fic: You Know Very Well (Who You Are)
TITLE 
You Know Very Well (Who You Are)
CHARACTERS: Mike Chang/Santana Lopez.
WORDS: 4.4k.
RATING: R.
DISCLAIMER: I don't owns the Glee.
SUMMARY: "You're like, my person."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for thefantasmickah as part of the glee_rare_pairs fic exchange.
1.
She’s miserable. Like, really miserable because no one thought to tell her that getting her tonsils out wouldn’t be as fun as she expected. She definitely didn’t know her throat would hurt so much that she wouldn’t want to eat anything, let alone ice cream.
And all that sucks enough but she figured getting to miss school for a week would be fun. Especially since she hates fractions and that’s what they’re working on but she’s really bad with dates and she didn’t realize getting her tonsils out on February 10 meant she wouldn’t be in school on February 14.
She cried.
She loves Valentine’s Day. She gets candy and cards and everyone tells her how much they like her. So, why wouldn’t she? It’s like the best holiday ever. Brittany always gets her something extra special like heart-shaped sunglasses (in second grade) or a stuffed platypus (Henry; first grade). Except, Brittany’s out of town because her stupid cousin Sara decided to get married to a boy on Valentine’s Day. Gross.
SpongeBob is really funny today (seriously, endless TV is the only upside to this tonsil thing right now) but she can’t laugh without wincing and she’s still freaked out from the nosebleed she had this morning. (They took out her adenoids too.)
She’s scowling, which isn’t out of the ordinary, when her mom peeks in.
“Squish, your friend is here.” Her eyebrows shoot up because if Brittany came back early that means it’s for her and -
“What are you doing here?” She croaks. Her mother frowns at her and she looks like she’s about to go on one of those rants in Spanish again. She sighs and covers her head because her curly hair is seriously all over the place and there’s a stupid boy standing behind her mom.
“Santana Denia Lopez,” her mother says warningly. She pokes out her bottom lip and heaves one last sigh. “Be nice to your guest. I’m going to get you two a snack.”
She mutters an ‘ok’ and beams a fake smile until her mom’s gone and Mike Chang is standing there awkwardly with his hands in the pocket of his green hoodie. She rolls her eyes.
“Why are you at my house?”
“Why are you covering your head like that?” He asks, toeing the floor with the red Chucks on his feet.
“My hair isn’t done.”
“You sound different.”
“They cut my throat, dummy.” His eyes go wide then because he didn’t think about it like that. She smirks, satisfied. “So, what are you doing here?”
“Oh,” he says, stepping into the room more fully and pulling his hand out of his pocket. “I, um … well it’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Duh.”
“I mean, you weren’t at school and we exchanged stuff and I brought yours over.” He reaches for the strap on his Spiderman backpack and sets it on the edge of her bed. She’s trying not to look too interested, but she totally is. “Puck gave everyone fake spiders,” he supplies. Of course he did. Creep.
She crosses her legs Indian-style and stretches her neck for a better view. He pulls out a stack of Pokémon cards, a couple of pencils and a Batman folder before saying a quiet ah ha and pulling out a heart-shaped paper box. It’s red and covered in white polka dots and she squeezes her own thigh in anticipation.
“Here,” he says handing it over.
She takes it quietly and opens it. She can’t really contain her smile when she sees a bunch of cards, candy, a heart-shaped eraser and a package of homemade cookies.
“Thanks,” she mumbles, cheeks red.
Mike smiles bright and stuffs his hands back into his pocket, “You’re welcome. I thought maybe you’d want your stuff since you like Valentine’s Day so much.”
“This doesn’t mean you’re my boyfriend,” she says, warningly, crossing her arms. He actually rolls his eyes.
“Duh.”
She sighs and picks up a piece of Laffy Taffy. “Did you eat a lot of ice cream already? My cousin Kim said she ate three boxes of popsicles in a week.”
“No.” She pouts and then frowns at the way he’s still just standing there rubbing the tip of his shoe against the carpet. “You can sit down, y’know.” She lifts her hands and shoulders like she’s given up on him or something.
“Oh, cool.” He practically slides across the carpet to sit in the purple chair close to her TV. “Why didn’t you eat ice cream? You’re like supposed to when you get your tonsils out.”
“It hurts. I only ate mashed potatoes because my dad said I’d have to get fed through a tube if I didn’t eat something.”
“A tube?” He’s sort of reminding her of a cartoon with the way his face contorts in reaction and she giggles then covers her mouth.
“Yeah. I don’t know how that works but I don’t wanna find out.” He nods and then fingers the little radio on her dresser. “We can listen to music if you want,” she says looking at one of the cards. Of course Berry got something lame like Cailou. What are they, kindergartners? At least there’s a sucker.
“Yeah? I was gonna go home in a minute,” he says like he’s sorry. She tries not to look sad but she kind of is because Brittany left two days ago and she’s been lonely. Daddy’s been at the hospital all week and her mom flutters around the house asking if she’s okay every five minutes. She even wished she had a sibling for a minute there (a short minute). “I can stay for a little,” he adds, flipping on the radio and then nodding his head to the beat immediately. She smiles at him unwillingly. Like, Britney Spears is cool but TLC is pretty awesome too, okay?
“You like them?” She asks slowly, the music of the CD her older cousin gave her still thumping.
“Of course,” he grins and taps the beat against his bouncing leg. She decides to stop being surly (she doesn’t know what that means but Daddy calls her that sometimes). Mike’s a boy but he’s not so bad.
2.
Lima Heights Adjacent is not the wrong side of the tracks; it’s a gated community with street names like Arroyo Echo and Mountain Lily Crescent. He’d mention that if he didn’t think Santana would hit him for it. He knows this because he lives three houses down from the Lopez family in a house just as nice, with the same kinds of expensive cars in the driveway and the same impeccable lawn.
Santana’s sitting on her porch, phone in hand with aviators covering her eyes when he comes back down the block. She smirks when she spots him and stands up slowly.
He’s pretty sure she doesn’t like clothes, which he gleaned from her skipping around in that Cheerios skirt, but summer sort of proves his theory. She’s in a pair of tiny cutoff shorts and a crop top with the Bulls logo pressed out over her chest.
“Aye, Miyagi, wait up,” she calls, pocketing her phone and catching up with him at the end of her driveway. She’s tan and practically glowing. He’s thankful for the wayfarers he’s wearing so she doesn’t know that he’s noticed that. “Where you goin’?”
“Just home.” He shrugs. She doesn’t say she’s coming, just follows him when he starts walking again and he doesn’t really care. They’re friends. (Whatever that means when it comes to Santana. It can get confusing.)
A few minutes later they’re descending the stairs into his room in the basement. He can hear her smile.
“Dope,” she says, looking around. He’s changed it a lot since the last time she was here playing Xbox with him and Puck. He’s shifted things to make space for dancing and got his mom to put in a few mirrors on one of the walls.
“Mine,” she says, picking up a piece of Laffy Taffy from his desk and unwrapping it before he can say anything.
“What if that was my last one?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Santana smirks and bites into the candy then pulls the other half away, holding it out in his direction. He shakes his head and she pushes it into her own mouth with a shrug. “So, what are we listening to?”
“Dunno.” He sits in his desk chair and boots up his Macbook.
“Aaliyah,” she says, sitting in his lap without prompting. She puts her weight on his left thigh and rests her elbow on his desk. It’s not a new thing. She pushes at him with her arm and takes over the laptop, queuing up the “Are You That Somebody” video and sitting back against his chest once it starts up.
He loves this music. It just does something to his body that other music doesn’t and watching the video is fun, but reenacting it? More fun.
“Up,” he says, fingers flexing against her hips. She makes a move to protest saying something about only weighing like a hundred pounds and him being a pussy, but he just laughs and pushes her up anyway. He taps up the volume then pulls her toward the center of the space he’s cleared. She’s laughing and rocking her hips playfully but still not that into it.
“C’mon,” he prods, “You know you can kill this.”
She rolls her eyes at him, but she’s smiling and then she’s imitating a good chunk of the choreography pretty well and he’s just watching, because she’s, well, beautiful like this, all smiles and moving limbs. She looks back at him with a quirked eyebrow and he grabs her waist and follows her movement easily. She’s a pretty good dancer. She just sort of feels it. He squeezes her hip when she starts relaxing against his chest. He knows she and Britt spent the better part of sixth grade tackling every music video possible.
He gets a little lost after that. Shuffle takes them through a few tracks that if asked about later he couldn’t name because he wasn’t really listening, just moving - with her.
After, she stretches her arms out and laces her fingers together over her head before arching her back, eyes trained on his, chest still heaving lightly. She’s unguarded, no smirk, cheeks pink, lips still parted as she pants.
He can’t help but kiss her. She lets out a surprised squeak when his lips brush against hers softly, but her hands clutch the red tank he’s wearing.
She kissed him behind the slide in fifth grade when he tried his spin kick out on Puck for throwing sand at Brittany but it wasn’t like this. She’s good. Like, better at this than she is at coming up with clever insults. Her mouth is warm and sure.
He kissed her first but she’s totally in control with the way she’s sucking his bottom lip, kissing the top one and then tugging the bottom one with her teeth. She tastes like sour apple and a sweetness that has to be her own when her tongue slips past his lips.
He doesn’t know what to do with his hands because he wants to touch everything, but her nails are scratching the skin of his abdomen and stroking the hairs at the base of his neck. He settles a hand on her hip and pushes the other through her hair, which is as soft as the rest of her.
He doesn’t know for the life of him how they got anywhere near his bed but she falls back when the mattress hits the back of her knees and he has no idea what to do.
“C’mere,” she says, beckoning him with a finger. He’s not stupid and his lips suddenly feel bare without hers on them, so he settles a knee between the small part in her legs and leans down putting his weight on his right arm. “You won’t break me,” she teases, hands on his cheeks before she pulls him down.
People always talk about how hot she is but she’s also really pretty. And with her head on his pillows, hair fanning out around her and a flush creeping up her neck she looks gorgeous.
Her fingers slide up under his shirt until they’re pushing and he lifts up to pull it all the way off. Her hands curve over his chest and down over his abs and then she’s tugging the back of his neck to push their lips together again. His thigh presses against her and she moans. He thinks it’s a good thing but he breaks the kiss to make sure anyway.
“Mike,” she says, looping a finger into the cargo shorts hanging off his hips. Her voice is softer and raspier than usual. His eyebrows raise and she just smiles at him and hooks her leg around his waist.
Things are moving a lot faster than he expected (especially since he didn’t expect any of this) but he it’s kind of hard to curb his enthusiasm when she pushes him up, takes off her shirt and grabs his hand before saying, “You can touch them, y’know,” with a laugh.
“I’ve never…” she says around a moan when her bra’s been discarded and his mouth is somewhere he never thought it would be. He lifts his head and her eyes are dark, but soft.
“Oh, we don’t ha-“ He starts to say because they really don’t. This is more than enough and he’s not an asshole who thinks her shirt being off means more than just that.
“But, I … do you have a condom?” She asks. He hasn’t seen her blush since he told her she did a good job with her solo at fifth grade promotion, but she’s doing it now. He presses his lips to her cheek and then her mouth before lifting his head to nod. And like he was mad at Puck for throwing a condom at his head because he’d run out of quarters in Finn’s basement last week but there will definitely be more enthusiasm behind the next fist bump.
He hasn’t done this either and it doesn’t last as long as he’d like it to but it’s still amazing. After, she kisses the underside of his jaw and curls into his side and breathes against his neck until she falls asleep.
They don’t start dating or anything, but they spend many a summer afternoon listening to 90s tunes, dancing both in and out of his bed and tackling the crazy shit she finds on Google.
“Yeah, I think I can do that if I stretch first,” becomes one of his favorite things to hear.
3.
She only stopped crying because she didn’t want to get in an accident on account of not being able to see. So, yeah, she stopped, but her eyes are red and scratchy and her cheeks burn from salty tears and rubbing palms.
She pulls into their stupid circular driveway, which is just her father’s way of showing off, and parks the BMW Six Series he got her as a birthday present behind his Bentley and her mom’s Jag. Neither of them is home; she dropped them off at the airport Wednesday night so her mom could meet her Aunt Luisa in Vegas and her father could head to a medical convention in Arizona.
Even if they were home she wouldn’t go inside right now. She just can’t.
So, she walks two houses down and heads around the back of the Chang home, picks the lock to the door no one uses to get into Mike’s basement room and locks it back behind her.
She slings her leather jacket over his desk chair and frowns at her reflection in all those stupid mirrors mounted on Mike’s wall.
She looks how she feels, which is like someone dropped the world on her shoulders and laughed when it crushed her. She sighs and peels off her boots, puts them next to his desk and climbs into his bed. She wraps herself in the little red blanket she knows was on his racecar bed forever ago and tries to fall asleep.
She can’t.
All she hears is I love him, too over and over again, hears her own voice, vulnerable and pleading the only truths she’s managed in ages: I love you… I just want you.
Her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s curled into herself when she hears rhythmic steps padding down the stairs. She keeps them closed but she still feels it when he notices her then hears his sneakers hit the floor. He doesn’t bother to shelf them with the rest.
“Hey,” he says, hand resting lightly on her shoulder. He must think she’s sleeping and is afraid of scaring her. He squeezes softly and says her name, sighs when she opens her eyes and sees the red. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, just lies down beside her and pulls her head to his chest and runs a thumb along her hairline. She curls into him a little more, lets the thud of his heart calm her down.
He doesn’t say anything at all for a while, just lets his fingers curl into her hair, stroking her scalp like she loves. She appreciates that he doesn’t push, that they can have this platonic thing, that he can be a friend.
“Better?” He asks after her eyes have started to burn less and her cheeks have returned to their natural shade. He thumbs one and frowns when she winces and shrugs her shoulders. “No?” She’s still quiet, hand fisted into the fabric of his hoodie. He laughs a little and she frowns because there’s actually nothing funny about getting her heartbroken even if he doesn’t know that’s the problem. She’s about to say something to that effect but then his lips tease into a smile before they part.
“To all my ladies in the place with style and grace, allow me to lace these lyrical douches in your bushes.”
She couldn’t contain her laughter if she wanted to. He’s Mike Chang and he’s rapping Biggie for her because he knows that it makes her laugh, puts that brightness in her eyes that makes him want to tell her she’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.
He keeps rapping through her laughter, fingers still teasing dark strands.
“One of these honeys, Mikey got to creep with,” she hears him say when she lifts her head, her nose scrunched up, and presses a kiss to his cheek.
“Better now?” He asks, grinning. “I mean, I’m not a terrible rapper but I’d rather not keep going.”
She shakes her head, pokes at his chest. “You have to finish the song.”
He rolls his eyes and wets his lips but keeps rapping, smiles at her when she laughs against his chest.
She wrote Thug Life across his abdomen last summer while he slept. He was kind of upset because she wrote it in this super strong permanent marker his father likes to keep around. It took him three showers a day for a week to get it off and awkward explanations during summer two-a-days. She’d run her tongue across each fading letter on the sixth day and kept kissing down when he’d complained. So, yeah, he got over it.
“I can do ‘Mo Money, Mo Problems’ too,” he teases when he’s done. She shakes her head.
“It’s okay. I don’t think I can laugh anymore without hurting something.”
“Do you want to talk about it now?” He asks after a few minutes, face more serious than before. She sucks in a breath, lets her shoulders drop.
“I just …” She sits up, presses her back against his headboard, draws her knees up to her chest. He spreads the blanket over her legs and turns on his side, slides his thumb over her forearm. “I told Brittany I love her,” she starts, eyes trained on his. If he’s surprised he doesn’t show it. “That I’m in love with her.”
“Yeah?” He says, smiling. And, god, she kind of wants to punch him for making it sound so simple, so … good. She just nods and blinks her eyes closed when they start to sting.
“She said she loves me but … she loves Artie, too.” She presses her palm to her eye, sucks in a breath and looks at him out of the other. He looks sad; like Brittany told him she loved Artie more than him, too. She kind of loves him for that. “I mean, it’s okay. I don’t care.” She shrugs.
“You do. And that’s okay, too.”
“Stop being optimistic. It’s gross.”
He just shakes his head and smiles. “So, are you gonna fight for her? The Santana I know doesn’t back down from a fight.”
“She wants Artie.”
“She’s in love with you.”
“Whatever, Bruce.” He shrugs, lifts her fingers one by one like he’s trying to think of the right thing to say. “Are you gonna play me some music or not?”
“So demanding,” he groans as he slides off the bed and heads over to his desk.
“Hey,” he says holding up a Laffy Taffy wrapper. “How do you get a peanut to laugh?”
“I don’t know, Chang,” she deadpans.
“You crack it up.” She shakes her head but there’s a smile on her face.
“Turn on some damn music.”
“You gonna dance with me?”
4.
“Squish, Mike’s here,” her mother calls up the stairs. He grins because he knows Santana’s rolling her eyes. She claims to hate that nickname but he knows she really doesn’t, that her cheeks go pink whenever her dad calls her by it and that her family loves to ruffle her hair. They’re busy a lot these days but there’s a lot of love in her home even if she likes to pretend there isn’t.
“Hey, Squish,” he says, throwing a piece of Laffy Taffy at her and sitting in the chair near her bed.
“Fuck off, Chang,” she says, playing with the pleats of her Cheerios skirt. She reaches for the candy anyway, unwraps it and bites half. He shakes his head when she holds out the other half for him then watches her push it into her mouth.
“My dad’s freaking.” He just … needed to say it, just like that; with the anger he can’t show his parents. He loves dancing and glee and Tina and he’s fully capable of balancing all those things. He kind of hates that his father doesn’t believe he can.
“What else is new? Jet Li senior is always freaking.” He rolls his eyes but she’s smirking at him, tugging the elastic out of her hair and then finger combing it. “What about this time?”
“I got an A minus.”
“Shit, Mike,” she says. He doesn’t say anything more because she gets it. Santana’s listened to his frustrations a million times before, cares about her grades just as much but doesn’t have the same pressure from her parents.
“Here,” she says, leaning over the edge of her bed, hand sliding back and forth under her bed. He lets out a chuckle when she holds up a bottle of Jack but he takes it from her, looks toward her door before taking a swig. He watches her slide off the bed and press the door closed. “Never know when Denia decides to pop up and be a ‘cool mom’,” she jokes.
“He wants me to give up glee. He says it’s a waste of time.”
“Fuck him.” She takes the bottle from him and tips it back against her lips. She runs the pad of her thumb against the corner of her mouth and gives him a look. He’s not offended. It’s Santana and he knows her, knows that she’s willing to be angry for him. “Turn around.”
He does because there’s no point in asking questions. He can hear her rummaging around in her drawers. He just fiddles with the string of his hoodie, toes his sneaker against the floor until she says, “You can look now, asshole.” He turns to find her in sweats with a Jumpman logo that she totally stole from him and a shirt with an owl on it that he recognizes as Brittany’s.
“You’re like, my person,” she says without looking at him. She slips onto her mattress, crosses her ankles and tips her heels against the wall. Her hair dangles over the edge of the bed and she looks back at him, upside down. She’s sort of weird sometimes. He kind of loves that about her. She’s totally not as cool as she thinks she is.
“Because I’m Asian?” He laughs.
“No. You’re obviously Meredith. I’m clearly not the tragic friend.” There’s a grin there that says maybe she thinks she is but he doesn’t bother telling her she’s not. She’ll just hit him and the girl has a mean left hook.
“Right.” He grabs the wrapper from the place she dropped it on her nightstand.
“Don’t even think about telling me that joke.”
“What?”
“I know you, Mike. Those jokes aren’t funny.”
“Whatever. You’re my person too, Tana.” She laughs, head dropping back, making her hair sweep the floor. He grabs a strand and she swats at him.
“Of fucking course I am. You love me. Now turn that on.” She raises her arm to point toward the dock on her dresser. He taps it on and his body reacts immediately. “Couldn’t keep you still if he tried, Chang.”
“Huh?”
“The other Miyagi.” She lets out a sigh, feet dancing across the wall. He knows Mrs. Lopez would throw a dishtowel at her if he could see her. He can almost hear her yelling, ‘Ay dios mio, Squish!’
“You’re not quitting glee, okay?”
“You’ll miss me too much?”
“Fuck no. Someone has to teach Finn to dance. I’ll be damned if he breaks my nose.”
“Right.”
“You gonna stop killing my mood or do I have to take off my top?”
“What?” She points at her chest and grins, still upside down.
“Um, Tina? Brittany?”
“Brittany won’t care. It’s for a good cause.”
“Shut up, Santana,” he says, grabbing her hand and tugging her into a sitting position.
“Only if you’re done whining.”
He taps her hip and turns up the music. “Up.”
“I’m right, y’know? You can’t be still.”
She is.
You Know Very Well (Who You Are)
CHARACTERS: Mike Chang/Santana Lopez.
WORDS: 4.4k.
RATING: R.
DISCLAIMER: I don't owns the Glee.
SUMMARY: "You're like, my person."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for thefantasmickah as part of the glee_rare_pairs fic exchange.
1.
She’s miserable. Like, really miserable because no one thought to tell her that getting her tonsils out wouldn’t be as fun as she expected. She definitely didn’t know her throat would hurt so much that she wouldn’t want to eat anything, let alone ice cream.
And all that sucks enough but she figured getting to miss school for a week would be fun. Especially since she hates fractions and that’s what they’re working on but she’s really bad with dates and she didn’t realize getting her tonsils out on February 10 meant she wouldn’t be in school on February 14.
She cried.
She loves Valentine’s Day. She gets candy and cards and everyone tells her how much they like her. So, why wouldn’t she? It’s like the best holiday ever. Brittany always gets her something extra special like heart-shaped sunglasses (in second grade) or a stuffed platypus (Henry; first grade). Except, Brittany’s out of town because her stupid cousin Sara decided to get married to a boy on Valentine’s Day. Gross.
SpongeBob is really funny today (seriously, endless TV is the only upside to this tonsil thing right now) but she can’t laugh without wincing and she’s still freaked out from the nosebleed she had this morning. (They took out her adenoids too.)
She’s scowling, which isn’t out of the ordinary, when her mom peeks in.
“Squish, your friend is here.” Her eyebrows shoot up because if Brittany came back early that means it’s for her and -
“What are you doing here?” She croaks. Her mother frowns at her and she looks like she’s about to go on one of those rants in Spanish again. She sighs and covers her head because her curly hair is seriously all over the place and there’s a stupid boy standing behind her mom.
“Santana Denia Lopez,” her mother says warningly. She pokes out her bottom lip and heaves one last sigh. “Be nice to your guest. I’m going to get you two a snack.”
She mutters an ‘ok’ and beams a fake smile until her mom’s gone and Mike Chang is standing there awkwardly with his hands in the pocket of his green hoodie. She rolls her eyes.
“Why are you at my house?”
“Why are you covering your head like that?” He asks, toeing the floor with the red Chucks on his feet.
“My hair isn’t done.”
“You sound different.”
“They cut my throat, dummy.” His eyes go wide then because he didn’t think about it like that. She smirks, satisfied. “So, what are you doing here?”
“Oh,” he says, stepping into the room more fully and pulling his hand out of his pocket. “I, um … well it’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Duh.”
“I mean, you weren’t at school and we exchanged stuff and I brought yours over.” He reaches for the strap on his Spiderman backpack and sets it on the edge of her bed. She’s trying not to look too interested, but she totally is. “Puck gave everyone fake spiders,” he supplies. Of course he did. Creep.
She crosses her legs Indian-style and stretches her neck for a better view. He pulls out a stack of Pokémon cards, a couple of pencils and a Batman folder before saying a quiet ah ha and pulling out a heart-shaped paper box. It’s red and covered in white polka dots and she squeezes her own thigh in anticipation.
“Here,” he says handing it over.
She takes it quietly and opens it. She can’t really contain her smile when she sees a bunch of cards, candy, a heart-shaped eraser and a package of homemade cookies.
“Thanks,” she mumbles, cheeks red.
Mike smiles bright and stuffs his hands back into his pocket, “You’re welcome. I thought maybe you’d want your stuff since you like Valentine’s Day so much.”
“This doesn’t mean you’re my boyfriend,” she says, warningly, crossing her arms. He actually rolls his eyes.
“Duh.”
She sighs and picks up a piece of Laffy Taffy. “Did you eat a lot of ice cream already? My cousin Kim said she ate three boxes of popsicles in a week.”
“No.” She pouts and then frowns at the way he’s still just standing there rubbing the tip of his shoe against the carpet. “You can sit down, y’know.” She lifts her hands and shoulders like she’s given up on him or something.
“Oh, cool.” He practically slides across the carpet to sit in the purple chair close to her TV. “Why didn’t you eat ice cream? You’re like supposed to when you get your tonsils out.”
“It hurts. I only ate mashed potatoes because my dad said I’d have to get fed through a tube if I didn’t eat something.”
“A tube?” He’s sort of reminding her of a cartoon with the way his face contorts in reaction and she giggles then covers her mouth.
“Yeah. I don’t know how that works but I don’t wanna find out.” He nods and then fingers the little radio on her dresser. “We can listen to music if you want,” she says looking at one of the cards. Of course Berry got something lame like Cailou. What are they, kindergartners? At least there’s a sucker.
“Yeah? I was gonna go home in a minute,” he says like he’s sorry. She tries not to look sad but she kind of is because Brittany left two days ago and she’s been lonely. Daddy’s been at the hospital all week and her mom flutters around the house asking if she’s okay every five minutes. She even wished she had a sibling for a minute there (a short minute). “I can stay for a little,” he adds, flipping on the radio and then nodding his head to the beat immediately. She smiles at him unwillingly. Like, Britney Spears is cool but TLC is pretty awesome too, okay?
“You like them?” She asks slowly, the music of the CD her older cousin gave her still thumping.
“Of course,” he grins and taps the beat against his bouncing leg. She decides to stop being surly (she doesn’t know what that means but Daddy calls her that sometimes). Mike’s a boy but he’s not so bad.
2.
Lima Heights Adjacent is not the wrong side of the tracks; it’s a gated community with street names like Arroyo Echo and Mountain Lily Crescent. He’d mention that if he didn’t think Santana would hit him for it. He knows this because he lives three houses down from the Lopez family in a house just as nice, with the same kinds of expensive cars in the driveway and the same impeccable lawn.
Santana’s sitting on her porch, phone in hand with aviators covering her eyes when he comes back down the block. She smirks when she spots him and stands up slowly.
He’s pretty sure she doesn’t like clothes, which he gleaned from her skipping around in that Cheerios skirt, but summer sort of proves his theory. She’s in a pair of tiny cutoff shorts and a crop top with the Bulls logo pressed out over her chest.
“Aye, Miyagi, wait up,” she calls, pocketing her phone and catching up with him at the end of her driveway. She’s tan and practically glowing. He’s thankful for the wayfarers he’s wearing so she doesn’t know that he’s noticed that. “Where you goin’?”
“Just home.” He shrugs. She doesn’t say she’s coming, just follows him when he starts walking again and he doesn’t really care. They’re friends. (Whatever that means when it comes to Santana. It can get confusing.)
A few minutes later they’re descending the stairs into his room in the basement. He can hear her smile.
“Dope,” she says, looking around. He’s changed it a lot since the last time she was here playing Xbox with him and Puck. He’s shifted things to make space for dancing and got his mom to put in a few mirrors on one of the walls.
“Mine,” she says, picking up a piece of Laffy Taffy from his desk and unwrapping it before he can say anything.
“What if that was my last one?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Santana smirks and bites into the candy then pulls the other half away, holding it out in his direction. He shakes his head and she pushes it into her own mouth with a shrug. “So, what are we listening to?”
“Dunno.” He sits in his desk chair and boots up his Macbook.
“Aaliyah,” she says, sitting in his lap without prompting. She puts her weight on his left thigh and rests her elbow on his desk. It’s not a new thing. She pushes at him with her arm and takes over the laptop, queuing up the “Are You That Somebody” video and sitting back against his chest once it starts up.
He loves this music. It just does something to his body that other music doesn’t and watching the video is fun, but reenacting it? More fun.
“Up,” he says, fingers flexing against her hips. She makes a move to protest saying something about only weighing like a hundred pounds and him being a pussy, but he just laughs and pushes her up anyway. He taps up the volume then pulls her toward the center of the space he’s cleared. She’s laughing and rocking her hips playfully but still not that into it.
“C’mon,” he prods, “You know you can kill this.”
She rolls her eyes at him, but she’s smiling and then she’s imitating a good chunk of the choreography pretty well and he’s just watching, because she’s, well, beautiful like this, all smiles and moving limbs. She looks back at him with a quirked eyebrow and he grabs her waist and follows her movement easily. She’s a pretty good dancer. She just sort of feels it. He squeezes her hip when she starts relaxing against his chest. He knows she and Britt spent the better part of sixth grade tackling every music video possible.
He gets a little lost after that. Shuffle takes them through a few tracks that if asked about later he couldn’t name because he wasn’t really listening, just moving - with her.
After, she stretches her arms out and laces her fingers together over her head before arching her back, eyes trained on his, chest still heaving lightly. She’s unguarded, no smirk, cheeks pink, lips still parted as she pants.
He can’t help but kiss her. She lets out a surprised squeak when his lips brush against hers softly, but her hands clutch the red tank he’s wearing.
She kissed him behind the slide in fifth grade when he tried his spin kick out on Puck for throwing sand at Brittany but it wasn’t like this. She’s good. Like, better at this than she is at coming up with clever insults. Her mouth is warm and sure.
He kissed her first but she’s totally in control with the way she’s sucking his bottom lip, kissing the top one and then tugging the bottom one with her teeth. She tastes like sour apple and a sweetness that has to be her own when her tongue slips past his lips.
He doesn’t know what to do with his hands because he wants to touch everything, but her nails are scratching the skin of his abdomen and stroking the hairs at the base of his neck. He settles a hand on her hip and pushes the other through her hair, which is as soft as the rest of her.
He doesn’t know for the life of him how they got anywhere near his bed but she falls back when the mattress hits the back of her knees and he has no idea what to do.
“C’mere,” she says, beckoning him with a finger. He’s not stupid and his lips suddenly feel bare without hers on them, so he settles a knee between the small part in her legs and leans down putting his weight on his right arm. “You won’t break me,” she teases, hands on his cheeks before she pulls him down.
People always talk about how hot she is but she’s also really pretty. And with her head on his pillows, hair fanning out around her and a flush creeping up her neck she looks gorgeous.
Her fingers slide up under his shirt until they’re pushing and he lifts up to pull it all the way off. Her hands curve over his chest and down over his abs and then she’s tugging the back of his neck to push their lips together again. His thigh presses against her and she moans. He thinks it’s a good thing but he breaks the kiss to make sure anyway.
“Mike,” she says, looping a finger into the cargo shorts hanging off his hips. Her voice is softer and raspier than usual. His eyebrows raise and she just smiles at him and hooks her leg around his waist.
Things are moving a lot faster than he expected (especially since he didn’t expect any of this) but he it’s kind of hard to curb his enthusiasm when she pushes him up, takes off her shirt and grabs his hand before saying, “You can touch them, y’know,” with a laugh.
“I’ve never…” she says around a moan when her bra’s been discarded and his mouth is somewhere he never thought it would be. He lifts his head and her eyes are dark, but soft.
“Oh, we don’t ha-“ He starts to say because they really don’t. This is more than enough and he’s not an asshole who thinks her shirt being off means more than just that.
“But, I … do you have a condom?” She asks. He hasn’t seen her blush since he told her she did a good job with her solo at fifth grade promotion, but she’s doing it now. He presses his lips to her cheek and then her mouth before lifting his head to nod. And like he was mad at Puck for throwing a condom at his head because he’d run out of quarters in Finn’s basement last week but there will definitely be more enthusiasm behind the next fist bump.
He hasn’t done this either and it doesn’t last as long as he’d like it to but it’s still amazing. After, she kisses the underside of his jaw and curls into his side and breathes against his neck until she falls asleep.
They don’t start dating or anything, but they spend many a summer afternoon listening to 90s tunes, dancing both in and out of his bed and tackling the crazy shit she finds on Google.
“Yeah, I think I can do that if I stretch first,” becomes one of his favorite things to hear.
3.
She only stopped crying because she didn’t want to get in an accident on account of not being able to see. So, yeah, she stopped, but her eyes are red and scratchy and her cheeks burn from salty tears and rubbing palms.
She pulls into their stupid circular driveway, which is just her father’s way of showing off, and parks the BMW Six Series he got her as a birthday present behind his Bentley and her mom’s Jag. Neither of them is home; she dropped them off at the airport Wednesday night so her mom could meet her Aunt Luisa in Vegas and her father could head to a medical convention in Arizona.
Even if they were home she wouldn’t go inside right now. She just can’t.
So, she walks two houses down and heads around the back of the Chang home, picks the lock to the door no one uses to get into Mike’s basement room and locks it back behind her.
She slings her leather jacket over his desk chair and frowns at her reflection in all those stupid mirrors mounted on Mike’s wall.
She looks how she feels, which is like someone dropped the world on her shoulders and laughed when it crushed her. She sighs and peels off her boots, puts them next to his desk and climbs into his bed. She wraps herself in the little red blanket she knows was on his racecar bed forever ago and tries to fall asleep.
She can’t.
All she hears is I love him, too over and over again, hears her own voice, vulnerable and pleading the only truths she’s managed in ages: I love you… I just want you.
Her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s curled into herself when she hears rhythmic steps padding down the stairs. She keeps them closed but she still feels it when he notices her then hears his sneakers hit the floor. He doesn’t bother to shelf them with the rest.
“Hey,” he says, hand resting lightly on her shoulder. He must think she’s sleeping and is afraid of scaring her. He squeezes softly and says her name, sighs when she opens her eyes and sees the red. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, just lies down beside her and pulls her head to his chest and runs a thumb along her hairline. She curls into him a little more, lets the thud of his heart calm her down.
He doesn’t say anything at all for a while, just lets his fingers curl into her hair, stroking her scalp like she loves. She appreciates that he doesn’t push, that they can have this platonic thing, that he can be a friend.
“Better?” He asks after her eyes have started to burn less and her cheeks have returned to their natural shade. He thumbs one and frowns when she winces and shrugs her shoulders. “No?” She’s still quiet, hand fisted into the fabric of his hoodie. He laughs a little and she frowns because there’s actually nothing funny about getting her heartbroken even if he doesn’t know that’s the problem. She’s about to say something to that effect but then his lips tease into a smile before they part.
“To all my ladies in the place with style and grace, allow me to lace these lyrical douches in your bushes.”
She couldn’t contain her laughter if she wanted to. He’s Mike Chang and he’s rapping Biggie for her because he knows that it makes her laugh, puts that brightness in her eyes that makes him want to tell her she’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.
He keeps rapping through her laughter, fingers still teasing dark strands.
“One of these honeys, Mikey got to creep with,” she hears him say when she lifts her head, her nose scrunched up, and presses a kiss to his cheek.
“Better now?” He asks, grinning. “I mean, I’m not a terrible rapper but I’d rather not keep going.”
She shakes her head, pokes at his chest. “You have to finish the song.”
He rolls his eyes and wets his lips but keeps rapping, smiles at her when she laughs against his chest.
She wrote Thug Life across his abdomen last summer while he slept. He was kind of upset because she wrote it in this super strong permanent marker his father likes to keep around. It took him three showers a day for a week to get it off and awkward explanations during summer two-a-days. She’d run her tongue across each fading letter on the sixth day and kept kissing down when he’d complained. So, yeah, he got over it.
“I can do ‘Mo Money, Mo Problems’ too,” he teases when he’s done. She shakes her head.
“It’s okay. I don’t think I can laugh anymore without hurting something.”
“Do you want to talk about it now?” He asks after a few minutes, face more serious than before. She sucks in a breath, lets her shoulders drop.
“I just …” She sits up, presses her back against his headboard, draws her knees up to her chest. He spreads the blanket over her legs and turns on his side, slides his thumb over her forearm. “I told Brittany I love her,” she starts, eyes trained on his. If he’s surprised he doesn’t show it. “That I’m in love with her.”
“Yeah?” He says, smiling. And, god, she kind of wants to punch him for making it sound so simple, so … good. She just nods and blinks her eyes closed when they start to sting.
“She said she loves me but … she loves Artie, too.” She presses her palm to her eye, sucks in a breath and looks at him out of the other. He looks sad; like Brittany told him she loved Artie more than him, too. She kind of loves him for that. “I mean, it’s okay. I don’t care.” She shrugs.
“You do. And that’s okay, too.”
“Stop being optimistic. It’s gross.”
He just shakes his head and smiles. “So, are you gonna fight for her? The Santana I know doesn’t back down from a fight.”
“She wants Artie.”
“She’s in love with you.”
“Whatever, Bruce.” He shrugs, lifts her fingers one by one like he’s trying to think of the right thing to say. “Are you gonna play me some music or not?”
“So demanding,” he groans as he slides off the bed and heads over to his desk.
“Hey,” he says holding up a Laffy Taffy wrapper. “How do you get a peanut to laugh?”
“I don’t know, Chang,” she deadpans.
“You crack it up.” She shakes her head but there’s a smile on her face.
“Turn on some damn music.”
“You gonna dance with me?”
4.
“Squish, Mike’s here,” her mother calls up the stairs. He grins because he knows Santana’s rolling her eyes. She claims to hate that nickname but he knows she really doesn’t, that her cheeks go pink whenever her dad calls her by it and that her family loves to ruffle her hair. They’re busy a lot these days but there’s a lot of love in her home even if she likes to pretend there isn’t.
“Hey, Squish,” he says, throwing a piece of Laffy Taffy at her and sitting in the chair near her bed.
“Fuck off, Chang,” she says, playing with the pleats of her Cheerios skirt. She reaches for the candy anyway, unwraps it and bites half. He shakes his head when she holds out the other half for him then watches her push it into her mouth.
“My dad’s freaking.” He just … needed to say it, just like that; with the anger he can’t show his parents. He loves dancing and glee and Tina and he’s fully capable of balancing all those things. He kind of hates that his father doesn’t believe he can.
“What else is new? Jet Li senior is always freaking.” He rolls his eyes but she’s smirking at him, tugging the elastic out of her hair and then finger combing it. “What about this time?”
“I got an A minus.”
“Shit, Mike,” she says. He doesn’t say anything more because she gets it. Santana’s listened to his frustrations a million times before, cares about her grades just as much but doesn’t have the same pressure from her parents.
“Here,” she says, leaning over the edge of her bed, hand sliding back and forth under her bed. He lets out a chuckle when she holds up a bottle of Jack but he takes it from her, looks toward her door before taking a swig. He watches her slide off the bed and press the door closed. “Never know when Denia decides to pop up and be a ‘cool mom’,” she jokes.
“He wants me to give up glee. He says it’s a waste of time.”
“Fuck him.” She takes the bottle from him and tips it back against her lips. She runs the pad of her thumb against the corner of her mouth and gives him a look. He’s not offended. It’s Santana and he knows her, knows that she’s willing to be angry for him. “Turn around.”
He does because there’s no point in asking questions. He can hear her rummaging around in her drawers. He just fiddles with the string of his hoodie, toes his sneaker against the floor until she says, “You can look now, asshole.” He turns to find her in sweats with a Jumpman logo that she totally stole from him and a shirt with an owl on it that he recognizes as Brittany’s.
“You’re like, my person,” she says without looking at him. She slips onto her mattress, crosses her ankles and tips her heels against the wall. Her hair dangles over the edge of the bed and she looks back at him, upside down. She’s sort of weird sometimes. He kind of loves that about her. She’s totally not as cool as she thinks she is.
“Because I’m Asian?” He laughs.
“No. You’re obviously Meredith. I’m clearly not the tragic friend.” There’s a grin there that says maybe she thinks she is but he doesn’t bother telling her she’s not. She’ll just hit him and the girl has a mean left hook.
“Right.” He grabs the wrapper from the place she dropped it on her nightstand.
“Don’t even think about telling me that joke.”
“What?”
“I know you, Mike. Those jokes aren’t funny.”
“Whatever. You’re my person too, Tana.” She laughs, head dropping back, making her hair sweep the floor. He grabs a strand and she swats at him.
“Of fucking course I am. You love me. Now turn that on.” She raises her arm to point toward the dock on her dresser. He taps it on and his body reacts immediately. “Couldn’t keep you still if he tried, Chang.”
“Huh?”
“The other Miyagi.” She lets out a sigh, feet dancing across the wall. He knows Mrs. Lopez would throw a dishtowel at her if he could see her. He can almost hear her yelling, ‘Ay dios mio, Squish!’
“You’re not quitting glee, okay?”
“You’ll miss me too much?”
“Fuck no. Someone has to teach Finn to dance. I’ll be damned if he breaks my nose.”
“Right.”
“You gonna stop killing my mood or do I have to take off my top?”
“What?” She points at her chest and grins, still upside down.
“Um, Tina? Brittany?”
“Brittany won’t care. It’s for a good cause.”
“Shut up, Santana,” he says, grabbing her hand and tugging her into a sitting position.
“Only if you’re done whining.”
He taps her hip and turns up the music. “Up.”
“I’m right, y’know? You can’t be still.”
She is.