Who Would You Rather Be: The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?
Title: Who Would You Rather Be: The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce; side Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry; mentioned Finn Hudson/Rachel Berry, Noah Puckerman/Tina Cohen-Chang, Noah Puckerman/Rachel Berry, Noah Puckerman/Sam Evans
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Being a rock star is a goddamn life choice.
A/N: Title from Metric’s “Gimme Sympathy.”
Being a rock star isn’t a thought, or a whim, or a dream; it’s a goddamn life choice, and it’s one Santana made in the first grade. Standing on her desk with her arms spread wide and a pair of headphones clamped over her ears, drumming against the air with both tiny fists and belting the lyrics to “I Wanna Know What Love Is”-that was the peak moment, the one in which everything in her world coalesced into a very real truth.
Music is life. Life is made to be rocked. Santana Lopez will rock until the day she dies.
So what if Mrs. Kahler sent her to the principal’s office for severe behavior problems every day that week?
Rock stars get everything in life, Santana knows, and it isn’t about what everybody thinks. All those stupid movies that talk about the drugs and the booze and the girls-although, okay, the girls part is pretty essential-are wrong. Rock stars are about more than that. Rocking itself is about the music between your ears, the thrum and hum that zips through your bones until everything feels full and vibrant again. The sheer chaos of moving without choice, acting without thought, all to the beat of something you made happen.
Rocking is a way of life, and she fucking owns it.
At six, she picked up a pair of drumsticks and never looked back. At eight, her father warmly pressed a Gibson against her scrawny chest and intoned, “Practice.” At twelve, her mother wrung her hands together over the secondhand piano in their living room and prayed her daughter would come away with something a little more classy.
If “class” can be defined as “’Crocodile Rock’ at one A.M.,” Santana knows her mama got that part right.
She’s the best, the tank, the rock star to end McKinley’s entire lame little district, but the best rockers don’t do it alone. They need others to back them up, make them look even more badass than they already are, and Santana knows it. Even one-man artists tour with bands.
In eighth grade, she grabbed Noah Puckerman by the collar. Dragged him into an abandoned classroom, threw him into a chair, pointed a finger in his face, and growled, “Instruments?”
Noah, eyes wide and hair unnervingly curly, shrugged with as much carelessness as he could muster. “Can wail the fuck out of a gui-tar.”
“One,” Santana replied, glaring, “never call it that again. Two: you want in?”
“To your pants?” he tried, a nervous grin teasing across his pimpled face. Santana’s hand met the back of his head with brutal swiftness. “Ow. Motherfucker, Lopez. What?”
“Band,” she said briskly. “You, me. Few others. Take it or leave it.”
He took, because anyone with a brain takes an offer like that. At thirteen, Santana rocked the shit out of that school, and everyone knew it. Even super-Jewish, mama’s-boy Puckerman.
“And lose the mop-top,” she cast over her shoulder as she left. “It’s fucking nauseating.”
Three days later, Noah Puckerman had a stream-lined mohawk cradling his skull, a new line of skin care products spanning his bathroom counter, and a guitar strapped across his back. Easy as that.
Santana spent the week collecting other members for their rock outfit. The quiet Asian at the back of her algebra class came along anxiously, mostly because she figured Santana would beat the living snot out of her if she didn’t, but also because Santana caught her singing in a high, clear voice in the girl’s bathroom. The new girl down the street came, too, all beautiful blond hair and wildly darting eyes, like she had a secret she was dying to keep at any cost. Santana figured secrets make pre-existing badassery even better. Every Behind the Music’s littered with broken promises and well-measured lies.
A mohawked guitarist, a keyboard-rocking Asian with a slowly emerging Goth streak, and a bassist with an eyebrow that could kill a man. It was a hell of a start, if nothing else.
They played. In Puckerman’s cramped apartment, Tina’s garage, Quinn Fabray’s daddy’s-little-princess bedroom, music scaled the walls and begged to be let out. Week after week, Santana watched her little faction grow stronger, hardier, more desperate for the lights and smoke wafting from a streamlined stage. At thirteen, they began.
By fifteen, they were playing gigs on a weekend-to-weekend basis, jamming out in coffee shops, and somewhat sketchy bar venues. Santana singing lead, Quinn tuning her bass without a word to anyone, Puck scamming on chicks only to slink back and slip an arm around Tina’s tiny waist-it worked. Didn’t take long for the groupies to start rising up from their bar stools to rail at the foot of each stage with pumping fists and alcohol-stained breath. For small-town Ohio, this was gold.
At sixteen, they auditioned an extra drummer in the form of Finn Hudson, a gangly, goof-grinned moron with a killer beat. Three months later, his girlfriend tried out, too.
Rachel fucking Berry was the least attractive, appealing, tolerable human on planet Earth, but Santana had to admit the hobbit could sing. And not just sing, but sing, her voice stretching toward the rafters on soaring wings that could not, at any cost, be contained. More than that, she was a hell of a songwriter. To turn her away would have been criminal.
So Santana maybe made her audition no less than twelve times. What’s a little fun between bandmates?
And now, at seventeen, in their final year at the humdrumsville school they’ve called home for the last four fuckin’ years, they stand. Puck and his battered acoustic; Quinn and the bass she plays for hours on end; Tina and her soft, sweet voice; Finn and his can’t stop, won’t stop ticking on every solid surface; Rachel, toting God’s vocal chords under that obnoxious layer of skin. And Santana-the frontman, the one who made it all happen. The rock star.
They are unstoppable.
“We got a gig Friday night,” Puck announces as he careens into the Cohen-Chang garage on a bike better suited to a class-A hobo. “McLeary’s. We keep bringing in the crowds, this might be a steady deal.”
“I got a history test Friday,” Finn replies mournfully, rubbing his head with both manic hands. “If I don’t pass, I’m cooked.”
“You’ll pass, Finn,” Tina assures him. “I’ll help you study again. Puck?”
“No fuckin’ way, babe.” Letting the bike crash against the cement floor, he sweeps over to drop a kiss against her black-and-pink hair. “Not dealing with the fallout of Gigantor’s frustration again.”
“I said I was sorry,” Finn grumbles, regretting for several reasons the time he hurled his favorite lamp at Puck’s smirking face. Tina pats his arm.
“We’ve got it covered. No worries.”
“Besides,” Santana returns, barely looking up from tuning her Gibson to where they’re sprawled on the old stained couch, “this isn’t exactly school-sponsored, Frankenteen. Not gonna boot you on your oversized ass if you flunk out.”
“He’s not going to flunk,” Tina fires back. Santana grins, congratulating herself as she so often does on transforming the stuttering, stumbling girl into a fiery artist. The band’s done wonders for all of them, no doubt about it.
Quinn is staring into the cracked mirror mounted on the soda fridge, adjusting her newly-neon bangs. “You think this works? Should I go darker?”
“Nah, man, you and Lucy Liu match now. It’s sexy.” Puck wiggles his eyebrows, forks his tongue in the direction of her ass. She flips him the bird without looking away from her reflection.
“Mention the fucking threesome idea again, and I am cutting off your junk in the night.”
He waves his hands, head shaking. “Fuck, no. I ask anybody, it’s gonna be Berry. You see the new skirt she picked out last week? Fucking fine.”
Finn slugs him in the arm, doing his best to arrange his dopey features into an expression of rage and failing. Rachel’s decision to break his Texas-sized heart (again; it’s the third time they’ve split in two years) was a temporary setback to the execution of unity they’ve been upholding since day one, but Santana has to admit she’s kind of impressed with how relatively minor the explosion has been. Aside from a few crying fits (Finn), chair kicking incidents (also Finn), and irritated huffing (Rachel, when Finn dropped face-first against his drum kit and wailed like a newborn), things have been fairly smooth.
When he finds out Rachel dumped him mostly so she could continue licking her lips in Quinn’s direction without guilt, it might not be so awesome. Santana resolves to deal with that when the time comes, and not a second before.
“I like it,” Tina tells Quinn cheerfully. “It suits you. You know, I never really thought the blonde did.”
“Yeah, Fabray,” Santana chimes in, tone dripping with amusement. “Wonder why that was?”
Quinn fires her the kind of look generally reserved for Nazi-grade war criminals. “Eat me, Lopez.”
“Time and place, babycakes.” She flicks her tongue between her fingers, laughing when Quinn’s expression grows ever more disgusted. It’s almost as if they didn’t throw down under the bleachers last year, Quinn whimper-gasping and scratching long, desperate marks under Santana’s tattered Zepplin tee.
Ah well. Things pass, Santana knows; it’s just the way of rock. The hook-up levels are always through the goddamn roof in a solid band. Especially when that band includes the likes of Puckerman.
“I’m just saying,” he’s explaining now, “if Berry’s free, I’d like another go-round. Jew-a-Jew, you know what I mean?”
Finn’s fist flashes again, faster than before. Puck howls.
“Fuck off, bro, it’s a goddamn compliment! You’ve got banging taste!”
Apparently, Finn still hasn’t gotten over the time he walked in on Puck pinning his (once again ex-, as they were on a break of his own doing at that point) girlfriend against the bathroom wall, his bare ass gleaming in the shoddy fluorescent light as he rocked his hips under her plaid skirt. It’s a sad fact of life that Finn Hudson is the master of poor decisions and grudge-holding, and that Noah Puckerman will forever hold both against him.
“Will you two knock it off?” Quinn growls. “She’ll be here soon, and we need to get to rehearsal if we’re gonna be primed for Friday.”
“We’re always primed.” Puck rolls his eyes, letting a hand creep steadily up Tina’s thigh. She smacks him away with a smirk.
“Same songs for two months,” Finn agrees in a mumble, his head hanging miserably between his knees. “Could play ‘em in my sleep.”
“Thought you did,” Santana snips. He raises a dejected hand, fingers folded apart from one. She snorts. “You’re fucking pathetic, Hudson. Get your shit together, will you? We’ll find you a babe.”
“Don’t want a babe,” his muffled voice crawls out from against his jeans. “Want Rachel.”
“Well, you can’t have her,” Quinn retorts irritably. Puck laughs.
“Plenty of pussy in this town, bro. You can fuck your way through ‘em until you get the taste of Matzo out of your mouth.”
“Exceedingly racist,” Tina reminds him with a sigh. He slings an arm around her shoulders and nuzzles against her neck, nipping at a fading hickey.
“Not racist if the dude in question is rocking the Star.”
“Still racist,” she argues, playfully shoving him away. “Just a little more bizarre.”
“Rehearsal,” Quinn snaps again. Santana stands, pushing her hair back over one ear.
“For once, Pink knows what’s up. My band, my rules. We play until our backs break, or you don’t get dinner after.”
“She pulled the ‘my band’,” Puck groans, head lolling back against the back of the couch. “I fucking hate ‘my band.’”
“Is it your band?” Santana presses sweetly, trailing around behind the sorry excuse for furniture and grasping a handful of his mohawk. He yelps. “Thought so. Getting a little long in the back there, you want me to trim it up?”
“You’re not coming near my fucking head with a razor, bitch.” He folds his shoulders up, deflecting the next slap she aims.
“Like I’d want to risk the lice.” She glances at the clunky watch on her right wrist. “Where the fuck is Berry?”
“Don’t ask me,” Finn mumbles. Tina grasps his arms and heaves him up.
“Go. Drum.”
“Shut up,” Puck tacks on helpfully. Finn throws him an immensely dirty look.
“I’m here!” Rachel’s voice rings out seconds before she joins them. “I’m here, I’m so sorry I was late, I had to stay after to tutor the new boy. Sam? You’ve all met Sam, haven’t you?”
“Sam, the dude with the mouth big enough to juggle my balls?” Puck snorts. “Trading up, Berry.”
“Thanks,” the blonde kid trailing behind Rachel replies, hands stuffed into his pockets. “Nice to meet you too.”
Finn’s head jerks up, eyes blazing. “You brought him? To our sacred space? Are you crazy?”
“Sacred-oh, for God’s sake, Finn. We’re not the Justice League.”
“How do you know what the Justice League is?” he demands accusingly. “You hate comic books.”
“Sam lent me some,” she breezes. Quinn’s neck twists uncomfortably, her hawk gaze boring holes into the ceiling. Santana barely contains a jolt of laughter.
“I’m Sam,” the blonde kid says unnecessarily, awkwardly waving one hand. “And I’m-“
“Boning Rachel,” Puck fills in, slapping him on the back. “Impressive, new kid. She’s hot, right?”
Sam’s face goes crimson, the tips of his ears flickering white-hot against his too-long hair. “What? No. I’m not-boning anyone. I mean. Yeah, she kind of tried to kiss me-“
“You did what?” Finn and Quinn snarl in unison. Now Santana does laugh, slumping against Tina’s dad’s workbench. Rachel lets out a miffed little huff.
“For your information, it was simply a test. And Sam passed with flying colors.”
“A test kiss,” Quinn repeats witheringly. Her fingers are white-knuckled against the strings of her bass. Santana mentally prays she’ll at least exercise the count-to-ten protocol before smashing New Boy’s head in with the only instrument she owns.
“Yes,” Rachel replies, meeting her gaze effortlessly. “Sam, explain.”
His head rolls heavenward, eyes jamming shut. “I’m-Rachel though that I was-and I am-“
“Sam’s gay,” she finishes for him, trotting to the microphone in the center of the room and dialing it carefully down her to ridiculously miniature height. Finn’s mouth gapes open.
“He’s gay?”
“I was thinking we might introduce him to your brother,” she goes on, thoroughly ignoring the way Quinn is also staring with a slack jaw. “Kurt’s an exceptional singer in his own right, Sam, although admittedly not fitting to a band such are this. I think you’d like him.”
“Which has nothing to do with him being the only out dude in the school,” Santana intones wryly, jacking her Gibson into the nearest amp and fiddling with the volume. “Jesus, Berry, you’re a piece of work.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment, whether you intended it that way or not,” Rachel sniffs. “Are we going to practice, or not? I’ve got homework.”
Puck grins, slapping Sam again on the back. “Good shit. Hey, bro, lemme know if you wanna run another…test before hookin’ up with Hummel. I’m up.”
Sam’s eyes grow large. Santana snorts into her own microphone, slamming out the first chord in their playlist.
“You fuckers are impossible.”
The week drags its feet, agonizing in its slow, steady parade of lectures and in-class essays, but finally Friday arrives. McLeary’s is packed, as ever, its tables full of wayward community college students and off-at-fivers downing pints like life itself relies on the existence of a steady buzz. Santana adjusts an amp, her blood thrilling at the promise of another fucking awesome show.
“I love this shit,” she tells Tina, nudging her with one overexcited hand. She stumbles, rubbing her arm.
“Me too, but maybe it’d be good if you wouldn’t push me off the stage until at least halftime?”
“The hair’s still good?” Quinn demands, running her fingers through and shaking her head. “I’m thinking maybe I should’ve gone with blue.”
“To match your lame depresso demeanor?” Santana quips. “The pink’s smokin’. Go fucking play, will you?”
“I just-maybe blue would have been…” She trails off, eyes distant. Santana groans.
“Fucking ask her, man. Fucking ask her out. After the show. Just down a goddamn shot and do it.”
(The brilliant thing about McLeary’s is the owner’s blatant disregard for age-appropriate behavior. A few poorly made IDs have gained them all manner of free drinks since they started playing here; McLeary doesn’t give a shit how old they are as long as their music keeps bringing in the clientele.)
“I’m not going to-“ Quinn stops, shaking her head. “Whatever.”
“If you don’t, I swear to God, we’re all gonna tell her,” Santana warns. “At the same time. We’ll make a chart.”
“Fuck off.” Quinn moves off toward the other end of the stage, hands busying themselves with her bass so, Santana assumes, she doesn't rip out her bright pink locks in anxiety.
Puck dances over, hips gyrating to the tune of clinking glass and roaring conversation. “I’m pumped, man. Fuckin’ ready. You fuckin’ ready?”
“Born fuckin’ ready,” Santana replies automatically. It’s the truest answer she knows, the one she’s given in return at every single gig. This moment-and every one like it-has been in the making since she was six years old.
Sound check goes smoothly, and before she can blink, they’re rolling into their first song. A Rachel-penned bit about overbearing parents and possessive boyfriends. It’s a crowd pleaser, the kind of song whose every beat exists to get the listener out of their chair and onto the floor. Works every time.
Santana spends a few seconds scanning the crowd, catching a glimpse of a few familiar faces. Plenty of anticipation here tonight, she can sense. Sam is at the edge of the stage, playing “tour manager” with a huge, sloppy smile on his face. Around him are a bundle of regulars, most of them the proud owners of fake IDs just like hers, banging their heads and rolling their hips. She sees a seemingly-boneless Asian kid pop ‘n lock, his eyes rooted to Tina. Another stalker to add to the list. Rock the fuck on.
The people bleed together quickly enough, and Santana sinks into the real reason she’s doing this in the first place. The free booze and the adoring public are great, no doubt; who gets that kind of presence in small-town high school Ohio? But the thing she’s here for, the reason she hauled Puck into that classroom so many years ago and got this ball rolling, is the music. The pop and click, the drive and rhythm; the way Finn’s forehead drips with sweat as he manic-spazzes his way through a killer drum solo, or the way Quinn’s nose scrunches in concentration as she beats a hasty path through a richochet-madness thrumming. Puck toes the edge of the stage and belts out the lyrics to a song he wrote in the dead of night after his father left, Tina points with one hand at him, proud as a parent, and Rachel shrills out notes no human should be able to reach. They are gods up here, the pinnacle of power and art, and Santana is responsible for it all. Santana, whose fingers ache as they zip up and down the fretboard, her hair falling across her forehead as her shoulders bend into the raging music, her head empty but for the feeling of this.
It’s beautiful, she thinks as she riffs through the finale to their third song. Beautiful and golden and heroic. This is their epic, their very reason for being.
They take ten, arms trembling with exertion, shirts damp with sweat. Puck flings an arm around Rachel’s shoulders and smacks a loud kiss against her lips, laughing when she pushes him off and twists immediately to where even Quinn is forgetting to grind her teeth. Santana chugs from a bottle of water, feeling fluorescent with unspeakable glee.
She’s about to pick her guitar back up when something catches her eye, a darting movement to the left. Her head turns, and there, seated on the edge of the stage with long legs swinging, is her.
They’ve got plenty of regulars who trail their flyers and online listings, attending as many gigs as possible, but no fan has been as resiliant or as drop-dead gorgeous as this one. Blonde hair free-flowing around loose shoulders, the girl must be a year or so older than them-Santana sure as hell hasn’t seen her around school-and has the most dazzling smile this world over. She’s bearing it now, hands grasping the edge of the stage, skirt riding up fabulously toned legs. Santana feels her head spin, her face cracking with a grin of her own.
“Hey,” she calls over the reckless cheering coming from the floor. The girl nods, fingers crooking for Santana to come closer.
“Great show,” the girl says when she does, kneeling on hot wooden floorboards. “You know you’re my favorite band.”
It’s not a question. Santana licks her lips.
“Yeah? We better fuckin’ be. Nobody better for miles around.”
“Nobody better, period,” the girl replies, eyes dancing. Santana beams, thrilling all over with pride.
“You come often?” she asks, ignoring the way Puck is flicking quarters at her back in an effort to get the second half going. The girl never breaks eye contact.
“Often as I can.”
Santana grins. “You should stick around. After. I’d fuckin’ love to see more of you.”
It’s nowhere near her smoothest line, nor her most subtle, but the girl doesn’t seem to mind. She reaches out, quicker than Santana’s prepared for, and catches hold of her collar, yanking her into a kiss so mind-numbing Santana nearly topples forward when she’s released.
“I’ll be around,” the girl says, and then she’s gone, slipping off the stage and melting back into the teeming crowd below. Head buzzing, Santana jerkily stands and bounces back into place, laughing when Puck slaps her hard on the back.
“Fuckin’ jealous, man,” he brays, already flickering into the first song of the set. Santana pushes him away and leans into her mike, rasping out lyrics Quinn wrote last year after a brief pregnancy scare. The music blisters through her veins all over again, grasping and twirling with the sensation of scorching lips on her own. In the crowd, she can see the girl, arms above her head and spinning with each new drumbeat. For the first time in her life, she’s not sure she wants the music to go on forever-not if that’s what’s waiting for her at the end.
They play through the set, and then an encore, and then another. Rachel kills the last song, a silky-smooth bit that shouldn’t fit with their repertoire, but somehow does. Quinn, laying her bass aside, husks out the choruses while Tina sways above her keys. The crowd-drunken, wild, probably half-deaf by now-loves it.
It’s nothing, Santana knows, in comparison to bigger towns and wider venues. This crowd is downright puny when lined up with what they might get in San Diego, or New York, or Detroit. But here, for what they’ve got to work with, they are making a damn killing-and as far as she can see, nothing else matters.
Nothing except those bright blue eyes and the smile that promised so much more.
She bundles up her equipment as quickly as possible and vaults off the stage. The blonde is leaning against the bar, eyes bright. Santana offers her hand.
“Hey again.”
“Brittany,” the girl replies, laughing with Santana opens her mouth to reciprocate. “I know who you are. Lifetime member of the fan club, remember?”
Santana grins back, a little sheepishly. “Fuck, right. Absolutely.”
“Great show,” Brittany repeats again. “Best yet, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Santana agrees. Her hand slips across the bar, fingers tracing patterns across Brittany’s knuckles. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Brittany bends her wrist, tangling her fingers through Santana’s and pulling her an inch closer. “Nice to finally meet you. You know how hard it is to get your attention?”
“Not that hard,” Santana argues. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you.”
“First time you’ve done anything about it,” Brittany points out. Her index finger traces the tattoo stamped into the inside of Santana’s wrist, black ink under her leather watch. “You uninterested, or figured you could afford to wait?”
“Not uninterested,” Santana blurts, almost too fast to be considered cool. “Very interested. Very.”
The girl laughs, shifting closer. Her hips press tantalizing against Santana’s, then drift away again as though she’s dancing. “How interested is very?”
“I could show you,” Santana offers, laying a palm against one defined hipbone and pulling the girl in again. The air between them seems to sizzle as they stand, pelvis-to-pelvis in a crowded bar. “Maybe this isn’t really the place, though.”
“Maybe,” Brittany answers lazily, her hips canting forward deliberately. Santana’s breath catches.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” she manages, relishing the weight of Brittany’s breath on her skin as her head angles down.
“Maybe,” Brittany replies, blowing out a cool stream of air against Santana’s neck. She shivers.
“Maybe right fucking now would be good.”
Brittany’s arms reach around, her hands planting directly over the back pockets of Santana’s tight jeans. She yanks, slamming their bodies together hard enough to elicit a very un-rock-star whimper. “Lead the way.”
Santana spins on her heel, hand firmly wrapped around one thin wrist, and fairly drags Brittany in the direction of the bathrooms. Not the ideal place for a first round with a goddess, she reasons, but better than the back alley. At least if anyone tries to throw the lock here, they aren’t likely to be homeless and male.
She barrels past Quinn and Rachel, who seem intent upon devouring each other whole right up against the stage, and Sam, whose eyes are rolling back into his head as Puck, glass in one hand, sucks on the side of his neck. Brittany laughs, carefree and musical.
“Everybody’s getting lucky tonight.”
“Perk of the band,” Santana replies, grinning. “Music’s a fuckin’ aphrodisiac, babe.”
Brittany’s eyebrows twitch in confusion, her head shaking. “Whatever you say.”
They push into the bathroom, Santana slamming the door shut and pressing Brittany’s long, limber body against it. Brittany grins, brushing their noses lazily together and shaking her hair back.
“You’re the hottest one, you know,” she says softly, lips grazing Santana’s. “In the whole band. Hottest one there.”
“I know,” Santana replies, smirking. Brittany’s hand is curving under her shirt hem, drifting up and down the base of her spine. She presses in closer, hips seeking friction.
“Good,” Brittany says, kissing her once and moving lower. She drapes fluttering breaths across Santana’s jawline, her tongue sneaking out to taste salty skin here and there. Santana slides her own hands up and down slim shoulders, tracing the stitching in the button-down shirt.
“This is nice,” she observes, fingers sliding down the front, bouncing off each hard button. “Very classy for a gig.”
“Easy access,” Brittany whispers even as Santana pops the first button loose. Her hips gyrate, pushing insistently against Santana’s. “You’re slow.”
“Can go faster,” Santana answers in hiss, fumbling with the next button. Brittany leans back, grinning maddeningly.
“Might be a good idea.”
She tastes the kiss before she feels it, lips at once numb and feverish as Brittany yanks her in, fingers restlessly combing through long dark hair. She feels the nails against her scalp, drinks in the manic energy of Brittany’s tongue as it dances and bobs against her own, sucking and licking and demanding every inch of her to reciprocate. The buttons go quick, the shirt pushed open to reveal no bra and a long line of toned stomach; Santana groans into Brittany’s mouth, fingers tracing soft skin and hard nipples as her whole body bucks forward.
“Better,” Brittany pants, claiming her with a kiss so searing, her hands momentarily freeze against perfect breasts. She feels fingers sneaking into her belt loops, dragging her forward and pushing her away again, and she pushes in return, pinning Brittany relentlessly against the door. Mouth open, tongue stroking deep, she catches hold of sharp hips and grinds slowly, deliberately, until Brittany is making the kind of desperate panting sounds that come from sheer need. Still, she continues, rocking her hips in small, feverish motions, trying to push aside the skirt and the jeans, trying to sink inside of this girl whose hands are clawing at her ass to drag her in closer.
“More,” she pants, fingers catching on the skirt. Brittany fumbles with her zipper with one hand, the other fisting in Santana’s hair. One long leg comes up around her hips, and then the other, until she is propping the entirity of this perfect girl’s perfect body against the door. Skirt bunched around Brittany’s waist, she rocks against soaked underwear, moaning when Brittany bites down on her lip and sucks.
Her hand sneaks between them, pressing against the front of Brittany’s ruined underwear; blonde hair slams back against the door, her legs dropping clumsily back to the floor and spreading wide as Santana experimentally strokes up and down against barely contained heat. Brittany nods as Santana kisses her, nods when Santana’s right hand cups one breast and squeezes roughly, nods when Santana’s left comes down beneath her waistband and touches wet, warm skin. She fumbles with one hand at Santana’s open jeans, forcing past skintight denim and widening her eyes when she finds no further barrier. Santana grins.
“Rock star,” she manages before fingers flick against her clit, rolling in quick circles that make her eyes jerk shut. Holding herself together with every remaining stitch of energy, she pushes a finger inside, following with a second and thrusting until Brittany’s hips jump, until her hand repeats the action inside of Santana. They move in time, mouths colliding and separating, drawing a chorus of begging moans that make Santana all the wetter. Brittany gasps, Yes, and she hears herself respond with, Fuckbabymore, and all the while she can feel herself growing slicker and hotter and tighter and-
Brittany’s teeth come down on her shoulder, her hips jerking and driving Santana even deeper as she muffles her cries. Her fingers inadvertantly spasm, and Santana’s hips press down, coaxing her to keep going, oh God, don’t stop, don’t fucking-and when she comes, it’s with the beat, the music in her head that never stops, her body shuddering and twisting to wring every last drop of orgasm.
She collapses forward, pinning Brittany further and defying the desire to slide to the floor. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Brittany makes a low sound of agreement, her hand still trapped between skin and jeans. Santana squeaks when she pulls free at last, her fingers glistening as she flexes them and grins.
“Total rock star,” she says cheerfully, drawing in a deep breath that makes her breasts heave under the perspiration-soaked white shirt. Santana stares unabashedly, body thrumming with pleasure.
“Damn right, I am.”
“Best first date ever, huh?” Brittany asks, wiping her hand on her thigh. Santana resists the urge to sink to her knees and lick her clean, her mind swirling around the word date with a frenzied joy.
“I’d say so,” she admits at last, leaning in to kiss Brittany slowly, sweetly. “Fuck, you’re incredible.”
“So? What do you think?” Brittany strikes a pose, eyes smoldering even as her smile gleams. “Biggest fan yet?”
Santana grins, nudging her forehead against matted blonde hair. “Safe bet, yeah. Fuck, yeah.”
This whole thing-the band, the music, being a rock star-isn’t about the drugs, or the booze, or the girls. It never has been. It’s about the thrill, the bloodstream-hot viral madness of it all, the fact that she doesn’t think she could stop if she tried. It’s about Quinn’s need to be herself, Rachel’s need to sing to the rafters, Finn’s irrevocable beats, Puck’s leering, fret-smashing lust, Tina’s craving to always exceed expectation. It’s about playing until your fingers bleed, singing until your throat is raw, dancing around and around until the world explodes in adoring applause. It isn’t about something so simple as girls.
But, fuck-that’s still a goddamn impressive side effect.
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce; side Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry; mentioned Finn Hudson/Rachel Berry, Noah Puckerman/Tina Cohen-Chang, Noah Puckerman/Rachel Berry, Noah Puckerman/Sam Evans
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Being a rock star is a goddamn life choice.
A/N: Title from Metric’s “Gimme Sympathy.”
Being a rock star isn’t a thought, or a whim, or a dream; it’s a goddamn life choice, and it’s one Santana made in the first grade. Standing on her desk with her arms spread wide and a pair of headphones clamped over her ears, drumming against the air with both tiny fists and belting the lyrics to “I Wanna Know What Love Is”-that was the peak moment, the one in which everything in her world coalesced into a very real truth.
Music is life. Life is made to be rocked. Santana Lopez will rock until the day she dies.
So what if Mrs. Kahler sent her to the principal’s office for severe behavior problems every day that week?
Rock stars get everything in life, Santana knows, and it isn’t about what everybody thinks. All those stupid movies that talk about the drugs and the booze and the girls-although, okay, the girls part is pretty essential-are wrong. Rock stars are about more than that. Rocking itself is about the music between your ears, the thrum and hum that zips through your bones until everything feels full and vibrant again. The sheer chaos of moving without choice, acting without thought, all to the beat of something you made happen.
Rocking is a way of life, and she fucking owns it.
At six, she picked up a pair of drumsticks and never looked back. At eight, her father warmly pressed a Gibson against her scrawny chest and intoned, “Practice.” At twelve, her mother wrung her hands together over the secondhand piano in their living room and prayed her daughter would come away with something a little more classy.
If “class” can be defined as “’Crocodile Rock’ at one A.M.,” Santana knows her mama got that part right.
She’s the best, the tank, the rock star to end McKinley’s entire lame little district, but the best rockers don’t do it alone. They need others to back them up, make them look even more badass than they already are, and Santana knows it. Even one-man artists tour with bands.
In eighth grade, she grabbed Noah Puckerman by the collar. Dragged him into an abandoned classroom, threw him into a chair, pointed a finger in his face, and growled, “Instruments?”
Noah, eyes wide and hair unnervingly curly, shrugged with as much carelessness as he could muster. “Can wail the fuck out of a gui-tar.”
“One,” Santana replied, glaring, “never call it that again. Two: you want in?”
“To your pants?” he tried, a nervous grin teasing across his pimpled face. Santana’s hand met the back of his head with brutal swiftness. “Ow. Motherfucker, Lopez. What?”
“Band,” she said briskly. “You, me. Few others. Take it or leave it.”
He took, because anyone with a brain takes an offer like that. At thirteen, Santana rocked the shit out of that school, and everyone knew it. Even super-Jewish, mama’s-boy Puckerman.
“And lose the mop-top,” she cast over her shoulder as she left. “It’s fucking nauseating.”
Three days later, Noah Puckerman had a stream-lined mohawk cradling his skull, a new line of skin care products spanning his bathroom counter, and a guitar strapped across his back. Easy as that.
Santana spent the week collecting other members for their rock outfit. The quiet Asian at the back of her algebra class came along anxiously, mostly because she figured Santana would beat the living snot out of her if she didn’t, but also because Santana caught her singing in a high, clear voice in the girl’s bathroom. The new girl down the street came, too, all beautiful blond hair and wildly darting eyes, like she had a secret she was dying to keep at any cost. Santana figured secrets make pre-existing badassery even better. Every Behind the Music’s littered with broken promises and well-measured lies.
A mohawked guitarist, a keyboard-rocking Asian with a slowly emerging Goth streak, and a bassist with an eyebrow that could kill a man. It was a hell of a start, if nothing else.
They played. In Puckerman’s cramped apartment, Tina’s garage, Quinn Fabray’s daddy’s-little-princess bedroom, music scaled the walls and begged to be let out. Week after week, Santana watched her little faction grow stronger, hardier, more desperate for the lights and smoke wafting from a streamlined stage. At thirteen, they began.
By fifteen, they were playing gigs on a weekend-to-weekend basis, jamming out in coffee shops, and somewhat sketchy bar venues. Santana singing lead, Quinn tuning her bass without a word to anyone, Puck scamming on chicks only to slink back and slip an arm around Tina’s tiny waist-it worked. Didn’t take long for the groupies to start rising up from their bar stools to rail at the foot of each stage with pumping fists and alcohol-stained breath. For small-town Ohio, this was gold.
At sixteen, they auditioned an extra drummer in the form of Finn Hudson, a gangly, goof-grinned moron with a killer beat. Three months later, his girlfriend tried out, too.
Rachel fucking Berry was the least attractive, appealing, tolerable human on planet Earth, but Santana had to admit the hobbit could sing. And not just sing, but sing, her voice stretching toward the rafters on soaring wings that could not, at any cost, be contained. More than that, she was a hell of a songwriter. To turn her away would have been criminal.
So Santana maybe made her audition no less than twelve times. What’s a little fun between bandmates?
And now, at seventeen, in their final year at the humdrumsville school they’ve called home for the last four fuckin’ years, they stand. Puck and his battered acoustic; Quinn and the bass she plays for hours on end; Tina and her soft, sweet voice; Finn and his can’t stop, won’t stop ticking on every solid surface; Rachel, toting God’s vocal chords under that obnoxious layer of skin. And Santana-the frontman, the one who made it all happen. The rock star.
They are unstoppable.
“We got a gig Friday night,” Puck announces as he careens into the Cohen-Chang garage on a bike better suited to a class-A hobo. “McLeary’s. We keep bringing in the crowds, this might be a steady deal.”
“I got a history test Friday,” Finn replies mournfully, rubbing his head with both manic hands. “If I don’t pass, I’m cooked.”
“You’ll pass, Finn,” Tina assures him. “I’ll help you study again. Puck?”
“No fuckin’ way, babe.” Letting the bike crash against the cement floor, he sweeps over to drop a kiss against her black-and-pink hair. “Not dealing with the fallout of Gigantor’s frustration again.”
“I said I was sorry,” Finn grumbles, regretting for several reasons the time he hurled his favorite lamp at Puck’s smirking face. Tina pats his arm.
“We’ve got it covered. No worries.”
“Besides,” Santana returns, barely looking up from tuning her Gibson to where they’re sprawled on the old stained couch, “this isn’t exactly school-sponsored, Frankenteen. Not gonna boot you on your oversized ass if you flunk out.”
“He’s not going to flunk,” Tina fires back. Santana grins, congratulating herself as she so often does on transforming the stuttering, stumbling girl into a fiery artist. The band’s done wonders for all of them, no doubt about it.
Quinn is staring into the cracked mirror mounted on the soda fridge, adjusting her newly-neon bangs. “You think this works? Should I go darker?”
“Nah, man, you and Lucy Liu match now. It’s sexy.” Puck wiggles his eyebrows, forks his tongue in the direction of her ass. She flips him the bird without looking away from her reflection.
“Mention the fucking threesome idea again, and I am cutting off your junk in the night.”
He waves his hands, head shaking. “Fuck, no. I ask anybody, it’s gonna be Berry. You see the new skirt she picked out last week? Fucking fine.”
Finn slugs him in the arm, doing his best to arrange his dopey features into an expression of rage and failing. Rachel’s decision to break his Texas-sized heart (again; it’s the third time they’ve split in two years) was a temporary setback to the execution of unity they’ve been upholding since day one, but Santana has to admit she’s kind of impressed with how relatively minor the explosion has been. Aside from a few crying fits (Finn), chair kicking incidents (also Finn), and irritated huffing (Rachel, when Finn dropped face-first against his drum kit and wailed like a newborn), things have been fairly smooth.
When he finds out Rachel dumped him mostly so she could continue licking her lips in Quinn’s direction without guilt, it might not be so awesome. Santana resolves to deal with that when the time comes, and not a second before.
“I like it,” Tina tells Quinn cheerfully. “It suits you. You know, I never really thought the blonde did.”
“Yeah, Fabray,” Santana chimes in, tone dripping with amusement. “Wonder why that was?”
Quinn fires her the kind of look generally reserved for Nazi-grade war criminals. “Eat me, Lopez.”
“Time and place, babycakes.” She flicks her tongue between her fingers, laughing when Quinn’s expression grows ever more disgusted. It’s almost as if they didn’t throw down under the bleachers last year, Quinn whimper-gasping and scratching long, desperate marks under Santana’s tattered Zepplin tee.
Ah well. Things pass, Santana knows; it’s just the way of rock. The hook-up levels are always through the goddamn roof in a solid band. Especially when that band includes the likes of Puckerman.
“I’m just saying,” he’s explaining now, “if Berry’s free, I’d like another go-round. Jew-a-Jew, you know what I mean?”
Finn’s fist flashes again, faster than before. Puck howls.
“Fuck off, bro, it’s a goddamn compliment! You’ve got banging taste!”
Apparently, Finn still hasn’t gotten over the time he walked in on Puck pinning his (once again ex-, as they were on a break of his own doing at that point) girlfriend against the bathroom wall, his bare ass gleaming in the shoddy fluorescent light as he rocked his hips under her plaid skirt. It’s a sad fact of life that Finn Hudson is the master of poor decisions and grudge-holding, and that Noah Puckerman will forever hold both against him.
“Will you two knock it off?” Quinn growls. “She’ll be here soon, and we need to get to rehearsal if we’re gonna be primed for Friday.”
“We’re always primed.” Puck rolls his eyes, letting a hand creep steadily up Tina’s thigh. She smacks him away with a smirk.
“Same songs for two months,” Finn agrees in a mumble, his head hanging miserably between his knees. “Could play ‘em in my sleep.”
“Thought you did,” Santana snips. He raises a dejected hand, fingers folded apart from one. She snorts. “You’re fucking pathetic, Hudson. Get your shit together, will you? We’ll find you a babe.”
“Don’t want a babe,” his muffled voice crawls out from against his jeans. “Want Rachel.”
“Well, you can’t have her,” Quinn retorts irritably. Puck laughs.
“Plenty of pussy in this town, bro. You can fuck your way through ‘em until you get the taste of Matzo out of your mouth.”
“Exceedingly racist,” Tina reminds him with a sigh. He slings an arm around her shoulders and nuzzles against her neck, nipping at a fading hickey.
“Not racist if the dude in question is rocking the Star.”
“Still racist,” she argues, playfully shoving him away. “Just a little more bizarre.”
“Rehearsal,” Quinn snaps again. Santana stands, pushing her hair back over one ear.
“For once, Pink knows what’s up. My band, my rules. We play until our backs break, or you don’t get dinner after.”
“She pulled the ‘my band’,” Puck groans, head lolling back against the back of the couch. “I fucking hate ‘my band.’”
“Is it your band?” Santana presses sweetly, trailing around behind the sorry excuse for furniture and grasping a handful of his mohawk. He yelps. “Thought so. Getting a little long in the back there, you want me to trim it up?”
“You’re not coming near my fucking head with a razor, bitch.” He folds his shoulders up, deflecting the next slap she aims.
“Like I’d want to risk the lice.” She glances at the clunky watch on her right wrist. “Where the fuck is Berry?”
“Don’t ask me,” Finn mumbles. Tina grasps his arms and heaves him up.
“Go. Drum.”
“Shut up,” Puck tacks on helpfully. Finn throws him an immensely dirty look.
“I’m here!” Rachel’s voice rings out seconds before she joins them. “I’m here, I’m so sorry I was late, I had to stay after to tutor the new boy. Sam? You’ve all met Sam, haven’t you?”
“Sam, the dude with the mouth big enough to juggle my balls?” Puck snorts. “Trading up, Berry.”
“Thanks,” the blonde kid trailing behind Rachel replies, hands stuffed into his pockets. “Nice to meet you too.”
Finn’s head jerks up, eyes blazing. “You brought him? To our sacred space? Are you crazy?”
“Sacred-oh, for God’s sake, Finn. We’re not the Justice League.”
“How do you know what the Justice League is?” he demands accusingly. “You hate comic books.”
“Sam lent me some,” she breezes. Quinn’s neck twists uncomfortably, her hawk gaze boring holes into the ceiling. Santana barely contains a jolt of laughter.
“I’m Sam,” the blonde kid says unnecessarily, awkwardly waving one hand. “And I’m-“
“Boning Rachel,” Puck fills in, slapping him on the back. “Impressive, new kid. She’s hot, right?”
Sam’s face goes crimson, the tips of his ears flickering white-hot against his too-long hair. “What? No. I’m not-boning anyone. I mean. Yeah, she kind of tried to kiss me-“
“You did what?” Finn and Quinn snarl in unison. Now Santana does laugh, slumping against Tina’s dad’s workbench. Rachel lets out a miffed little huff.
“For your information, it was simply a test. And Sam passed with flying colors.”
“A test kiss,” Quinn repeats witheringly. Her fingers are white-knuckled against the strings of her bass. Santana mentally prays she’ll at least exercise the count-to-ten protocol before smashing New Boy’s head in with the only instrument she owns.
“Yes,” Rachel replies, meeting her gaze effortlessly. “Sam, explain.”
His head rolls heavenward, eyes jamming shut. “I’m-Rachel though that I was-and I am-“
“Sam’s gay,” she finishes for him, trotting to the microphone in the center of the room and dialing it carefully down her to ridiculously miniature height. Finn’s mouth gapes open.
“He’s gay?”
“I was thinking we might introduce him to your brother,” she goes on, thoroughly ignoring the way Quinn is also staring with a slack jaw. “Kurt’s an exceptional singer in his own right, Sam, although admittedly not fitting to a band such are this. I think you’d like him.”
“Which has nothing to do with him being the only out dude in the school,” Santana intones wryly, jacking her Gibson into the nearest amp and fiddling with the volume. “Jesus, Berry, you’re a piece of work.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment, whether you intended it that way or not,” Rachel sniffs. “Are we going to practice, or not? I’ve got homework.”
Puck grins, slapping Sam again on the back. “Good shit. Hey, bro, lemme know if you wanna run another…test before hookin’ up with Hummel. I’m up.”
Sam’s eyes grow large. Santana snorts into her own microphone, slamming out the first chord in their playlist.
“You fuckers are impossible.”
The week drags its feet, agonizing in its slow, steady parade of lectures and in-class essays, but finally Friday arrives. McLeary’s is packed, as ever, its tables full of wayward community college students and off-at-fivers downing pints like life itself relies on the existence of a steady buzz. Santana adjusts an amp, her blood thrilling at the promise of another fucking awesome show.
“I love this shit,” she tells Tina, nudging her with one overexcited hand. She stumbles, rubbing her arm.
“Me too, but maybe it’d be good if you wouldn’t push me off the stage until at least halftime?”
“The hair’s still good?” Quinn demands, running her fingers through and shaking her head. “I’m thinking maybe I should’ve gone with blue.”
“To match your lame depresso demeanor?” Santana quips. “The pink’s smokin’. Go fucking play, will you?”
“I just-maybe blue would have been…” She trails off, eyes distant. Santana groans.
“Fucking ask her, man. Fucking ask her out. After the show. Just down a goddamn shot and do it.”
(The brilliant thing about McLeary’s is the owner’s blatant disregard for age-appropriate behavior. A few poorly made IDs have gained them all manner of free drinks since they started playing here; McLeary doesn’t give a shit how old they are as long as their music keeps bringing in the clientele.)
“I’m not going to-“ Quinn stops, shaking her head. “Whatever.”
“If you don’t, I swear to God, we’re all gonna tell her,” Santana warns. “At the same time. We’ll make a chart.”
“Fuck off.” Quinn moves off toward the other end of the stage, hands busying themselves with her bass so, Santana assumes, she doesn't rip out her bright pink locks in anxiety.
Puck dances over, hips gyrating to the tune of clinking glass and roaring conversation. “I’m pumped, man. Fuckin’ ready. You fuckin’ ready?”
“Born fuckin’ ready,” Santana replies automatically. It’s the truest answer she knows, the one she’s given in return at every single gig. This moment-and every one like it-has been in the making since she was six years old.
Sound check goes smoothly, and before she can blink, they’re rolling into their first song. A Rachel-penned bit about overbearing parents and possessive boyfriends. It’s a crowd pleaser, the kind of song whose every beat exists to get the listener out of their chair and onto the floor. Works every time.
Santana spends a few seconds scanning the crowd, catching a glimpse of a few familiar faces. Plenty of anticipation here tonight, she can sense. Sam is at the edge of the stage, playing “tour manager” with a huge, sloppy smile on his face. Around him are a bundle of regulars, most of them the proud owners of fake IDs just like hers, banging their heads and rolling their hips. She sees a seemingly-boneless Asian kid pop ‘n lock, his eyes rooted to Tina. Another stalker to add to the list. Rock the fuck on.
The people bleed together quickly enough, and Santana sinks into the real reason she’s doing this in the first place. The free booze and the adoring public are great, no doubt; who gets that kind of presence in small-town high school Ohio? But the thing she’s here for, the reason she hauled Puck into that classroom so many years ago and got this ball rolling, is the music. The pop and click, the drive and rhythm; the way Finn’s forehead drips with sweat as he manic-spazzes his way through a killer drum solo, or the way Quinn’s nose scrunches in concentration as she beats a hasty path through a richochet-madness thrumming. Puck toes the edge of the stage and belts out the lyrics to a song he wrote in the dead of night after his father left, Tina points with one hand at him, proud as a parent, and Rachel shrills out notes no human should be able to reach. They are gods up here, the pinnacle of power and art, and Santana is responsible for it all. Santana, whose fingers ache as they zip up and down the fretboard, her hair falling across her forehead as her shoulders bend into the raging music, her head empty but for the feeling of this.
It’s beautiful, she thinks as she riffs through the finale to their third song. Beautiful and golden and heroic. This is their epic, their very reason for being.
They take ten, arms trembling with exertion, shirts damp with sweat. Puck flings an arm around Rachel’s shoulders and smacks a loud kiss against her lips, laughing when she pushes him off and twists immediately to where even Quinn is forgetting to grind her teeth. Santana chugs from a bottle of water, feeling fluorescent with unspeakable glee.
She’s about to pick her guitar back up when something catches her eye, a darting movement to the left. Her head turns, and there, seated on the edge of the stage with long legs swinging, is her.
They’ve got plenty of regulars who trail their flyers and online listings, attending as many gigs as possible, but no fan has been as resiliant or as drop-dead gorgeous as this one. Blonde hair free-flowing around loose shoulders, the girl must be a year or so older than them-Santana sure as hell hasn’t seen her around school-and has the most dazzling smile this world over. She’s bearing it now, hands grasping the edge of the stage, skirt riding up fabulously toned legs. Santana feels her head spin, her face cracking with a grin of her own.
“Hey,” she calls over the reckless cheering coming from the floor. The girl nods, fingers crooking for Santana to come closer.
“Great show,” the girl says when she does, kneeling on hot wooden floorboards. “You know you’re my favorite band.”
It’s not a question. Santana licks her lips.
“Yeah? We better fuckin’ be. Nobody better for miles around.”
“Nobody better, period,” the girl replies, eyes dancing. Santana beams, thrilling all over with pride.
“You come often?” she asks, ignoring the way Puck is flicking quarters at her back in an effort to get the second half going. The girl never breaks eye contact.
“Often as I can.”
Santana grins. “You should stick around. After. I’d fuckin’ love to see more of you.”
It’s nowhere near her smoothest line, nor her most subtle, but the girl doesn’t seem to mind. She reaches out, quicker than Santana’s prepared for, and catches hold of her collar, yanking her into a kiss so mind-numbing Santana nearly topples forward when she’s released.
“I’ll be around,” the girl says, and then she’s gone, slipping off the stage and melting back into the teeming crowd below. Head buzzing, Santana jerkily stands and bounces back into place, laughing when Puck slaps her hard on the back.
“Fuckin’ jealous, man,” he brays, already flickering into the first song of the set. Santana pushes him away and leans into her mike, rasping out lyrics Quinn wrote last year after a brief pregnancy scare. The music blisters through her veins all over again, grasping and twirling with the sensation of scorching lips on her own. In the crowd, she can see the girl, arms above her head and spinning with each new drumbeat. For the first time in her life, she’s not sure she wants the music to go on forever-not if that’s what’s waiting for her at the end.
They play through the set, and then an encore, and then another. Rachel kills the last song, a silky-smooth bit that shouldn’t fit with their repertoire, but somehow does. Quinn, laying her bass aside, husks out the choruses while Tina sways above her keys. The crowd-drunken, wild, probably half-deaf by now-loves it.
It’s nothing, Santana knows, in comparison to bigger towns and wider venues. This crowd is downright puny when lined up with what they might get in San Diego, or New York, or Detroit. But here, for what they’ve got to work with, they are making a damn killing-and as far as she can see, nothing else matters.
Nothing except those bright blue eyes and the smile that promised so much more.
She bundles up her equipment as quickly as possible and vaults off the stage. The blonde is leaning against the bar, eyes bright. Santana offers her hand.
“Hey again.”
“Brittany,” the girl replies, laughing with Santana opens her mouth to reciprocate. “I know who you are. Lifetime member of the fan club, remember?”
Santana grins back, a little sheepishly. “Fuck, right. Absolutely.”
“Great show,” Brittany repeats again. “Best yet, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Santana agrees. Her hand slips across the bar, fingers tracing patterns across Brittany’s knuckles. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Brittany bends her wrist, tangling her fingers through Santana’s and pulling her an inch closer. “Nice to finally meet you. You know how hard it is to get your attention?”
“Not that hard,” Santana argues. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you.”
“First time you’ve done anything about it,” Brittany points out. Her index finger traces the tattoo stamped into the inside of Santana’s wrist, black ink under her leather watch. “You uninterested, or figured you could afford to wait?”
“Not uninterested,” Santana blurts, almost too fast to be considered cool. “Very interested. Very.”
The girl laughs, shifting closer. Her hips press tantalizing against Santana’s, then drift away again as though she’s dancing. “How interested is very?”
“I could show you,” Santana offers, laying a palm against one defined hipbone and pulling the girl in again. The air between them seems to sizzle as they stand, pelvis-to-pelvis in a crowded bar. “Maybe this isn’t really the place, though.”
“Maybe,” Brittany answers lazily, her hips canting forward deliberately. Santana’s breath catches.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” she manages, relishing the weight of Brittany’s breath on her skin as her head angles down.
“Maybe,” Brittany replies, blowing out a cool stream of air against Santana’s neck. She shivers.
“Maybe right fucking now would be good.”
Brittany’s arms reach around, her hands planting directly over the back pockets of Santana’s tight jeans. She yanks, slamming their bodies together hard enough to elicit a very un-rock-star whimper. “Lead the way.”
Santana spins on her heel, hand firmly wrapped around one thin wrist, and fairly drags Brittany in the direction of the bathrooms. Not the ideal place for a first round with a goddess, she reasons, but better than the back alley. At least if anyone tries to throw the lock here, they aren’t likely to be homeless and male.
She barrels past Quinn and Rachel, who seem intent upon devouring each other whole right up against the stage, and Sam, whose eyes are rolling back into his head as Puck, glass in one hand, sucks on the side of his neck. Brittany laughs, carefree and musical.
“Everybody’s getting lucky tonight.”
“Perk of the band,” Santana replies, grinning. “Music’s a fuckin’ aphrodisiac, babe.”
Brittany’s eyebrows twitch in confusion, her head shaking. “Whatever you say.”
They push into the bathroom, Santana slamming the door shut and pressing Brittany’s long, limber body against it. Brittany grins, brushing their noses lazily together and shaking her hair back.
“You’re the hottest one, you know,” she says softly, lips grazing Santana’s. “In the whole band. Hottest one there.”
“I know,” Santana replies, smirking. Brittany’s hand is curving under her shirt hem, drifting up and down the base of her spine. She presses in closer, hips seeking friction.
“Good,” Brittany says, kissing her once and moving lower. She drapes fluttering breaths across Santana’s jawline, her tongue sneaking out to taste salty skin here and there. Santana slides her own hands up and down slim shoulders, tracing the stitching in the button-down shirt.
“This is nice,” she observes, fingers sliding down the front, bouncing off each hard button. “Very classy for a gig.”
“Easy access,” Brittany whispers even as Santana pops the first button loose. Her hips gyrate, pushing insistently against Santana’s. “You’re slow.”
“Can go faster,” Santana answers in hiss, fumbling with the next button. Brittany leans back, grinning maddeningly.
“Might be a good idea.”
She tastes the kiss before she feels it, lips at once numb and feverish as Brittany yanks her in, fingers restlessly combing through long dark hair. She feels the nails against her scalp, drinks in the manic energy of Brittany’s tongue as it dances and bobs against her own, sucking and licking and demanding every inch of her to reciprocate. The buttons go quick, the shirt pushed open to reveal no bra and a long line of toned stomach; Santana groans into Brittany’s mouth, fingers tracing soft skin and hard nipples as her whole body bucks forward.
“Better,” Brittany pants, claiming her with a kiss so searing, her hands momentarily freeze against perfect breasts. She feels fingers sneaking into her belt loops, dragging her forward and pushing her away again, and she pushes in return, pinning Brittany relentlessly against the door. Mouth open, tongue stroking deep, she catches hold of sharp hips and grinds slowly, deliberately, until Brittany is making the kind of desperate panting sounds that come from sheer need. Still, she continues, rocking her hips in small, feverish motions, trying to push aside the skirt and the jeans, trying to sink inside of this girl whose hands are clawing at her ass to drag her in closer.
“More,” she pants, fingers catching on the skirt. Brittany fumbles with her zipper with one hand, the other fisting in Santana’s hair. One long leg comes up around her hips, and then the other, until she is propping the entirity of this perfect girl’s perfect body against the door. Skirt bunched around Brittany’s waist, she rocks against soaked underwear, moaning when Brittany bites down on her lip and sucks.
Her hand sneaks between them, pressing against the front of Brittany’s ruined underwear; blonde hair slams back against the door, her legs dropping clumsily back to the floor and spreading wide as Santana experimentally strokes up and down against barely contained heat. Brittany nods as Santana kisses her, nods when Santana’s right hand cups one breast and squeezes roughly, nods when Santana’s left comes down beneath her waistband and touches wet, warm skin. She fumbles with one hand at Santana’s open jeans, forcing past skintight denim and widening her eyes when she finds no further barrier. Santana grins.
“Rock star,” she manages before fingers flick against her clit, rolling in quick circles that make her eyes jerk shut. Holding herself together with every remaining stitch of energy, she pushes a finger inside, following with a second and thrusting until Brittany’s hips jump, until her hand repeats the action inside of Santana. They move in time, mouths colliding and separating, drawing a chorus of begging moans that make Santana all the wetter. Brittany gasps, Yes, and she hears herself respond with, Fuckbabymore, and all the while she can feel herself growing slicker and hotter and tighter and-
Brittany’s teeth come down on her shoulder, her hips jerking and driving Santana even deeper as she muffles her cries. Her fingers inadvertantly spasm, and Santana’s hips press down, coaxing her to keep going, oh God, don’t stop, don’t fucking-and when she comes, it’s with the beat, the music in her head that never stops, her body shuddering and twisting to wring every last drop of orgasm.
She collapses forward, pinning Brittany further and defying the desire to slide to the floor. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Brittany makes a low sound of agreement, her hand still trapped between skin and jeans. Santana squeaks when she pulls free at last, her fingers glistening as she flexes them and grins.
“Total rock star,” she says cheerfully, drawing in a deep breath that makes her breasts heave under the perspiration-soaked white shirt. Santana stares unabashedly, body thrumming with pleasure.
“Damn right, I am.”
“Best first date ever, huh?” Brittany asks, wiping her hand on her thigh. Santana resists the urge to sink to her knees and lick her clean, her mind swirling around the word date with a frenzied joy.
“I’d say so,” she admits at last, leaning in to kiss Brittany slowly, sweetly. “Fuck, you’re incredible.”
“So? What do you think?” Brittany strikes a pose, eyes smoldering even as her smile gleams. “Biggest fan yet?”
Santana grins, nudging her forehead against matted blonde hair. “Safe bet, yeah. Fuck, yeah.”
This whole thing-the band, the music, being a rock star-isn’t about the drugs, or the booze, or the girls. It never has been. It’s about the thrill, the bloodstream-hot viral madness of it all, the fact that she doesn’t think she could stop if she tried. It’s about Quinn’s need to be herself, Rachel’s need to sing to the rafters, Finn’s irrevocable beats, Puck’s leering, fret-smashing lust, Tina’s craving to always exceed expectation. It’s about playing until your fingers bleed, singing until your throat is raw, dancing around and around until the world explodes in adoring applause. It isn’t about something so simple as girls.
But, fuck-that’s still a goddamn impressive side effect.