It was way too early for Santana Lopez to be roaming the halls of McKinley, but Mr Schu couldn't make the usual glee meeting after school today, so he arranged to give the kids their assignment before school instead. The 30 minutes of sleep she had sacrificed for this was taunting her eyes, making her strutt-scowl extra venomous despite the corridor being practically empty.

She was the last member to arrive. Normally she'd have Brittany in tow but Britt had arrived even earlier to meet Artie. As she approached the choir-room door she slowed down to analyze the set up before entering.

Her unbreakable poker-face abnormally fell at the sight that beheld her. On one side of the room sat Rachel Berry, fully engrossed in conversation with Noah Puckerman, the rest of the club spread across the middle in their usual, happy pairs and groups, and on the other side of the room, sat Finn Hudson, alone and starring purposelessly at the floor. There was something about his adorably sad puppy-dog face that almost caused her to feel sympathy –an emotion she only allowed herself to feel in extreme circumstances. It was short lived however, and replaced by a much more familiar emotion – anger, directed at Rachel Berry.

How could she be so cruel? To break his heart and then parade in front of him? Even she would never reach that low. Well…

Analysis complete she strode into the room in full knowledge of what she was doing. There was one empty chair next to Quinn and one chair next to Finn occupied only by his backpack, (an occupation she was sure he made intentionally when he sat down) She stood defiantly next to his backpack's chair and faked a low cough to steal his attention away from the floor.

Whether from the shock of being snapped him back to reality or the sight of Santana standing in front of him the poor boy looked terrified, before reluctantly removing his bag, making no effort to conceal his discontent about the situation.

"Thanks Finnocence."

And making sure the entire class was watching, she planted a not-so-subtle kiss on his cheek and sat down next to him, scooting their chairs as close together as possible in the process.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, clearly not in the mood for her games.

"Just evening the playing field" she answered, throwing a sarcastic wave over to Rachel, who looked like she was one degree away from exploding.

But Finn refused to play along, or even acknowledge the cheerleader for that matter, reverting his attention back to the floor and giving her the cold shoulder.

Mr Schu began his predictably cheesy 'welcome back from the holidays' speech but Santana paid even less attention than usual, choosing to stare down Finn instead. He was definitely ignoring her on purpose and she could only think of one reason as to why.

"You can't seriously be mad at me for telling Berry the truth" she half-whispered to him when Mr Schu turned to write the assignment on the board.

"I'm not mad at you" he calmly retorted, without removing his gaze from the floor.

"But you blame me for ruining your vomit-worthy relationship with the hobbit."

"Nope."

He was too calm. And too cold. The small slither of sympathy she almost felt for him ten minutes ago completely vanished. But just as she decided to quit caring about him, he let her have it.

"I just can't figure out why you did it. I asked you not to but you did it anyway. Which means you either really hate Rachel, or me, or both of us, which makes you a bitch. Or you were just really bored that day. Which again makes you a bitch. Either way I think that makes you a bitch!"

Ouch. That stung. Those were the only options he came up with? That she hated him or was bored. I mean, sure, she spilled because Rachel was all up in her face and she just wanted to shut her up for two minutes, but she hadn't started the day intent on saying anything.

They both sat in silence until Mr Schu dismissed the group. However for Santana the silence was well spent thinking up the final say.

"Okay, let's get one thing straight 'Martin Luther King', I have never lied to you, I have never cheated on you, I have never been knocked up by your best friend and lied about it to you, I have never dated someone for their voice, and I've never been to juvie. Compared to every other freak show in this damn club, I'm a friggin saint. Next time I just won't give a damn and sit next to Quinn."

And with a fierce swing of her ponytail she got up from her chair and stormed out of the room, leaving Finn speechless and in deep thought over what just happened.

He found her at her locker, putting on her makeup in the mirror as more students began to pile in the hall. She was clearly over whatever had just happened in the glee club meeting but Finn wasn't. What she said about everyone in glee being a screw-up really stirred something in him, bringing to light things he had been too ashamed to admit previous to her confrontation.

Out of all the screw-ups in the past year of so, he was the King. And he was done with it -the drama and the emotion of it all. He needed guidance. An insight into being care-free. Someone to frighten him into never screwing up ever again….

And the person to provide that service was standing at her locker, putting on her make-up.

"Hey. I've been thinking and I kind of had an epifone. (She ignored his pronunciation failure) I suck. I've been trying so hard to the popular quarterback, leader of the glee club, a good boyfriend a good brother but I've kinda failed at it all."

"Well that's the thing about aspirations; guarantied 'ass' in the title."

Of course that confused him. Her wit was as wasted on him as it was on Brittney.

"Oh, yeh. Well I don't want to be that guy anymore. I don't want to keep failing cos it makes me feel crappy and kinda like when peter parker kept trying to be spiderman but ended up face-planted into the alley –"

" - Okay stop talking. You know what you're problem is Finn, you're a wet blanket! Quit whining and let it go. Life sucks, who cares, move on. Watch."

And with that she slammed her locker shut, swiftly spun on her heels and started to stride away from him.

"Wait Santana! You're right. I just, I need some help. I need someone to give it to me straight and whip my ass into shape. Nothing kinky." –he added, noticing her sudden smirk.

"I need someone to show me how to have fun and not be a 'wet-blanket'. And for that you're the perfect mentor! I mean you don't give a crap about anything or anyone and you're always happy. I think. It's hard to tell by your face sometimes. You seem to make the same expression when your happy and when you're doing something bad….."

She knew she was going to help him, after all who would turn down the opportunity to mold quarterback Finn Hudson into a perfect evil minion. It was sure to generate the same kind of kick as teaching a small child to swear, or getting a catholic drunk, activities she had already previously enjoyed in her lifetime. However she wanted to make him work for it.

"Why would I help you Finn. I know you have a brain the size of an emu bird but do you remember being annoyingly rude to me this morning?"

"Um… how about all the free burgers you want for… two weeks!"

"I don't want burgers. Burgers are for after sex. Unless that's part of the deal?"

She ran a finger seductively down his chest, knowing he would respond with an intimidated twitch she always found comical.

"No no I'm not asking for that!" he flustered.

"Really? Cos you could really do with the training –" she added perfectly serious.

"No thank you…. Okay how about…'"

He was struggling to come up with good enough incentive when Santana came up with an idea bound to be part of scheme he would never figure out until it began causing his life hell.

"A favor. Not now. But at some point in the future, I get to ask you for a favor. And no matter how big or ridiculous to you, you have to agree."

"A favor?... Ok. Santana you have my word that if you help me I will grant you one favor at some point in the future."

"Excellent. Okay but if we're gonna do this, I need to know that you are going to follow my advice without question and completely embrace the dark side, otherwise there's no point in doing this at all…. And I'm gonna need your credit card."

"Really? Uh… I don't know… what are you going to do with it?"

She sighed, looking at his panic stricken face.

"Okay first rule. If you don't want to do something, don't do it. You don't want to give me your credit card, and let's be honest you really shouldn't, put your foot down and say no."

"Um… no?"

"Don't question it jello-spine, tell me it!"

"Oh uh, no Santana you can't have my credit card!'"

"…Better. But I was still about as put in my place as a blind shelf-stacker's work-load."

"Sorry…"

"Second rule don't apologise."

"Right. Sorry. Dammit!"

He was such a dork. She couldn't help but smile. There was just something completely endearing about him that separated him from every other jerk in the male population of McKinley. She was really excited at the thought of spending time with him. Wait what? Those thoughts flew to the back of her mind in a flash. She was really excited at the thought of spending time with him, making him her bitch. Yes. That was better.

"Okay you are so lucky I enjoy a challenge. Okay I'm hungry let's go. Grab your bag Hudson, we are ditching!"

"Di-ditching? Ditching! Awesome. Yeh ditching's… bitching."

He was panicking again - the perfect opportunity to make him comically twitch arose….

"Hey Finn. You know how couples get names like 'Finchel' and 'Puckleberry'.. well guess what we are…"

Completely ignorant to where this was going he put his brain to work.

"Finntana… Fantana? Fanta?"

"Nu uh…. "

Backing him into the lockers she moved as physically close to him as possible, keeping their eye contact in deadlock, moving in for the kill. She felt his heart rate quicken and she rose on tip-toes to sensuously whisper into his ear.

'…Sinn.'

And with that she delivered her trademark flick of the ponytail before turning on her heels and striding down the hall with a smug smile across her face.

Finn was once again momentarily speechless, rooted to the spot by a combination of fear, anxiety and quite frankly, arousal, before hastily picking up his backpack and running down the hall after her.

Today was going to be fun.