[PG-13] Just 'Cause We Ain't Deep
Title: Just 'Cause We Ain't Deep
Author: novaforever
Pairings: Mike/Santana
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,000+
Spoilers: Through 2.10 Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle, but let's pretend that they aren't connected to Britt and Tina.
Warnings: None
Note: Written for starbuck_river in glee_rare_pairs challenge. Thanks to basisforming for the beta.
Summary: After being stripped of her uniform Santana needs to find another way to remain in the popular crowd. And football player Mike Chang might be that way.
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Santana slammed her locker shut and leaned back against it with a growl.
Sure, quitting Cheerios in a show of glee club solidarity and basically shooting Sue the middle finger was a great adrenaline rush at the time, but now she was in a terrible position. Most of the losers here weren't even worth the time it took to acknowledge their presence, but at least they all understood the hierarchy of the school. Athletic teams and medal earning clubs of different varieties were all well ranked and gave a nice popularity boost to their members. Students with important or famous parents usually faired admirably as well.
At the very top were the Cheerios. Those short skirts not only made their asses look amazing, they also acted as a social shield.
The Latina let her eyes fall down to her own jeans and leather jacket.
She felt far too vulnerable without the red and white polyester armor.
If there was one thing she had learned from all her years in high school, it was what you need to survive and be popular. It was a simple list really; a position of power, such as a place on a nationally ranked cheerleading team, a healthy amount of fear in the student base, and a hot piece of man candy. Unfortunately, she no longer had her position of power and was forced to lurk with the lower echelons of the hierarchy due to glee club. On top of that blow, all that singing and dancing, while fun behind closed doors, wasn't exactly going to instill fear in the hearts of the other students.
That left her to find a hot new man to drape on her arm.
She might not have the comfort of her protective Cheerios uniform anymore, but it wouldn't be hard to find a boyfriend who boasted the school colors.
Santana's eyes drifted down the hall as she leaned on her locker.
Puck would naturally be her first choice, as he was the standard go-to model for a quick reputation boost. Her eyes landed on the mohawked boy across the hall as he attempted to loop his arm over Zizes' shoulders. A little bit of bile rose in Santana's throat at the sight. Clearly Puck was going to be in the market for a reputation boost himself if he kept hanging out with Free Willy.
Finn stomped by with Rachel yapping at his heels and Santana shook her head. Been there, done that. Not looking to rinse and repeat.
She brushed off further thoughts of the Jolly Green Giant and glanced down the hall to a tall blonde. Sam definitely had potential. If she went after him it would also come with the bonus of driving Quinn insane. He seemed hopelessly devoted to Barbie though, and it would take far too much work to pry him away. Frankly, those guppy lips weren't worth the effort.
Artie rolled by in his football jersey and wheelchair.
Just no.
Clearly McKinley wasn't exactly overflowing with high-status men that met her standards. Santana turned, ready to head to class when another flash of red jersey caught her eye.
Mike Chang whistled happily to himself as he changed out his books in his locker. Her eyebrow arched as she considered the lanky Asian. He certainly wasn't the coolest kid in school, but he wasn't hideous, and he shared the whole glee club thing with her.
Her eyes traced over his uniform once more.
It would have to do.
She strutted towards Mike and abruptly slammed his locker shut, just narrowly missing his hand. Mike twirled with perfect balance to face her and narrowed his eyes.
"What are you doing here Santana?"
"Look Gumby, I'm just going to get right down to the point. You are going to date me."
Much to Santana's surprise he didn't laugh or even cave immediately when she blatantly announced her intentions. He simply looked disappointed. The sad stare did nothing for the ex-Cheerio's self confidence, but she shrugged it off and barreled forward.
"It's actually an amazing package deal. I get access to your uniformed status and you can get up on all of this," Santana gestured at herself emphatically.
Mike continued his baleful stare.
"So... You want to date a football player to be popular again?"
Santana nodded.
"I was your last choice wasn't I?"
"I wouldn't say last choice," Santana drawled out.
"Nope lemme guess. Puck is with Lauren, Sam with Quinn, Finn disgusts you on every level, and Artie is... Artie. Then there was me."
Santana rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Whatever. Just agree."
"Pass," Mike bit out as he turned and disappeared into the crowd of milling students.
The tanned girl glared at his retreating form. No one refused Santana Lopez.
It would almost be a turn on if it wasn't so fucking annoying.
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Santana leaned up against the metal supports that held up the bleachers overlooking the rundown McKinley High football field. She used to bring boys, and Brittany (more than a few times), down here to make out between classes. It was a great way to escape from it all.
Now she was hidden underneath the shadows from the rusty structure looking out at everything that used to be hers.
Off to the sidelines of the field she could see clusters of red and white uniforms. The new head cheerleader - Betty or Bessie or some other name that Santana couldn't be bothered with remembering even when she was on the team - was apparently giving them some sort of instructional talk. Some of the girls twirled slightly as they listened, skirts catching in the wind and fluffing slightly to expose perfect legs and tease all who looked their way.
The Latina girl's hands instinctively ran down her own legs and were met with the coarse jean fabric of her pants.
Fuck she missed those skirts and everything they brought with them. Her popularity had definitely taken a hit the second she gave up the uniform to prance around with the glee club. Santana didn't believe in living a life of regrets, but there were definitely moments when she thought she might have been a bit too hasty in her decision to walk out on Sue and the Cheerios.
Whatever. What was done was done. Now she just had to play a bit of catch up to check off the items on her 'necessary for Junior year' list.
Her gaze drifted away from the circle of Cheerios to the other side of the field. All of the members of the football team were spread out to complete various exercises. Almost instantly she spotted the tall Asian boy. He cheerfully tossed the ball around with a few of the other glee kids. Mike Chang wasn't exactly the most impressive player out there. He certainly didn't have Puck's bulging muscles, but he was apparently one of the fastest players on the team. When it came down to it though, it didn't really matter how he performed on the field; his red uniform held a certain cache in the school.
And that Santana could definitely appreciate.
Mike threw a final pass to Finn before joining the rest of the team by the water bottles on the sidelines. As soon as the players finished off their water, the Cheerios came streaming over to meet up with their boyfriends or openly flirt in an attempt to secure one. Santana narrowed her eyes as she recognized the ritual she once participated in after practices.
Many of the players started to walk away with their girlfriends, but Mike, as one of the currently single members, had collected a ring of interested Cheerios.
Oh, fuck no. That should be her out there. Mike was hers. She had already declared it.
With a final glare in Mike and the Cheerios' direction she stormed away from the bleachers and back up towards the school.
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After thirty minutes of waiting outside the boys’ locker room, growling at Karofsky as he gave her a challenging glare, she finally burst into the girls-free zone to find Mike.
The locker room was completely cleared out so it wasn't hard to find the solitary boy changing at the last bank of lockers. He was still taking off his uniform in favor of street clothes and Santana took a moment to trail her gaze up his exposed abs. Perhaps she had underestimated how muscular he was.
With a smirk she stalked toward Mike, making no attempt to hide the loud clacking of her heels across the cement floor. Mike's head jerked up from his locker and Santana could see his eyes widen in shock.
Santana stopped in front of the bewildered boy and dragged a finger slowly up his bare abs.
"You didn't look half bad out there today, Chang."
Mike let out an unsteady breath.
"You were watching?"
The Latina's smirk grew even bigger at his innocent question. Her steady gaze clearly affected Mike and he scrambled inside his locker for his shirt. Santana put a hand on his arm to stop his panicked motions and pushed him away from his locker.
"Nope. This meeting is clothing optional."
She gave Mike a final shove, causing him to trip backwards and fall down on the bench behind him. Santana snickered at his unusual lack of grace and quickly moved to straddle his lap before he could scramble away. Mike's hands instinctively wrapped around her hips to prevent her from falling. His action was almost laughable and Santana had to bite back a comment on his innocence. Really, it was like Little Red Riding Hood trying to keep the Big Bad Wolf safe before it devoured her.
Mmm. That didn't sound like a terrible idea.
Santana leaned into Mike and stared hungrily into his eyes.
"Those other girls don't know what they are doing," she murmured.
"Um, what other girls?" Mike asked, confusion spreading across his face.
Santana's eyes glinted at him and she rolled her hips down onto Mike's. She could hear him suck air noisily into his lungs at the motion.
She smirked. It was almost embarrassingly easy. Soon she could check 'high status man candy' off her list.
"Those Cheerios. The ones you were with at the end of practice. They don't know what they are doing."
With a curl of her lips she shifted her hips down into Mike's again, arching up against him to reach his ear.
"I, on the other hand, know exactly what I am doing," She growled with a nip on his earlobe.
Warm satisfaction - and more than a little arousal - ran through her as she felt Mike react underneath her to her motions.
Really, all men were the same when it came down to it. A few dirty whispers, well placed lips, and a bit of grinding and they started thinking with another organ besides their brain. Santana grinned into Mike's neck, safe in the knowledge that she had complete control over him.
"You should date me instead," Santana murmured.
Before she could register what had even happened, she was on her feet and Mike was back at his locker, shirt slipping over his perfectly defined muscles.
"It's not a competition Santana," Mike said quietly as he shut his locker. "It's not like there is some rule that you should date a football player to be popular."
The shorter girl let out a disgusted huff. No one blew off Santana Lopez when she turned up her game like that. This was unbelievable. Maybe becoming a glee geek really had made her a useless loser.
"Maybe you should try getting to know people instead of just using them."
Mike picked up his duffle bag and disappeared towards the entrance to the locker room. Santana watched him go, wondering if she really was tainted with the scent of failure like Coach had always insisted.
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In the weeks since Santana had quit Cheerios her life certainly hadn't gone as she had planned it. She had spent years working towards building her perfect image, climbing her way up to the top of the McKinley High social pyramid. Yet despite all her hard work she had somehow tumbled right back down to the very bottom.
To the realm of freaks, virgins, and glee club losers.
It seriously was enough to make her question her loyalty to glee club. She loved singing, but her status had taken far too much of a nosedive just because she liked to shake her groove thang and belt out some Amy Winehouse. The first week or so after cutting ties to the Cheerios hadn't been terrible; most peons knew to keep their distance from her in the hallways and still ran away from her temper.
But there were a few people who didn't have that fear.
Santana's eyed up the hideous brown lump of cloth in her locker that somehow seemed to be filling the hallway with the smell of cooking grease and processed meat. She reached cautiously into her locker and picked up the white card on top of the suspicious pile.
I took the liberty of picking up a McDonald's uniform for you from the local eatery. That way you can be both see, and smell, your pending failure in life. -Sue Sylvester
With an angry growl Santana tore the crusty uniform out of her locker and threw it into the face of an unfortunate passing student. This wasn't the first stunt Sue had pulled and it certainly wasn't going to be her last. Each time she did something like this more students saw. More people who used to be so beneath her were realizing what a loser she really was right now.
Fuck everything.
This wasn't how her junior year was supposed to go. There was a whole checklist of things she was supposed to have by now. She was supposed to head Cheerio, inspiring fear and respect in her less popular classmates, with appropriate high status man to match. Instead she was the whipping girl for Sue Sylvester, a bottom of the barrel glee geek, and painfully single. In fact it had been over a week since she had gotten laid. How did something like that even happen?
Santana slammed her locker shut and spun on her heel to charge down the hallway.
She made it three and a half steps before a wave of red ice flew into her face, blinding her instantly. She didn't need to be able to see to know who had just publically humiliated her. Her muscles clenched hard throughout her body as Karofsky's gruff voice echoed in her ears.
"Later loser!"
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Santana stared into the bathroom mirror in front of her as she watched the red ice slowly melt and run out of her hair into the sink.
Slushied. She had just gotten slushied. It was the ultimate humiliation, like flashing neon lights that screamed 'hey loser, you are social scum.' It was infinitely worse than the low class bullying that Sue had been giving her. By now the whole school had probably heard that the fierce bitch Santana Lopez had been taken down. It would be open season and she could look forward to getting a slushie to the face every day of the school week.
Her hips hit the cold porcelain of the sink as she leaned forward. Red food coloring dripped from her hair and spiraled down the drain in front of her.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Where was her captaincy? Her courage? Her man candy?
The bathroom door squeaked open and Santana immediately straightened herself up, a small attempt at regaining her fierce image despite the dessert dripping down in her eyes, but the person in the entrance was the last person she expected to see.
Mike Chang waved off her glare and walked over to the towel dispenser. He grabbed a few sheets of paper and then wet them under the sink before turning to help Santana clean up.
"In case you are illiterate as well as being as dumb as a Zen garden rock, this is the girl's bathroom. As in the one for people without dicks."
"I noticed," Mike said calmly. "I also noticed that no one followed you into the bathroom to help you out."
Santana shivered slightly as she leaned back against the sink. Of course no one had rushed to her aid. Even the glee kids, the only people left in the school who still talked to her, had been cut down one too many times by Santana for any of them to consider helping her in her time of need.
"Good. Nice to know Santana Lopez still instills fear in this shit hole," she growled out bitterly.
Mike brought the paper towel up to Santana's face and gently brushed away the remaining colored ice. He glanced down at the shorter girl and gave her a comforting smile.
"Well I'm not 'scared' of you. In fact, after I saw what Karofsky had done I snuck into his gym locker and took all his football equipment. It's hidden behind the backdrop in the auditorium. He'll never find it there."
Santana glanced upwards at Mike and took in his calm face as he washed the slushie out of her hair. She had treated all of the glee members like shit, even Mike. Yet here he was, tenderly cleaning her up after a humiliating smack down. Not a single other person had even attempted to step forward and help her.
But Mike was standing here with a smile on his face after already getting revenge on her attacker.
"How'd you even manage that?" Santana said with far more tremble in her voice than she would have liked.
The Asian boy smile grew into a bright grin.
"Haven't you heard? I'm a ninja."
Santana's chest hurt at his lighthearted words. Here was the only decent guy in the entire school and he was being nice to her, helping her, and not just with the excuse to get in her pants. She could feel tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes to mix with the remnants of slushie on her face. Mike's smile faltered as he saw Santana's false bravado crumble in front of him. Instead of leaving her like Santana expected, he simply moved the paper towel to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks.
Her heart clenched and through her watery eyes she took in the red blur of Mike standing tall in his football jacket.
She took an unsteady breath and grabbed Mike's hand and stopped its tender motions. Mike seemed surprised, but let her fingers wrap possessively around his wrist.
"I... I need to date you."
The pleading words seemed wrong coming from her mouth. It didn't much matter at this point though. Mike had already seen her at her worst and he was still there with his usual crooked smile.
At least he was until she said that she needed him.
Mike frowned down at her and carefully pulled his hand away from Santana's face. With a flick of his wrist he tossed the soggy piece of paper into the garbage can and stepped back towards the bathroom door.
"Wh-what?" Santana stuttered out in shock.
With one last crooked smile Mike slipped out the door, leaving Santana alone once again.
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Despite the fact that Mike had ninja vanished from the bathroom on the day she had gotten slushied, Santana still saw him constantly. The boy literally seemed to be everywhere. It started off with little things, like Mike sweeping in whenever she had too many books to carry to class. He mysteriously appeared to offer her a ride home the day her convertible's sparkplugs had inexplicably gone missing. Best of all, he wasn't afraid to walk with her between classes. It wasn't like the wiry Asian boy cut an imposing presence, but with the recent championship under the football team's belt and his red letterman jacket by her side the rest of the students seemed happy to back off a respectable distance. Even Sue seemed to have gotten bored with her petty games.
Technically she had the respect she had been craving in the social system of the school. With Mike constantly by her side she could reap the benefits of his football player status without having to do any of the work of a 'relationship.'
But she somehow couldn't fill in the check box next to 'hot-shot man candy' in her mind.
Even if Mike was acting like her knight in shining armor and shooting her those perfectly calm smiles, they weren't anything official.
Hell. She wouldn't even say that they were friends.
He was simply Mike Chang; perennial good guy, a top contact on her phone, and the only one to treat her like she meant something.
It definitely got to her more than she would have liked.
This bizarre pseudo-relationship was not what she was used to flaunting at all. Usually she participated in status-boosting couple struts through the hallways followed by super hot janitor's closet sex.
Now her life was filled with shy can-I-carry-your-books? moments with absolutely no touching whatsoever.
And the most ridiculous part was that she didn't mind.
Okay, well maybe a little. She hadn't had sex in over a month now and that was rather unacceptable.
As she leaned up against the metal supports for the bleachers, her eyes immediately locked on to the lanky Asian boy running down the field, football clutched close to his chest. He trotted happily across the end line and whipped his helmet off, exposing his trademark grin. A few of the other glee guys rushed up to him to pat him on the back for the play and Santana could see his eyes wash over all of them to look for something else.
His eyes darted to hers and his easy grin grew. Santana could feel a warm flutter start in her chest knowing that at the moment he only had eyes for her.
Mike Chang. Breaking all the rules and expectations she held for the Y chromosome.
The crowd of cheerleaders who had been practicing nearby skipped up to join the small celebration, but Santana could see Mike's smile revert back to his standard fair when he dealt with them. It wasn't the same chest numbing number he seemed to have reserved for her.
Once more Santana found herself wishing she could be a part of the gathering of cheerleaders surrounding him. Not because she was jealous or missed the comforting strength of the uniform.
She simply wanted to be near him.
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A steady hand dropped on top of Santana's as she reached into her locker to grab her books for physics class.
"Hey. Lemme get that for you," Mike said with a grin.
Santana watched as he picked out exactly the books she needed and tucked them under his arm with a warm familiarity. Her gaze trailed up to his face and the fluttering feeling in her chest returned as he quirked an eyebrow at her curiously.
"Um... Is something wrong? You aren't glaring at me like you usually are. It's kinda freaking me out."
"I want to date you."
The words stumbled out of her mouth before she could even process them.
"You... want to date me," Mike repeated back in shock.
There was clearly no turning back now. Santana nervously picked her books out of Mike's arms and slid them back into her locker. She paused to collect herself before squaring her shoulders and meeting Mike's confused - and possibly hopeful - gaze.
"Yes. And before you shut me down again, this isn't me trying to get into your goofy dancer pants. Well, not yet anyway. And it isn't about being jealous that I'm suddenly not hot shit or about needing that football jacket. In fact, you need that crappy jacket more to cover up your scrawny-ass shoulders," Santana couldn't help but jab, trying to cover up just how vulnerable she felt.
"That's the main reason I keep the jacket around," Mike joked with a knowing nod.
"Urgh whatever," Santana let out with a huff. "You're one of few people at this school who doesn't treat me like a social leper or the world's biggest bitch. Even though I possibly deserve it. And I guess that is pretty cool... and stuff."
"So..."
"I want to date you, Mike Chang."
Mike grinned his special smile, the one reserved just for her.
"I want to date you too, Santana."
The totally abnormal nervous strain in her chest disappeared and was replaced with the happy warmth she was beginning to associate with the taller boy. Santana let a knowing smirk drift up onto her face.
"Finally. I've only asked a million times."
"No, not in so many words you haven't," Mike Chang responded as he cheerfully lifted her books out from her locker once more. "Sometimes it is nice to know that you are wanted. A guy likes to feel special too, you know?"
His free arm curled over her shoulders to pull her close as they started their walk to class. The eyes of her fellow classmates seemed to roll over her with glances of respect; a far cry from their previous mocking and pitying looks. But as the comforting warmth from Mike's arm seeped into her, she realized it didn't really matter what those losers thought.
She mentally pulled up her high school checklist once again.
Pretty awesome boyfriend. Check.