the confusion maelstrom of emotion that is currently coursing through her, Rachel is aware of herself to understand that losing Santana’s friendship so quickly after she’s found it is something she does not want.
Still, she and Santana have never been anything but honest with each other, and Rachel knows Santana deserves that honesty now. She deserves the truth.
If only Rachel knew what the truth was.
She thought she did. She had an entire text scribbled out, ready to be sent out that was both formal and friendly and polite, making light of the situation and also making it quite clear it wasn’t going to happen again.
And then she got Santana’s text this morning.
There's a tiny welt on the back of her lower lip, a result of her chewing. It aches like a bruise, and Rachel’s tongue runs over it thoughtfully as she studies the message.
Santana's text is devastatingly simple: Had a great time last night.
That’s it. That’s all.
It’s very nearly driven Rachel mad, because she doesn’t know what it means. Did Santana have a good time because they wrote a song together, truly connected again as friends and is happy to have her back in her life? Or did Santana have a good time because minutes before Rachel fled her apartment they exchanged deep, hungry kisses and Rachel became intimately familiar with the slightly rough and tempting texture of Santana’s tongue?
God, Rachel wants to call her.
She wants to talk this out. She wants to express her fears and hope like hell Santana will listen to her and give her that tough love truth she’s so very used to.
But God, what would she even say? ‘Santana, this is catastrophic for my career, and I want to forget last night ever happened, but the thing is, I may have touched myself after I came home last night because thinking about you kissing me got me really wet, and now thinking about your hand on my boob keeps getting the nipple hard. It’s really annoying and this can’t go anywhere anyway because I can’t be Anne Heche or hole in a belt.’
She’s more than certain Santana would have no idea how to respond to that.
Rachel groans, flinging the towel off her now half-dried, messy hair and letting it drop to the floor, not caring at all about the wetspot it will leave on the floor. She knows she’s a coward, but she presses the text option instead.
Carefully, she types out her text: Me too. Listen, Santana. About the kiss... It was a mistake. I hope it doesn't change anything between us.
Rachel reads it out loud, and shakes her head miserably at the tone. It sounds… distant. Polite. Too formal, like Santana is some casual acquaintance and not the woman who held her during her pregnancy scare and promised her everything was going to be okay.
She intends to rewrite it, but suddenly her phone buzzes in her hand. The unexpected vibration causes an already skittish Rachel to jump. She loses her grip on her phone, and with a yelp she scrambles, fumbling for it.
In trying to steady it with her fingers, she accidentally presses the send button, and off the text goes.
“Fuck!” she rasps miserably, and has no time to do more than that, because her phone is actively ringing with another caller.
Rachel’s eyes shut tight and she palms her face in despair. “Hi JoAnn,” she sighs, holding her phone to her ear.
She regrets that immediately when there’s a high pitched squeal on the other end.
"Oh My GOD," JoAnn shouts, and Rachel winces, pulling the phone away from her ear to save her eardrums. “I LOVE it," she says, so oddly vibrant Rachel can actually picture her skipping around her office in those stiletto heels she’s so very fond of. "And more importantly, Columbia loves it. I have good news. Get in the office right now!"
“Wait-“
“Now means NOW, Rachel Berry!” JoAnn orders, and then disconnects the call.
Rachel inhales deeply, and though she knows she needs to get moving, she can’t help but glance back down on her phone.
A little note says the text has been read, but there’s no response.
--
Santana texts her two hours later, and though Rachel knows she should be focusing on her manager, she immediately swipes at her phone with her finger to open the message.
Of course it won't change anything. Come on, Rachel. You're not the first straight girl who got a little too hot and bothered over me doing my thing. We’re good, I promise.
It’s friendly and sweet and courteous, and cocky enough to be exactly what Santana would say.
Rachel isn’t sure why she isn’t more relieved that this is apparently a run of the mill experience for her friend. Maybe it’s the fact that despite her paranoia of being perceived as just another straight girl ready to go gay for one night with her lady killer friend, she’s become exactly that.
And Santana finds it amusing.
It makes Rachel wonder how far Santana would have allowed that kiss to have gone, had Rachel herself not stopped it.
"You, my dear, are having a VERY good day."
She would beg to disagree.
Still, Rachel shifts her tense body, finding a better fit on the awkward and expensive balance ball seat that fitness-obsessed JoAnn forces her guests to use whenever she comes into her UTA office, and manages to offer a weak smile.
"It's good, isn't it?" she asks, attempting to be enthusiastic about it, because listening to the song in JoAnn’s office proves the song is just as amazing even without Santana’s expensive sound system, and that’s very very reassuring.
"Granted, I’m not a music person,” JoAnn admits. “But for a demo, I think it’s nearly flawless. Columbia has a few notes,” she adds, and Rachel suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. Of course they do. “But they want to book a studio right away to record the master. This may be a real hit!” JoAnn claps her hands together like a seal, but her peppy smile fades slightly when Rachel simply purses her lips and recrosses her legs. "So why the hell do you look like someone forced you to eat a puppy? This is huge!"
It is. It’s really, really huge. In all the talk about her album and its direction that’s occurred in the last few months, there has never been talk about there being an actual genuine potential Billboard hit on it. Rachel’s voice is suited to ballads and powerful love songs, but somehow she and Santana have found this magical combination that elevates her strengths and makes it… danceable.
And true, maybe Santana has done this before, maybe Rachel isn’t the first woman who’s experienced an odd crisis of sexuality after a night of music bonding with her friend, but it shouldn’t diminish that the result of that is a reallyreally good thing for her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and straightens her shoulders, grinning as sincerely as she can for the benefit of her tireless manager. “Honestly, that's great. Santana and I worked really hard on this!"
There’s something in her tone that seems to catch JoAnn’s insanely accurate suspicions. The older woman pauses, peers at her from over her glasses and says quite snappily, "Just as long as you two didn't work TOO hard."
It’s an insinuation that would have sounded ten times more ridiculous had last night not happened the way it did. “I told you that we're just friends,” she snaps, because it’s true. Santana’s answering text had assured her of that.
“Just checking,” JoAnn says, and drops the matter with the happiness of an ADHD affected executive. “Oh!” She reaches across her desk for a magazine. “Did you see the Star?!"
And she actually shakes that god-damn magazine at her, in an almost perfect mimic of the way Santana did it the night before.
Rachel’s stomach turns with distaste, but she swallows down the bile and her angry remark. "I did, actually,” she says instead, determined to keep her voice steady and light.
JoAnn’s eyes practically gleam with pride. "Troy's manager is a little pissed,” she confesses, and shrugs it off. “But who cares! This is a gold mine for us."
Rachel shakes her head, suddenly disgusted. "Yeah, I mean when's the last time I was on the cover of Star?"
"Exactly!” JoAnn says, pointing happily at her, before swiveling in her chair and hollering at her assistant to buy her ten more copies of the tabloid.
Rachel opens her phone, and re-reads Santana’s text.
Great, she texts back.Glad to hear it.
She doesn’t know what else to say.
--
The studio that has been booked to record the song is not intimate and it’s not tiny. There are no post-its peppered everywhere, and all the equipment is spotless and shiny. There is a faint smell of weed that makes Rachel’s nose wrinkle, and instead of a crazy intimate session between two artists collaborating, there are no less than ten men in suits crowded into the booth behind a hapless engineer in a wrinkled t shirt and faded jeans watching her, along with JoAnn, her music agent, and another guy dressed in Designer Douche that introduces himself to Rachel as Santana’s producer.
“Let’s get started!” he says, and motions to the lonely stool in the wide, open recording space. Rachel feels suddenly like an exhibit at the zoo.
She swallows hard and stares wordlessly at the closed door. After a moment, she carefully leans forward to speakinto the mike. “Shouldn’t we wait for Santana?”
Behind the glass, the other suits confer. Muted in the studio, Rachel can only watch, until Santana’s producer pushes the button that will allow her to hear what they are saying and says, “Sorry hon, I thought someone told you. Santana’s already recorded the music. We’re going to get your vocals, and when she gets back into town we’ll lay her over you. We don’t need you two together for this. We’ll see her when we start working on the music video.”
Rachel feels silly, because of course that makes sense. It’show these things are done.
Still, she can’t shake the feeling of awkwardness when she takes what feels like an intensely intimate song, and sings it with the same emotional and vulnerability that she used to sing for Santana’s ears alone. There are no deep dark brown eyes to stare into, no quickening of her breath or flush in her cheeks that reminds her how SPECIAL this moment is, how CONNECTED she feels, not just to the music but to the woman who sits across from her.
She wonders if it affects the quality.
It doesn’t seem to, because the execs just drink their coffee and smile happily at her, acting like they don’t have a care in the world.
Rachel envies them.
--
She’s relieved, honestly, to have the condo to herself for the night. She never thought she’d be a beach girl, but Rachel finds she appreciates that patio more than she thought she would have when she moved into the Marina Del Rey high rise.
It’s evening, and the air is unseasonably crisp for this time of year, but it’s still perfect weather to sit on her patio chair and have an evening drink. She’s brought a patchwork blanket with her, a gift from Kurt, and wraps it around herself as she continues to sip at her red wine and stares at the horizon.
She’s quiet and still, but also very much aware of her furiously beating heart, the way it thumps so tellingly inside of her.
She’s thinking about Santana.
Despite their mutual promises that their night together wouldn’t affect their friendship, texts betweenshe and Santana have been sporadic. Rachel knows she could be feeling extra sensitive about it all, because Santana never actually ignores her, and she has had legitimate reasons for every single time she’s been unresponsive or hard to reach.
For years, Santana’s world has been dark clubs, loud music, tiny studios, and sleepless nights. Now that her star has been raised, Rachel knows she doesn’t necessarily have to constantly mix new music or DJ concerts or festivals, but it does seem that something Santana likes to do.
Still, things did seem … easier… before the unmentionable kiss, and Rachel wonders if she’s perhaps made Santana a little TOO sensitive. Kurt’s right: Santana isn’t a predator. Not once has the fact that her friend is a lesbian ever been an issue for either of them.
Aside from a few catcalls meant to embarrass her, Santana used to go out of her way to prove that the OPPOSITE was true; that she had NO attraction or designs on Rachel at all.
Maybe all Santana needed was that kiss to reaffirm that stance.
God, just the thought brings up so many old high school insecurities that Rachel has to push the idea out of her mind as quickly as it floats in.
Honestly; simply, Rachel misses Santana.
It’s almost cruel that Santana showed up when she did, how she did, at a moment when Rachel was lonely and aching for a taste of something real. Not only has she had a chance to reconnect with one of her best friends in the world, but she’s also gotten to know her in a way that is mind-blowingly intimate.
These last few weeks have been HAPPY, and it’s all be shot to hell because of a heat of the moment kiss.
Well… maybe not because of the kiss. Maybe it’s because of a stupid text. Because of Rachel herself and being so… Rachel about it.
She knows she has to fix this. Her text was the one that set the tone for what this relationship is in danger of becoming, and she knows that Santana is only following suit. She’s the one who freaked out at the idea of her ‘pussy getting Santana’d’, as her friend so indelicately put it.
Yes, her career is important. Rachel’s been working for this kind of success her entire life, and it hasn’t been easy. There’s been a lifetime of ‘no’s and very few ‘yes’s.
But Santana’s friendship has been her first taste of something REAL in this town, and she knows she’ll regret it if she doesn’t try to salvage it.
Rachel takes another long drink, letting the taste of the liquid linger on her tongue as she flips through her phone and pulls up Santana’s contact information.
Another long gulp, and she finally presses the necessary sequence on her phone to get the phone dialing.
“Hello!” It’s Santana, sounding both breathless and distracted, in the middle of a laugh.
“Santana?”
“Rachel!” To hear her friend through the noise surrounding her is a challenge. There’s activity that Rachel can make out - fuzzy music, a tremendous bass, the distinct crowded sound of laughter and talking.
Rachel bites her lip; oddly timid. "Is this a bad time!"
"No, God no! I'm just.. Hold on.” Santana’s voice muffles as she says something quite obviously not directed at Rachel. “Sorry,” she says after a moment, crisper and cleaner than before. The music and crowd noise has faded slightly. “I found a room. But fuck, I think it’s like… S&M themed or something…”
The excited whisper doesn’t sound like Santana at all, and it makes Rachel’s brown furrow. “Santana-“
She’s cut off by a huge gasp. “Holy shit, Rachel there’s like, manacles on the wall!”
Rachel hears distinct clanks, and Santana obnoxiously giggling, treating them like toys.
"Is S&M themed bedrooms a common occurrence in the life of a superstar DJ?” she asked, determinedly casual.
"God, I wish! Can you imagine?” Santana laughs, voice husky with use, signifying that it’s been a long day. There’s the clanking again, along with some garbled chatter and laughter that isn’t from Santana. She still isn’t alone. “It’ll be on the second floor next to the gym. Do you have one? Is it pink?”
“Why would it be pink?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” It’s insane how good it feels, to hear Santana’s dry and teasing tone, teasing with affection and intimacy.
It’s silly that she’s almost choked up and Rachel rubs her fingers together idly in an effort to ground herself, before she admits with a thick, vulnerable voice, “Santana, I miss you.”
“Aw, shorty! I miss you too!” is Santana’s chipper, immediate response.
Rachel blinks, thrown by the flippant, sweet remark. “Are you drunk?”
“Just a little bit.” Rachel’s mouth twitches, shoulders slouching in disappointment. “I’m sorry,” Santana laughs. “This girl kept making me do body shots off of her.”
It doesn’t sound like quite the torture ritual Santana’s making it out to be. “And this is a problem for you?”
“Saying no would be rude,” Santana answers matter-of-factly.
“Since when do you care about being rude?”
“Since I’ve come to discover that Curious Straight Girls are fucking INSANE!” Santana retorts, and maybe it isn’t an actual swipe at Rachel, but it makes her wince anyway. Santana seems to notice, because there’s a moment of stalled quiet before she blurts, “And how’s the Troy-midget?”
Oh. Rachel rubs at her chest, struggling to find a comfortable position as she breathes in unsteadily.
“He’s good. I think,” she adds, because aside from a text a day or so ago she realizes she doesn’t actually know and hasn’t actually cared to find out. “I mean I dunno, he’s been on a movie shoot in Montreal for the last few weeks-“ She actually expects Santana to question her a little about that, but instead she hears a loud shout and a large crash, before a peal of laughter invades the speaker.
“Santana…” Rachel feels frighteningly inconsequential.
“Hi Rachel,” she hears after a moment. Santana’s breathless, clearly covering up a laugh. “Sorry! It’s just-“
Rachel feels awkward and vulnerable; an outsider who can’t even look into the world that she hasn’t been invited to - just listen. “I actually called because I had news,” she begins, and hates that she sounds almost meek about it. “But if this is a bad time-”
“What?No! No, just gimme a minute.”
“Seriously, Santana-“
“Rachel,” Santana’s tone is firm. “Just give me a minute.”
Suppressing a sigh, Rachel does, listening for long minutes as she hears hushed mumbles, and another odd cackle, before the sound is muffled entirely and Santana comes back on the line. “Okay, now I’m really alone.” It’s a little adorable how breathlessly earnest a drunk Santana is. “What’s up?”
Rachel bites her lip, a sudden excitement knotting her stomach.“Remember that lead in ‘Into the Woods’ I was up for?”
“If you didn’t get it then I’m going to fucking murder someone,” Santana says, so seriously that Rachel can’t help but laugh.
The excitement that she’s been trying to tap down suddenly explodes, and the grin is impossible to quell as she laughs, “I got it!”
“That’s awesome!!!” Santana nearly shouts, and Rachel shakes her head in bemusement.
“You are so drunk.”
“Oh shut up, I’m just happy for you. Rachel, that’s like… a big big deal!”
“It is,” she admits, because she can’t be humble right now. “It’s a big deal!”
“Well then we need to celebrate when I’m back in town!” Santana sounds so genuinely HAPPY for her. Rachel’s emotions have been a roller coaster of highs and lows lately, but it’s still kinda silly how infectious that happiness feels.
“Sounds like a plan!” she agrees, and then finds herself lingering, gnawing lightly on her lower lips as she hesitates. “I was thinking though… how about instead of an LA party, we make it a New York one?” Santana doesn’t reply, and so Rachel hurries to continue her explanation. “I have to move there for a few months to start rehearsals and I was thinking…”
“You wanna stay in the loft, don’t you?” Santana’s voice is flat; resigned.
Rachel shrugs. “For old time’s sake.”
“Sure, Rachel. That’s no problem.” Rachel blinks at the easy agreement, and then understands why when Santana says suddenly, “Hey listen, I gotta go, but I’ll have my assistant call you and work it out, okay?”
She hears it now, how the noises seem louder now. Wherever Santana managed to hide, she’s been discovered. “Oh. Um... Okay.” But she hurries on. “Santana.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear about the song?”
“I heard that they liked it,” Santana answers, warm and smug.
“Yeah,” she repeats, shaking her head, because that’s an understatement. “They liked it a lot. They want to shoot a music video and with the buzz it’s getting…” Rachel licks her lips and stares at her glass of wine, watching the way the red liquid appears almost black as the sky darkens around her. “It may have been what got me this part so… I just…”
Once again, Rachel feels that awkwardness, because with that song comes memories of that night, and with that night comes those FEELINGS that remain lodged inside of her. They’re addictive, intense… and Rachel remembers so vividly.
“Santana,” she begins, because it’s driving her crazy. “About that night-“
“Shit, God, I’m coming!” Rachel jumps, nearly topping her chair over and spilling her wine. “Rachel, I’m so sorry,” Santana cuts in, soft and quick. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later, okay?”
It’s crazy how empty that promise seems. Rachel deflates, and finds her courage spilling away with her wine. “Right, okay. Bye, Santana.”
“Bye Rach- Hey mother fuckers, I was talking-“
The call disconnects in the middle of Santana’s protest.
--
Rachel receives a call the next day from a surprisingly eloquent young man who introduces himself as Santana’s personal assistant. It throws Rachel, who had no idea he even existed before this point. He waits approximately two seconds for her to process this before he’s suddenly rattling off a bunch of questions and orders regarding the loft in New York.
His name is Nathan. When he shows up at her condo to drop off the keys to the New York loft, she discovers that he’s actually a gorgeous young man of Indian descent, with an athletic build and eyebrows that would be bushy if not for the obvious fact that he keeps them trimmed. He’s gay, which means he’s infatuated with her and her career, which is never, ever gets old for Rachel Berry. She gladly spends most of her afternoon answering questions like what it’s like to work with Patti Lupone, and describing what Eden Espinosa’s warm up ritual is.
He finds one of Troy’s guitars, an impromptu purchase that Troy once bought on a whim and hardly ever touches, and launches through a complicated chord progression that makes Rachel’s eyes widen with surprise. Turns out, he’s not just Santana’s personal assistant, but an aspiring DJ and musician that Santana has been mentoring.
Their afternoon devolves into an impromptu jam session when he duets with her on an acoustic version of Justin Timberlake’s Mirrors.
He likes it so much he asks if he can film it, and the next thing she knows, their earnest little duet has been uploaded onto YouTube on his channel, after he delivers a squealing intro that makes her blush.
He's a sweetheart, and privately it makes her feel better that Santana has someone like him with her. Buzzed on the high of a good performance and a little wine, she tells him so.
“I honestly think the only reason she hired me was because I didn’t try and hit on her,” he confesses.
“While I’m sure that helped, you’re obviously very talented,” Rachel says, because that's probably exactly what it was. “I’m glad she sees it and appreciates it.”
“Oh she’s such a bitch and sometimes she treats me like a dick, which we both know she has no use for,” he says, strumming the guitar for emphasis. Rachel bursts out laughing, and decides against commenting. “But she’s legit. She gets the music, you know? She once told me people are like songs and that like… stuck with me.”
Rachel presses her lips together and nods quietly. “Yeah,” she whispers, raspier than she anticipated. “It stuck with me too.”
--
Good going, Berry. Santana texts her later that night. My assistant is in love with you. Now he won’t shut up about you and your so-called talent. Like I didn’t hear enough of that shit in high school and New York.
Rachel reads the text during drinks with some girlfriends, and finds herself laughing quietly to herself. Tell him I’m in love with him too.
Goddamn, Santana texts back a moment later, And you uploaded a cover to his youtube channel? What the fuck? Why are you encouraging his famewhoring?
Rachel’s lips press together. She listens for a moment, as her friend beside her chatters on about her date the night before, before she quietly lowers her head to respond. Because he’s talented and you know that. That's why you hired him, isn't it?
Actually, I hired him because he was basically you and Kurt’s love child. And the bitch does whatever I want.
It’s almost sweet, considering the source. Still, she can’t resist the urge to tease. And here I was thinking you were the submissive one.
It’s cheeky, almost too cheeky, considering the state of things. Rachel’s heart pounds a little unsteadily, until Santana’s text pops up.
What the hell? Where did that come from?
She flushes. Nevermind., she types back, losing her nerve completely. She straightens, and reaches for her glass of water, a smile on her face as her friend turns to her. She nods, and does her best to catch up to the conversation.
Her phone buzzes in her hand.
Miss Rachel Berry, are you insinuating that I liked to be dominated in bed?
The flush moves past her cheeks and down her throat. Rachel’s quiet smile widens, and once again, she begins to type. You were the ones eyeing those handcuffs, Santana.
She waits, watching those little dots appear before the text pops up. Maybe I was just picturing someone else in them.
Rachel’s body unexpectedly throbs. Breathless, she licks her lips. She’s not stupid. She knows what they did before they kissed, and she knows what they’re doing now.
This is flirting. This is exactly what led up to that kiss… this exchange of energy, innuendo and clever jibes.
But she can’t help herself. Buzzed on two glasses of wine and not enough appetizers, Rachel discovers she doesn’t want to stop. She wants…
Well, she wants to find out who Santana was picturing in those cuffs. Anyone in particular?
Well apparently I have a type…
Her cheeks flame. Rachel is well aware of her body and it’s reaction to Santana’s words. She chews lightly on her bottom lip, testing her own resolve. I’ve always been partial to brunettes, myself.
You know, I used to be into blondes, Santana texts, and Rachel’s body stiffens. But her friend is still typing, and so Rachel waits. But I’ve discovered lately that brunettes do have a certain appeal...
The grin that curves on her mouth is impossible to suppress.. Do they now? she asks.
“Rachel?” She lifts her head and notices three heads turned in her direction.
“What?”
“You do realize that we’ve asked you the same question like… three times now, right?” Jessica tells her, eyes shining with curiosity. Rachel flushes, well aware of her rudeness.
“Sorry!” She forces herself to put her phone back in her purse.
“Who are you texting?!”
“Troy,” she says flippantly,, and immediately feels her muscles clench at the lie. But it’s good enough for them. Jessica rolls her eyes, mutters something about ‘Young Love’ and continues her adventures with the investment banker.
Rachel’s phone burns in her purse, but she forces herself to wait until she’s excused herself to read what Santana has written.
They tend to be pretty amazing kissers.
Immediately, Rachel is transported to the memory - the texture of Santana’s lips, the feel of her breath skating against her skin, the swipe of her tongue against her own.
“Fuck,” she breathes, because she’s wet now, uncomfortably wet, and it’s all Santana’s fault.
Her heart pounds, but Rachel’s filled with this euphoria that feels so much like a high, because Santana is telling her that she liked her kissing her. That their kiss was amazing, and God, it was.
She hasn’t forgotten about her kiss. She’s touched herself, made herself come with Santana’s name on her lips, because of that kiss.
I definitely don’t disagree with that. Kisses like that tend to… linger.
It’s honest, at least. She and Santana have always been honest with each other, and Rachel decides she owes her that. But it’s terrifying. Rachel’s standing in a bathroom with an elevated heart beat and the weird feeling of standing on some sort of precipice, and it’s because of Santana.
Yeah, they definitely do.
The heat courses through her again, flooding her with that buzz of temptation. She wants to respond… she wants to take this further… she wants to call Santana and hear that voice and make some sense of this game they’re playing.
Someone knocks on the door.
Rachel loses her courage. The phone goes back in her purse, and after a moment to collect herself, Rachel unlocks the private bathroom and smiles at the women waiting, heading back to her friends.
Chapter 2b
Author: Misty Flores
Pairing: Rachel/Santana, implied Quinn/Santana
Teaser: Years after they were roommates in a cold loft in New York, Broadway Rachel Berry and Superstar DJ Santana Lopez reconnect on the other end of the success spectrum.
Spoilers: Through S4 of Glee
Rating: M
Note: For the Santana Anthology. Sorry I missed the deadline! Title is taken from Cake's 'Love You Madly'. Also, a Glee Girls Smut Meme fill for this gif.
Also I really REALLY didn’t want to post this as a WIP, but honestly it’s a three chapter story and it’s been my primary focus to get it done, so I figured I’d at least post the start of it so it wouldn’t any later (sorry, Kay. I had to go with instinct instead of logic). I apologize for the lateness of the other stories, honestly, there just hasn’t been time, but they’re by no means forgotten and I’ll update them all when this story is done posting.
Chapter 1a | Chapter 1B
Chapter 2
PART 02.
I can taste the fake, the shame
I've heard this story before
And while you dig yourself a hole
It's the same shit, different girl
Repeat - David Guetta, featuring Jessie J.
--
Paralyzed with anxiety, Rachel has to take several deep breaths, filling her lungs to capacity with desperately needed oxygen and pushing them back out again, before she regains the mental and physical serenity to be able to drive.
That meditated calm lasts for about five minutes, enough for Rachel to back out of Santana’s driveway and make it past the traffic at Wilshire and Westwood, before her tongue glides against her swollen, tingling chapped lips in distraction and she’s suddenly overtaken by the acute physical memory of Santana sucking sweetly on her lower lip.
Rachel doesn't see a light change from yellow to red until the very last minute. Scrambling, she slams down hard on the brake, something that the Lexus behind her does not appreciate, and makes it known with a loud, angry honk. Rachel can only offer a weak wave in the mirror as apology.
She’s acutely aware of her right nipple. It feels so achingly SENSITIVE. She’s shifting in her seat because the little make out session she has just engaged in has turned her on a distracting amount, and now she’s going to die in a horrible car accident or the victim of road rage in West Los Angeles because she can’t keep her mind from going Santana-sexual.
“Okay,” she breathes, more to her heated body and her furiously beating heart than to anything else. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s just… call reinforcements.” The light goes green, and Rachel steps gingerly on the gas, and instructs the blue tooth to dial the last number that called her.
Her eyes fixate on the road, but her teeth chew hard on her raw lower lip as the phone takes it’s time to connect the number.
She taps nervously at the steering wheel until the line connects and she hears a groggy and grumpy, “Rachel, it is 10AM in the morning!”
Kurt sounds furious, tired, hung over, and very displeased.
Rachel doesn't care.“That is a perfectly reasonable time to call someone!”
“Not when you went to bed at 8AM!” Kurt snaps, and Rachel rolls her eyes.
“Well that’s not my fault!” she exclaims. “You’re the one that embraced the gay club twink stereotype!”
“I’m hanging up now,” he grumbles, apparently too hung over to be patient.
“No, Kurt please!” she pleads, because the panic is really starting to set in now and it’s making her a little color blind; not the best thing when one is dealing with traffic lights. “I really need to talk to you. I’m kinda freaking out right now.”
She reminds herself to breathe, huffing in and out and keeping a wild eye out for the freeway entrance as she waits for Kurt to decide to hear her out. And he better. Distance shouldn't matter with one's best Gay.
He sighs in defeat.
“Is this a freak out like ‘I don’t know which song to audition with’ or a freak out like ‘I have another premiere and no one will style me’?”
Rachel swallows painfully against the lump that’s lodged itself in her throat and forces herself to speak. “It’s a ‘I Made Out With Santana’ freak out.”
The loud thud, flop and squeal that amplifies over the speaker makes her jump in her seat. Rachel’s hands stay carefully in the ten and two position on the wheel, but she notes with wild eyes that her knuckles look a little white.
“… Go on.”
Rachel sighs raggedly, and finds herself brushing her hands rapidly through her bangs in a nervous tick. “I went to her place tonight to work on our song,” she begins, because it seems the easiest place to start. “And … I don’t know it just… somehow we ended up kissing in her hallway before I was supposed to leave.” The other line remains quiet, but Rachel finds she’s lost her ability to care, because now she’s just thinking about Santana’s tongue swiping against her tingly mouth and that hand against her breast. “Like… heavy kissing,” she admits. “With tongue.” Again, there’s no response. "And she felt up my breast." Rachel presses her lips together. "Kurt?”
“…How does that even happen?” he sputters so loudly into the speaker she actively winces.
“I don’t know!” Rachel snaps, frantic. She’s thoroughly flabbergasted and bewildered. Her heart is hammering like she’s about to have a heart attack and she’s legitimately weak-kneed, and… there’s this crippling panic that won’t go away and insists she go back and reanalyze every bit of interaction that’s occurred between her and Santana since Drew’s party. “It’s just… ever since we met up again we’ve been texting back and forth…” Rachel trails off as she recalls the late night text sessions, the smiles that everyone would comment on and the way her stomach twisted in delicious pleasure with each increasingly playful reply. She also distinctly remembers referring to this evening as a date. Her stomach twists now in very different fashion. “And I now realize in retrospect that it may have come off like flirting.”
“Oh My God, I’m too hung over for this.”
“And then we wrote this song,” she confesses, and once again the echo of that refrain washes over. Her voice breaks with the emotion, and Rachel sighs, head falling back against her head rest as she considers the music. “- and… Kurt it’s just… somehow the music is like a drug and she has this tiny intimate little studio where it was just us and this song and I swear to God, Kurt, it's like she leaks pheromones because she’s so beautiful and then we sang together and-“
“Okay stop!” Kurt snaps, ripping into her subconscious just enough to bring her back to her reality and make her realize that somehow she has managed to get herself back to her condo and is now sitting in her assigned parking space with the car running. “You’re going screechy and it’s rupturing my eardrums.”
Rachel’s head flops back again. She moans in tortured agony.
“Calm down,” Kurt instructs her, and she nods blindly, waiting for her best friend to get his bearings on this and react accordingly. “Just… Okay, you and Santana made out,” he says finally, and God, it sounds even more ridiculous when HE says it. “Did you like it?”
Rachel’s eyes open. She considers the question, and feels her heart beat erratically in response. “… No?” she says, sounding out the word awkwardly, like she has marbles in her mouth.
“Rachel.”
She groans, feeling the lie sink back inside of her with her along with her scruples. “Of course I liked it, Kurt!” she snaps miserably. “She’s a fantastic kisser, we all knew that. Brittany wouldn’t shut up about it in high school,” she adds with more annoyance than what should be appropriate, considering she used to think Brittany and Santana were actually kind of romantic, in a gorgeous slutty lesbian kind of way.
“True,” Kurt muses, and Rachel rolls her eyes. “But are you attracted to her?”
Rachel sighs, thumbing against the leather of her steering wheel as she considers the question. “I don’t know,” she mumbles, and then shakes her head because she knows herself better than that. “Maybe?” she concedes instead. “I mean it’s been years, but…” The image of Santana is conjured up easily. She’s gorgeous, confident, a little tragic and ridiculously talented. “I’ve never quite seen her like this and…she’s a woman, Kurt! And she’s not just any woman she’s… she’s Santana!”
“… You of all people are having a gay panic right now?” he drawls flatly.
“This isn’t a gay panic,” she snaps because just the thought is ridiculous.
“Then why are you freaking out?” Kurt is so calm it’s infuriating.
“Because the tabloids are already all over us! Because we’re friends! Because I have a career to worry about and I don’t want to be Anne Heche!!” she adds. That’s an actual phobia now. Rachel distractedly wonders if it could be a classified condition - death by Anne Heche.
“…Allrighty.”
Rachel thinks about that tabloid; that ugly magazine that Santana shook so gleefully in her face. It creates a sour emotion that tastes like nausea on her tongue.“Look,” she breathes thickly. “Santana has this… reputation okay?” Rachel chapped lips actively hurt now, but she ignores them as she feels the emotion come close to gutting her a little. “She goes through girls the way you go through… belts. And I don’t want to be a notch on her belt!”
“Because of your career or because you actually like her?”Kurt asks, and it’s annoying, how he’s trying to position this.
“… my career, Kurt!” Her voice snaps like flint. “Santana and I are just friends. You know I’m with Troy!” Troy, her boyfriend.Troy, her boyfriend that she just accidentally cheated on. Rachel groans, slumping back in her seat. “Oh shit, Troy!”
“You just now remembered you have a boyfriend?”
“Shut up! I barely see him!” It’s not much of a justification, but it’s all Rachel has.
“Okay, look calm down. You’re freaking out over nothing.”
A dry, annoyed laugh blurts out of her. “I’m not-“
“Santana is a bitch but she isn’t a predator,” Kurt says firmly, and it shuts Rachel up completely. “Just nip it in the bud,” he advises. “Your friendship will be fine if this is as far as you take it.”
His tone is so even, the sentences so simple and logical, like that’s all there is to it. The part of Rachel that likes to be difficult about this sort of thing wants to fight it, but she finds she doesn’t have the strength. “… Right,” she whispers, and thinks about Santana and that gorgeous song that she wrote just for her.
God, it would be so much less confusing if just the very thought of it didn't leave her breathless.
“Tell her that you were caught up in your music moment and it was a mistake and move on.”
Rachel sits quietly in her car, fingers running idly over the knob that has placed the car into Park.
“That sounds… reasonable," she admits.
“I know. God, I’m so hungover," he adds, sounding so completely miserable, it’s affecting.
Rachel's suddenly overwhelmed. She misses him. She misses him a lot. She wishes he were here in the car with her, so she could whisper that she wants to be his boyfriend and hold him close.
He’s safe and sweet and she knows exactly where she stands with him.
“Thanks, Kurt," she whispers quietly, doing her best to mask the sudden tears that taint her voice.
Kurt takes a moment to respond, and Rachel wonders if he's heard it anyway. “You’re welcome, Rachel," he says, softer than before. "And for the record? I’m going to give you SO much crap later once I’ve actually woken up and processed this.”
Rachel laughs, chest rising and falling in weak giggles before she sighs, pressing her palm against her mouth and nodding.
“I guess that’s fair.”
--
At 7AM the next morning, Rachel, fresh out of the shower and scrubbed clean, sits with her hair wrapped in a towel and studies her phone.
Rachel's nearly religious moisturizing ritual has been all but forgotten as she considers exactly how she could even begin to bring up what needs to be said.
She has had a sleepless night, and it’s convenient to blame THAT for her current bout of anxious indecision, instead of the tight knot of nerves that burns in her stomach.
The little dash on her cellphone just blinks at her mockingly as her thumb hovers over the call button. She's been staring at Santana's name for the past five minutes.
Rachel thinks she knows Santana well. They were roommates for years, and possibly friends before that (though high school was notoriously inconsistent when it comes to their friendship), but Rachel understands that time has changed quite a few things for them both.
Particularly in how they view each other. Rachel can’t imagine that Santana would have considered pressing her against a wall and kissing her as seductively as she did, even in her drunkest moments, back in New York.
And now it had happened while they were both sober.
Rachel hadn’t known what to expect in the wake of it, especially considering the way she had fled so quickly afterwards. There had been nothing from Santana all night, and Rachel knows at least part of her inability to sleep came from the way she obsessively checked her for phone for confirmation of that.
She knows she needs to take the advice that Kurt gave her, but God, it would be so much easier if she had a cue from Santana on how to respond. She had no idea on what Santana is thinking, and if Rachel takes a gamble and sends her a text that comes off as condescending and stupid… well…
Despite the confusion maelstrom of emotion that is currently coursing through her, Rachel is aware of herself to understand that losing Santana’s friendship so quickly after she’s found it is something she does not want.
Still, she and Santana have never been anything but honest with each other, and Rachel knows Santana deserves that honesty now. She deserves the truth.
If only Rachel knew what the truth was.
She thought she did. She had an entire text scribbled out, ready to be sent out that was both formal and friendly and polite, making light of the situation and also making it quite clear it wasn’t going to happen again.
And then she got Santana’s text this morning.
There's a tiny welt on the back of her lower lip, a result of her chewing. It aches like a bruise, and Rachel’s tongue runs over it thoughtfully as she studies the message.
Santana's text is devastatingly simple: Had a great time last night.
That’s it. That’s all.
It’s very nearly driven Rachel mad, because she doesn’t know what it means. Did Santana have a good time because they wrote a song together, truly connected again as friends and is happy to have her back in her life? Or did Santana have a good time because minutes before Rachel fled her apartment they exchanged deep, hungry kisses and Rachel became intimately familiar with the slightly rough and tempting texture of Santana’s tongue?
God, Rachel wants to call her.
She wants to talk this out. She wants to express her fears and hope like hell Santana will listen to her and give her that tough love truth she’s so very used to.
But God, what would she even say? ‘Santana, this is catastrophic for my career, and I want to forget last night ever happened, but the thing is, I may have touched myself after I came home last night because thinking about you kissing me got me really wet, and now thinking about your hand on my boob keeps getting the nipple hard. It’s really annoying and this can’t go anywhere anyway because I can’t be Anne Heche or hole in a belt.’
She’s more than certain Santana would have no idea how to respond to that.
Rachel groans, flinging the towel off her now half-dried, messy hair and letting it drop to the floor, not caring at all about the wetspot it will leave on the floor. She knows she’s a coward, but she presses the text option instead.
Carefully, she types out her text: Me too. Listen, Santana. About the kiss... It was a mistake. I hope it doesn't change anything between us.
Rachel reads it out loud, and shakes her head miserably at the tone. It sounds… distant. Polite. Too formal, like Santana is some casual acquaintance and not the woman who held her during her pregnancy scare and promised her everything was going to be okay.
She intends to rewrite it, but suddenly her phone buzzes in her hand. The unexpected vibration causes an already skittish Rachel to jump. She loses her grip on her phone, and with a yelp she scrambles, fumbling for it.
In trying to steady it with her fingers, she accidentally presses the send button, and off the text goes.
“Fuck!” she rasps miserably, and has no time to do more than that, because her phone is actively ringing with another caller.
Rachel’s eyes shut tight and she palms her face in despair. “Hi JoAnn,” she sighs, holding her phone to her ear.
She regrets that immediately when there’s a high pitched squeal on the other end.
"Oh My GOD," JoAnn shouts, and Rachel winces, pulling the phone away from her ear to save her eardrums. “I LOVE it," she says, so oddly vibrant Rachel can actually picture her skipping around her office in those stiletto heels she’s so very fond of. "And more importantly, Columbia loves it. I have good news. Get in the office right now!"
“Wait-“
“Now means NOW, Rachel Berry!” JoAnn orders, and then disconnects the call.
Rachel inhales deeply, and though she knows she needs to get moving, she can’t help but glance back down on her phone.
A little note says the text has been read, but there’s no response.
--
Santana texts her two hours later, and though Rachel knows she should be focusing on her manager, she immediately swipes at her phone with her finger to open the message.
Of course it won't change anything. Come on, Rachel. You're not the first straight girl who got a little too hot and bothered over me doing my thing. We’re good, I promise.
It’s friendly and sweet and courteous, and cocky enough to be exactly what Santana would say.
Rachel isn’t sure why she isn’t more relieved that this is apparently a run of the mill experience for her friend. Maybe it’s the fact that despite her paranoia of being perceived as just another straight girl ready to go gay for one night with her lady killer friend, she’s become exactly that.
And Santana finds it amusing.
It makes Rachel wonder how far Santana would have allowed that kiss to have gone, had Rachel herself not stopped it.
"You, my dear, are having a VERY good day."
She would beg to disagree.
Still, Rachel shifts her tense body, finding a better fit on the awkward and expensive balance ball seat that fitness-obsessed JoAnn forces her guests to use whenever she comes into her UTA office, and manages to offer a weak smile.
"It's good, isn't it?" she asks, attempting to be enthusiastic about it, because listening to the song in JoAnn’s office proves the song is just as amazing even without Santana’s expensive sound system, and that’s very very reassuring.
"Granted, I’m not a music person,” JoAnn admits. “But for a demo, I think it’s nearly flawless. Columbia has a few notes,” she adds, and Rachel suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. Of course they do. “But they want to book a studio right away to record the master. This may be a real hit!” JoAnn claps her hands together like a seal, but her peppy smile fades slightly when Rachel simply purses her lips and recrosses her legs. "So why the hell do you look like someone forced you to eat a puppy? This is huge!"
It is. It’s really, really huge. In all the talk about her album and its direction that’s occurred in the last few months, there has never been talk about there being an actual genuine potential Billboard hit on it. Rachel’s voice is suited to ballads and powerful love songs, but somehow she and Santana have found this magical combination that elevates her strengths and makes it… danceable.
And true, maybe Santana has done this before, maybe Rachel isn’t the first woman who’s experienced an odd crisis of sexuality after a night of music bonding with her friend, but it shouldn’t diminish that the result of that is a reallyreally good thing for her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and straightens her shoulders, grinning as sincerely as she can for the benefit of her tireless manager. “Honestly, that's great. Santana and I worked really hard on this!"
There’s something in her tone that seems to catch JoAnn’s insanely accurate suspicions. The older woman pauses, peers at her from over her glasses and says quite snappily, "Just as long as you two didn't work TOO hard."
It’s an insinuation that would have sounded ten times more ridiculous had last night not happened the way it did. “I told you that we're just friends,” she snaps, because it’s true. Santana’s answering text had assured her of that.
“Just checking,” JoAnn says, and drops the matter with the happiness of an ADHD affected executive. “Oh!” She reaches across her desk for a magazine. “Did you see the Star?!"
And she actually shakes that god-damn magazine at her, in an almost perfect mimic of the way Santana did it the night before.
Rachel’s stomach turns with distaste, but she swallows down the bile and her angry remark. "I did, actually,” she says instead, determined to keep her voice steady and light.
JoAnn’s eyes practically gleam with pride. "Troy's manager is a little pissed,” she confesses, and shrugs it off. “But who cares! This is a gold mine for us."
Rachel shakes her head, suddenly disgusted. "Yeah, I mean when's the last time I was on the cover of Star?"
"Exactly!” JoAnn says, pointing happily at her, before swiveling in her chair and hollering at her assistant to buy her ten more copies of the tabloid.
Rachel opens her phone, and re-reads Santana’s text.
Great, she texts back.Glad to hear it.
She doesn’t know what else to say.
--
The studio that has been booked to record the song is not intimate and it’s not tiny. There are no post-its peppered everywhere, and all the equipment is spotless and shiny. There is a faint smell of weed that makes Rachel’s nose wrinkle, and instead of a crazy intimate session between two artists collaborating, there are no less than ten men in suits crowded into the booth behind a hapless engineer in a wrinkled t shirt and faded jeans watching her, along with JoAnn, her music agent, and another guy dressed in Designer Douche that introduces himself to Rachel as Santana’s producer.
“Let’s get started!” he says, and motions to the lonely stool in the wide, open recording space. Rachel feels suddenly like an exhibit at the zoo.
She swallows hard and stares wordlessly at the closed door. After a moment, she carefully leans forward to speakinto the mike. “Shouldn’t we wait for Santana?”
Behind the glass, the other suits confer. Muted in the studio, Rachel can only watch, until Santana’s producer pushes the button that will allow her to hear what they are saying and says, “Sorry hon, I thought someone told you. Santana’s already recorded the music. We’re going to get your vocals, and when she gets back into town we’ll lay her over you. We don’t need you two together for this. We’ll see her when we start working on the music video.”
Rachel feels silly, because of course that makes sense. It’show these things are done.
Still, she can’t shake the feeling of awkwardness when she takes what feels like an intensely intimate song, and sings it with the same emotional and vulnerability that she used to sing for Santana’s ears alone. There are no deep dark brown eyes to stare into, no quickening of her breath or flush in her cheeks that reminds her how SPECIAL this moment is, how CONNECTED she feels, not just to the music but to the woman who sits across from her.
She wonders if it affects the quality.
It doesn’t seem to, because the execs just drink their coffee and smile happily at her, acting like they don’t have a care in the world.
Rachel envies them.
--
She’s relieved, honestly, to have the condo to herself for the night. She never thought she’d be a beach girl, but Rachel finds she appreciates that patio more than she thought she would have when she moved into the Marina Del Rey high rise.
It’s evening, and the air is unseasonably crisp for this time of year, but it’s still perfect weather to sit on her patio chair and have an evening drink. She’s brought a patchwork blanket with her, a gift from Kurt, and wraps it around herself as she continues to sip at her red wine and stares at the horizon.
She’s quiet and still, but also very much aware of her furiously beating heart, the way it thumps so tellingly inside of her.
She’s thinking about Santana.
Despite their mutual promises that their night together wouldn’t affect their friendship, texts betweenshe and Santana have been sporadic. Rachel knows she could be feeling extra sensitive about it all, because Santana never actually ignores her, and she has had legitimate reasons for every single time she’s been unresponsive or hard to reach.
For years, Santana’s world has been dark clubs, loud music, tiny studios, and sleepless nights. Now that her star has been raised, Rachel knows she doesn’t necessarily have to constantly mix new music or DJ concerts or festivals, but it does seem that something Santana likes to do.
Still, things did seem … easier… before the unmentionable kiss, and Rachel wonders if she’s perhaps made Santana a little TOO sensitive. Kurt’s right: Santana isn’t a predator. Not once has the fact that her friend is a lesbian ever been an issue for either of them.
Aside from a few catcalls meant to embarrass her, Santana used to go out of her way to prove that the OPPOSITE was true; that she had NO attraction or designs on Rachel at all.
Maybe all Santana needed was that kiss to reaffirm that stance.
God, just the thought brings up so many old high school insecurities that Rachel has to push the idea out of her mind as quickly as it floats in.
Honestly; simply, Rachel misses Santana.
It’s almost cruel that Santana showed up when she did, how she did, at a moment when Rachel was lonely and aching for a taste of something real. Not only has she had a chance to reconnect with one of her best friends in the world, but she’s also gotten to know her in a way that is mind-blowingly intimate.
These last few weeks have been HAPPY, and it’s all be shot to hell because of a heat of the moment kiss.
Well… maybe not because of the kiss. Maybe it’s because of a stupid text. Because of Rachel herself and being so… Rachel about it.
She knows she has to fix this. Her text was the one that set the tone for what this relationship is in danger of becoming, and she knows that Santana is only following suit. She’s the one who freaked out at the idea of her ‘pussy getting Santana’d’, as her friend so indelicately put it.
Yes, her career is important. Rachel’s been working for this kind of success her entire life, and it hasn’t been easy. There’s been a lifetime of ‘no’s and very few ‘yes’s.
But Santana’s friendship has been her first taste of something REAL in this town, and she knows she’ll regret it if she doesn’t try to salvage it.
Rachel takes another long drink, letting the taste of the liquid linger on her tongue as she flips through her phone and pulls up Santana’s contact information.
Another long gulp, and she finally presses the necessary sequence on her phone to get the phone dialing.
“Hello!” It’s Santana, sounding both breathless and distracted, in the middle of a laugh.
“Santana?”
“Rachel!” To hear her friend through the noise surrounding her is a challenge. There’s activity that Rachel can make out - fuzzy music, a tremendous bass, the distinct crowded sound of laughter and talking.
Rachel bites her lip; oddly timid. "Is this a bad time!"
"No, God no! I'm just.. Hold on.” Santana’s voice muffles as she says something quite obviously not directed at Rachel. “Sorry,” she says after a moment, crisper and cleaner than before. The music and crowd noise has faded slightly. “I found a room. But fuck, I think it’s like… S&M themed or something…”
The excited whisper doesn’t sound like Santana at all, and it makes Rachel’s brown furrow. “Santana-“
She’s cut off by a huge gasp. “Holy shit, Rachel there’s like, manacles on the wall!”
Rachel hears distinct clanks, and Santana obnoxiously giggling, treating them like toys.
"Is S&M themed bedrooms a common occurrence in the life of a superstar DJ?” she asked, determinedly casual.
"God, I wish! Can you imagine?” Santana laughs, voice husky with use, signifying that it’s been a long day. There’s the clanking again, along with some garbled chatter and laughter that isn’t from Santana. She still isn’t alone. “It’ll be on the second floor next to the gym. Do you have one? Is it pink?”
“Why would it be pink?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” It’s insane how good it feels, to hear Santana’s dry and teasing tone, teasing with affection and intimacy.
It’s silly that she’s almost choked up and Rachel rubs her fingers together idly in an effort to ground herself, before she admits with a thick, vulnerable voice, “Santana, I miss you.”
“Aw, shorty! I miss you too!” is Santana’s chipper, immediate response.
Rachel blinks, thrown by the flippant, sweet remark. “Are you drunk?”
“Just a little bit.” Rachel’s mouth twitches, shoulders slouching in disappointment. “I’m sorry,” Santana laughs. “This girl kept making me do body shots off of her.”
It doesn’t sound like quite the torture ritual Santana’s making it out to be. “And this is a problem for you?”
“Saying no would be rude,” Santana answers matter-of-factly.
“Since when do you care about being rude?”
“Since I’ve come to discover that Curious Straight Girls are fucking INSANE!” Santana retorts, and maybe it isn’t an actual swipe at Rachel, but it makes her wince anyway. Santana seems to notice, because there’s a moment of stalled quiet before she blurts, “And how’s the Troy-midget?”
Oh. Rachel rubs at her chest, struggling to find a comfortable position as she breathes in unsteadily.
“He’s good. I think,” she adds, because aside from a text a day or so ago she realizes she doesn’t actually know and hasn’t actually cared to find out. “I mean I dunno, he’s been on a movie shoot in Montreal for the last few weeks-“ She actually expects Santana to question her a little about that, but instead she hears a loud shout and a large crash, before a peal of laughter invades the speaker.
“Santana…” Rachel feels frighteningly inconsequential.
“Hi Rachel,” she hears after a moment. Santana’s breathless, clearly covering up a laugh. “Sorry! It’s just-“
Rachel feels awkward and vulnerable; an outsider who can’t even look into the world that she hasn’t been invited to - just listen. “I actually called because I had news,” she begins, and hates that she sounds almost meek about it. “But if this is a bad time-”
“What?No! No, just gimme a minute.”
“Seriously, Santana-“
“Rachel,” Santana’s tone is firm. “Just give me a minute.”
Suppressing a sigh, Rachel does, listening for long minutes as she hears hushed mumbles, and another odd cackle, before the sound is muffled entirely and Santana comes back on the line. “Okay, now I’m really alone.” It’s a little adorable how breathlessly earnest a drunk Santana is. “What’s up?”
Rachel bites her lip, a sudden excitement knotting her stomach.“Remember that lead in ‘Into the Woods’ I was up for?”
“If you didn’t get it then I’m going to fucking murder someone,” Santana says, so seriously that Rachel can’t help but laugh.
The excitement that she’s been trying to tap down suddenly explodes, and the grin is impossible to quell as she laughs, “I got it!”
“That’s awesome!!!” Santana nearly shouts, and Rachel shakes her head in bemusement.
“You are so drunk.”
“Oh shut up, I’m just happy for you. Rachel, that’s like… a big big deal!”
“It is,” she admits, because she can’t be humble right now. “It’s a big deal!”
“Well then we need to celebrate when I’m back in town!” Santana sounds so genuinely HAPPY for her. Rachel’s emotions have been a roller coaster of highs and lows lately, but it’s still kinda silly how infectious that happiness feels.
“Sounds like a plan!” she agrees, and then finds herself lingering, gnawing lightly on her lower lips as she hesitates. “I was thinking though… how about instead of an LA party, we make it a New York one?” Santana doesn’t reply, and so Rachel hurries to continue her explanation. “I have to move there for a few months to start rehearsals and I was thinking…”
“You wanna stay in the loft, don’t you?” Santana’s voice is flat; resigned.
Rachel shrugs. “For old time’s sake.”
“Sure, Rachel. That’s no problem.” Rachel blinks at the easy agreement, and then understands why when Santana says suddenly, “Hey listen, I gotta go, but I’ll have my assistant call you and work it out, okay?”
She hears it now, how the noises seem louder now. Wherever Santana managed to hide, she’s been discovered. “Oh. Um... Okay.” But she hurries on. “Santana.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear about the song?”
“I heard that they liked it,” Santana answers, warm and smug.
“Yeah,” she repeats, shaking her head, because that’s an understatement. “They liked it a lot. They want to shoot a music video and with the buzz it’s getting…” Rachel licks her lips and stares at her glass of wine, watching the way the red liquid appears almost black as the sky darkens around her. “It may have been what got me this part so… I just…”
Once again, Rachel feels that awkwardness, because with that song comes memories of that night, and with that night comes those FEELINGS that remain lodged inside of her. They’re addictive, intense… and Rachel remembers so vividly.
“Santana,” she begins, because it’s driving her crazy. “About that night-“
“Shit, God, I’m coming!” Rachel jumps, nearly topping her chair over and spilling her wine. “Rachel, I’m so sorry,” Santana cuts in, soft and quick. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later, okay?”
It’s crazy how empty that promise seems. Rachel deflates, and finds her courage spilling away with her wine. “Right, okay. Bye, Santana.”
“Bye Rach- Hey mother fuckers, I was talking-“
The call disconnects in the middle of Santana’s protest.
--
Rachel receives a call the next day from a surprisingly eloquent young man who introduces himself as Santana’s personal assistant. It throws Rachel, who had no idea he even existed before this point. He waits approximately two seconds for her to process this before he’s suddenly rattling off a bunch of questions and orders regarding the loft in New York.
His name is Nathan. When he shows up at her condo to drop off the keys to the New York loft, she discovers that he’s actually a gorgeous young man of Indian descent, with an athletic build and eyebrows that would be bushy if not for the obvious fact that he keeps them trimmed. He’s gay, which means he’s infatuated with her and her career, which is never, ever gets old for Rachel Berry. She gladly spends most of her afternoon answering questions like what it’s like to work with Patti Lupone, and describing what Eden Espinosa’s warm up ritual is.
He finds one of Troy’s guitars, an impromptu purchase that Troy once bought on a whim and hardly ever touches, and launches through a complicated chord progression that makes Rachel’s eyes widen with surprise. Turns out, he’s not just Santana’s personal assistant, but an aspiring DJ and musician that Santana has been mentoring.
Their afternoon devolves into an impromptu jam session when he duets with her on an acoustic version of Justin Timberlake’s Mirrors.
He likes it so much he asks if he can film it, and the next thing she knows, their earnest little duet has been uploaded onto YouTube on his channel, after he delivers a squealing intro that makes her blush.
He's a sweetheart, and privately it makes her feel better that Santana has someone like him with her. Buzzed on the high of a good performance and a little wine, she tells him so.
“I honestly think the only reason she hired me was because I didn’t try and hit on her,” he confesses.
“While I’m sure that helped, you’re obviously very talented,” Rachel says, because that's probably exactly what it was. “I’m glad she sees it and appreciates it.”
“Oh she’s such a bitch and sometimes she treats me like a dick, which we both know she has no use for,” he says, strumming the guitar for emphasis. Rachel bursts out laughing, and decides against commenting. “But she’s legit. She gets the music, you know? She once told me people are like songs and that like… stuck with me.”
Rachel presses her lips together and nods quietly. “Yeah,” she whispers, raspier than she anticipated. “It stuck with me too.”
--
Good going, Berry. Santana texts her later that night. My assistant is in love with you. Now he won’t shut up about you and your so-called talent. Like I didn’t hear enough of that shit in high school and New York.
Rachel reads the text during drinks with some girlfriends, and finds herself laughing quietly to herself. Tell him I’m in love with him too.
Goddamn, Santana texts back a moment later, And you uploaded a cover to his youtube channel? What the fuck? Why are you encouraging his famewhoring?
Rachel’s lips press together. She listens for a moment, as her friend beside her chatters on about her date the night before, before she quietly lowers her head to respond. Because he’s talented and you know that. That's why you hired him, isn't it?
Actually, I hired him because he was basically you and Kurt’s love child. And the bitch does whatever I want.
It’s almost sweet, considering the source. Still, she can’t resist the urge to tease. And here I was thinking you were the submissive one.
It’s cheeky, almost too cheeky, considering the state of things. Rachel’s heart pounds a little unsteadily, until Santana’s text pops up.
What the hell? Where did that come from?
She flushes. Nevermind., she types back, losing her nerve completely. She straightens, and reaches for her glass of water, a smile on her face as her friend turns to her. She nods, and does her best to catch up to the conversation.
Her phone buzzes in her hand.
Miss Rachel Berry, are you insinuating that I liked to be dominated in bed?
The flush moves past her cheeks and down her throat. Rachel’s quiet smile widens, and once again, she begins to type. You were the ones eyeing those handcuffs, Santana.
She waits, watching those little dots appear before the text pops up. Maybe I was just picturing someone else in them.
Rachel’s body unexpectedly throbs. Breathless, she licks her lips. She’s not stupid. She knows what they did before they kissed, and she knows what they’re doing now.
This is flirting. This is exactly what led up to that kiss… this exchange of energy, innuendo and clever jibes.
But she can’t help herself. Buzzed on two glasses of wine and not enough appetizers, Rachel discovers she doesn’t want to stop. She wants…
Well, she wants to find out who Santana was picturing in those cuffs. Anyone in particular?
Well apparently I have a type…
Her cheeks flame. Rachel is well aware of her body and it’s reaction to Santana’s words. She chews lightly on her bottom lip, testing her own resolve. I’ve always been partial to brunettes, myself.
You know, I used to be into blondes, Santana texts, and Rachel’s body stiffens. But her friend is still typing, and so Rachel waits. But I’ve discovered lately that brunettes do have a certain appeal...
The grin that curves on her mouth is impossible to suppress.. Do they now? she asks.
“Rachel?” She lifts her head and notices three heads turned in her direction.
“What?”
“You do realize that we’ve asked you the same question like… three times now, right?” Jessica tells her, eyes shining with curiosity. Rachel flushes, well aware of her rudeness.
“Sorry!” She forces herself to put her phone back in her purse.
“Who are you texting?!”
“Troy,” she says flippantly,, and immediately feels her muscles clench at the lie. But it’s good enough for them. Jessica rolls her eyes, mutters something about ‘Young Love’ and continues her adventures with the investment banker.
Rachel’s phone burns in her purse, but she forces herself to wait until she’s excused herself to read what Santana has written.
They tend to be pretty amazing kissers.
Immediately, Rachel is transported to the memory - the texture of Santana’s lips, the feel of her breath skating against her skin, the swipe of her tongue against her own.
“Fuck,” she breathes, because she’s wet now, uncomfortably wet, and it’s all Santana’s fault.
Her heart pounds, but Rachel’s filled with this euphoria that feels so much like a high, because Santana is telling her that she liked her kissing her. That their kiss was amazing, and God, it was.
She hasn’t forgotten about her kiss. She’s touched herself, made herself come with Santana’s name on her lips, because of that kiss.
I definitely don’t disagree with that. Kisses like that tend to… linger.
It’s honest, at least. She and Santana have always been honest with each other, and Rachel decides she owes her that. But it’s terrifying. Rachel’s standing in a bathroom with an elevated heart beat and the weird feeling of standing on some sort of precipice, and it’s because of Santana.
Yeah, they definitely do.
The heat courses through her again, flooding her with that buzz of temptation. She wants to respond… she wants to take this further… she wants to call Santana and hear that voice and make some sense of this game they’re playing.
Someone knocks on the door.
Rachel loses her courage. The phone goes back in her purse, and after a moment to collect herself, Rachel unlocks the private bathroom and smiles at the women waiting, heading back to her friends.
Chapter 2b