Standing on a Precipice - Chapter Two
Title: Standing on a Precipice
Author: Sio & Maura!
Rating: Up to NC-17 for later chapters
Length: 4,176 / 141,873
Spoilers: Possible mentions of up to Season 2 finale
Pairing: Rachel/Santana, Rachel/Jesse, Santana/OC
Summary: From a prompt given via Sio's tumblr ask box. Rachel and Jesse are married with children, but Jesse is slowly dying from cancer. Enter Santana, lonely and divorced but highly successful and willing to befriend the beleaguered mother. When Jesse passes and Rachel starts depending more and more on Santana's friendship, will they stay just friends or can it blossom into something more? Future!Fic.
Warnings (highlight to read): Pregnancy, character death, angst, children,
Chapter Two: Introducing Santana
Nothing ever changed.
Nothing ever got worse, but it never actually changed or got better either. It was a Monday like ever other in the three years prior. Santana walked into the deli on the corner of the street her office was on, flirted with the Latino boys that handed her the tray of coffee making sure to tell her the one on the right was hers. “Negro y fuerte.” Jose smiled, his youthful features made Santana smile and respond the same as always, “Like my men...” she winked, paying and walking half a block to her building.
Santana had been in New York for close to five years. After graduating from WMHS, she enrolled in the University of London in their music management and production program. When she left Ohio, she didn’t want to get involved in any kind of relationship. Her history and experiences had been less than great and she wanted to focus on herself... she allowed herself some affairs with boys and girls when she was drunk in her first year of school, but about a year later Santana met Tobias Spencer. He was 40 when they met; he was powerful, becoming a big time manager in the music world, and he treated her better than anyone ever had before. She hesitated at first, her body and mind still had homosexual tendencies, but she fell for him.
It wasn’t hard, Tobias gave her everything. It was a fairytale, money, power, and the fact he made her feel special. He gave her the freedom she needed, and she in turn accompanied him to every opening and acted as his perfect girlfriend in the British public eye. They got married in a small ceremony when she was 19. She began working in the record company and started showing that, despite being the perfect trophy wife for the new CEO, she was a talented producer in her own right. She had her own clients and started create a name for herself, but that’s when it all seemed to be the start of the end. Her marriage fell apart 7 years later and by time their 8th anniversary rolled around she was a divorcee.
Every morning, when Santana pushed open her office door she thinks of her failure and the fact that despite it she’s still one of the top producers in the United States. Tobias moved the company to New York when Santana’s press started to get bigger than his in the London music scene, but the city that never sleeps seemed to make the young Latina even more popular and in demand. They fought, and they fought hard. Many long nights of screaming matches and broken glasses accumulated until the moment when Santana slapped divorce papers down on his desk and stormed out. The settlement was private, but the press rumored that there was parting of millions since she didn’t sign a prenuptial agreement. The funny thing was that everyone assumed that they’d get back together and that Santana was being young and irrational, but they had grown apart. The age difference, the egos... it didn’t bode well for a relationship.
She slid into her faux-leather chair and looked out her window at the Manhattan skyline with a sigh. She must have been in that position for sometime because she heard her door open and her ex-husband’s booming baritone.
“There’s my little Spanish harlem harlot.” He bellowed, his voice dripping with sarcasm and charm. Santana rolled her eyes before turning around to face him. He had aged remarkably over the 11 years she had known him, he was no longer the youthful yet elder man she fell for when she was 19. He was 51 now and his hair was kept short to prevent the true amount of grey that had accumulated recently from showing.
“What do you want, Tobias?” She groaned, this was not how she wanted to start her morning. “What could you possibly want at,” she looked at her computer screen for the time. “Eight o’clock on a Monday morning? I was pretty sure that divorce meant I never had to see you this early again.” She said smugly.
“Aww, Santi baby, you know you miss me. When are you gonna give up this facade of never wanting to be with me again?” He said, walking close to the edge of her desk.
“Stop. Nope, not having this conversation right now... or ever again actually. We’ve been divorced for almost 4 years, move on. I have.” She shrugged as she spoke.
She had moved on, she dated a few guys to keep up her profile, but slept with a few women when she wanted to release that tension that had built for seven years of marriage and repression of her desires. Tobias pouted softly as he sat down across from her, she knew that he still loved her which made their day to day interactions more difficult.
“Fine, Santana... I’m still your boss though, so you still have to listen to me....” he reminded her, just as he did ever time she pushed away his advances. “I have a new client for you.”
“Do you now? You didn’t want to, you know, consult me about giving me a new client before you just handed me whatever underdog you all couldn’t figure out how to sell.”
“Can you just shut up, Santana?” He asked, obviously frustrated about her attitude. She put down her pen and picked up her coffee and took a long sip, “Look, I have a new R&B singer for you. She’s kinda like Aliyah mixed with Amy Winehouse and Jay-Z... she’s interesting. I think she’d be good for you to work with help her harness her talent.”
Santana listened to him, she had known him for long enough to comprehend what he was saying. “So... you want me to take a young talent and tell her that she... can’t be the artist that she thinks she is? That you want to me reign her in?” She cocked her head to the side as she spoke.
“Yep!” He smiled, that charming smile that caused her to fall for him in the first place. “I’ll send her in later...” He got up and walked to the door, “Oh and Santi? Keep it in your pants.” He chucked walking out of the office. Santana threw her pen at the door with a frustrated sigh.
Chapter Three
Author: Sio & Maura!
Rating: Up to NC-17 for later chapters
Length: 4,176 / 141,873
Spoilers: Possible mentions of up to Season 2 finale
Pairing: Rachel/Santana, Rachel/Jesse, Santana/OC
Summary: From a prompt given via Sio's tumblr ask box. Rachel and Jesse are married with children, but Jesse is slowly dying from cancer. Enter Santana, lonely and divorced but highly successful and willing to befriend the beleaguered mother. When Jesse passes and Rachel starts depending more and more on Santana's friendship, will they stay just friends or can it blossom into something more? Future!Fic.
Warnings (highlight to read): Pregnancy, character death, angst, children,
Chapter Two: Introducing Santana
Nothing ever changed.
Nothing ever got worse, but it never actually changed or got better either. It was a Monday like ever other in the three years prior. Santana walked into the deli on the corner of the street her office was on, flirted with the Latino boys that handed her the tray of coffee making sure to tell her the one on the right was hers. “Negro y fuerte.” Jose smiled, his youthful features made Santana smile and respond the same as always, “Like my men...” she winked, paying and walking half a block to her building.
Santana had been in New York for close to five years. After graduating from WMHS, she enrolled in the University of London in their music management and production program. When she left Ohio, she didn’t want to get involved in any kind of relationship. Her history and experiences had been less than great and she wanted to focus on herself... she allowed herself some affairs with boys and girls when she was drunk in her first year of school, but about a year later Santana met Tobias Spencer. He was 40 when they met; he was powerful, becoming a big time manager in the music world, and he treated her better than anyone ever had before. She hesitated at first, her body and mind still had homosexual tendencies, but she fell for him.
It wasn’t hard, Tobias gave her everything. It was a fairytale, money, power, and the fact he made her feel special. He gave her the freedom she needed, and she in turn accompanied him to every opening and acted as his perfect girlfriend in the British public eye. They got married in a small ceremony when she was 19. She began working in the record company and started showing that, despite being the perfect trophy wife for the new CEO, she was a talented producer in her own right. She had her own clients and started create a name for herself, but that’s when it all seemed to be the start of the end. Her marriage fell apart 7 years later and by time their 8th anniversary rolled around she was a divorcee.
Every morning, when Santana pushed open her office door she thinks of her failure and the fact that despite it she’s still one of the top producers in the United States. Tobias moved the company to New York when Santana’s press started to get bigger than his in the London music scene, but the city that never sleeps seemed to make the young Latina even more popular and in demand. They fought, and they fought hard. Many long nights of screaming matches and broken glasses accumulated until the moment when Santana slapped divorce papers down on his desk and stormed out. The settlement was private, but the press rumored that there was parting of millions since she didn’t sign a prenuptial agreement. The funny thing was that everyone assumed that they’d get back together and that Santana was being young and irrational, but they had grown apart. The age difference, the egos... it didn’t bode well for a relationship.
She slid into her faux-leather chair and looked out her window at the Manhattan skyline with a sigh. She must have been in that position for sometime because she heard her door open and her ex-husband’s booming baritone.
“There’s my little Spanish harlem harlot.” He bellowed, his voice dripping with sarcasm and charm. Santana rolled her eyes before turning around to face him. He had aged remarkably over the 11 years she had known him, he was no longer the youthful yet elder man she fell for when she was 19. He was 51 now and his hair was kept short to prevent the true amount of grey that had accumulated recently from showing.
“What do you want, Tobias?” She groaned, this was not how she wanted to start her morning. “What could you possibly want at,” she looked at her computer screen for the time. “Eight o’clock on a Monday morning? I was pretty sure that divorce meant I never had to see you this early again.” She said smugly.
“Aww, Santi baby, you know you miss me. When are you gonna give up this facade of never wanting to be with me again?” He said, walking close to the edge of her desk.
“Stop. Nope, not having this conversation right now... or ever again actually. We’ve been divorced for almost 4 years, move on. I have.” She shrugged as she spoke.
She had moved on, she dated a few guys to keep up her profile, but slept with a few women when she wanted to release that tension that had built for seven years of marriage and repression of her desires. Tobias pouted softly as he sat down across from her, she knew that he still loved her which made their day to day interactions more difficult.
“Fine, Santana... I’m still your boss though, so you still have to listen to me....” he reminded her, just as he did ever time she pushed away his advances. “I have a new client for you.”
“Do you now? You didn’t want to, you know, consult me about giving me a new client before you just handed me whatever underdog you all couldn’t figure out how to sell.”
“Can you just shut up, Santana?” He asked, obviously frustrated about her attitude. She put down her pen and picked up her coffee and took a long sip, “Look, I have a new R&B singer for you. She’s kinda like Aliyah mixed with Amy Winehouse and Jay-Z... she’s interesting. I think she’d be good for you to work with help her harness her talent.”
Santana listened to him, she had known him for long enough to comprehend what he was saying. “So... you want me to take a young talent and tell her that she... can’t be the artist that she thinks she is? That you want to me reign her in?” She cocked her head to the side as she spoke.
“Yep!” He smiled, that charming smile that caused her to fall for him in the first place. “I’ll send her in later...” He got up and walked to the door, “Oh and Santi? Keep it in your pants.” He chucked walking out of the office. Santana threw her pen at the door with a frustrated sigh.
Chapter Three