Title: An Alternative to Recycling
Author: slacker_d
Pairing/Characters: Brittany/Santana
Rating: PG
Summary: Santana doesn't like clowns.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Word Count: ~1,100
Spoilers: None.
A/N: For a genius prompt on the Fluff Meme

The first time Santana sees a clown in person she's six. She's at her new best friend Brittany's birthday party and high on chocolate ice cream. The two of them are chasing each other around the yard in a tight circle, getting dizzier and dizzier until Santana slams into a pair of adult legs and tumbles to the ground.

She looks up to see a white face, red nose and frizzy multi colored hair staring back at her. A hand is offered and words spoken, but Santana neither sees or hears this. Instead she screams and scurries away as fast as she can.

Several months earlier her older brother Jorge, let her stay up and watch Itwith him. She spent the next two weeks sleeping with every light in her bedroom on and her brother was grounded for the same amount of time.

So now as Chuckles the Clown offers to help her up, all Santana can do is scream and try to escape. Only the clown doesn't seem to understand and keep moving towards her. So Santana grabs at whatever's available, some rocks that have escaped the landscaping around the house, and throw them in the clown's general direction.

It's a direct hit to the face and Santana is able to scramble away. Everyone is distracted by the cursing clown and so she is able to hide before she gets in too much trouble. She spends the rest of the party hiding under the food table and occasionally sneaking cookies and juice. Brittany joins her after the candles are blown out, telling Santana not to worry; she doesn't like clowns either.

…

Santana's fear of clowns never really goes away. As she gets older, it morphs into a deep seeded hatred that makes her even hate Ronald McDonald. Her parents learn this after the second visit to the McDonald's play area ends in the entire Lopez family being banned.

Maria Lopez never wanted to know what a Ronald McDonald statue is made of, but now that she does, she doesn't consider it to be a very sturdy structure. She knows her little girl can be a terror, but she's still only eight and somewhat small for her age.

Still, neither her or her husband can deny that definite damage was done by their daughter. However, Jorge also receives some of the blame for yelling encouragement as the third grader used the other children's shoes to take down the statue. Thankfully, nothing but Ronald McDonald is destroyed; though all the parents grumble about having to seek out their children's shoes.

…

Brittany and Santana have been best friends for six years when the blonde comes up for a way for Santana to stop being afraid of clowns. For the past two weeks there have been commercials on TV for the Shrine Circus. If Santana's over, they have to change the channel because even the thought of a clown is enough to send the Latina into an anger spiral and Brittany's pretty sure her parents won't forgive Santana againfor trying to push the couch into the TV.

Brittany knows she's not as smart as Santana, but she doesn't understand why her best friend doesn't just push the TV on the ground instead of trying to ram it with the couch. But she doesn't asks, just shrugs and moves out of the way.

But today Brittany is sure she has a good idea. So she rides her bike over to Santana's house, parks it in the driveway and knocks on the Lopez door. A moment later, Santana opens it and the blonde follows her best friend up to her room.

Sitting on Santana's bed, Brittany explains her plan.

"We're gonna go to the circus and find all the clowns," the blonde exclaims.

"No way."

"Yes way," Brittany says. "Look what I brought." She holds up a nearly full grocery bag of batteries. "We can chuck these at 'em. You said you were gonna help me not throw like a girl, right?"

A devious grin spreads over Santana's face. "Okay.

Santana tells her mom they're going to the park and the pair take off on their bikes.

It's fairly easy to sneak into the circus. They wander around looking for the clown tent or whatever the clowns stay in. When the find a ridiculously small car parked next to a tree, Santana knows this is the spot. She climbs the tree, takes the bag of batteries from Brittany and then helps the blonde climb up as well.

They don't have to wait long. A clown appears to apparently inspect the car before the show. Santana whips a AA at him, telling Brittany to watch her technique. It whizzes by his ear and he looks around in confusion. Brittany tries and it hits him square in the nose, though not nearly as fast as Santana's flew. The Latina's next throw hits him on his right temple and he cries out in pain.

His shriek brings forth more clowns and both girls begin a steady stream of battery throwing. Only about half of Brittany's hit their target, but almost all of Santana's do.

Once they're out of ammo, they climb further into the tree to hide. They stay there huddled together for over an hour waiting for the show to start and the clowns' entrance before Santana deems it safe to climb down.

They spend the time kissing and holding hands, something they just recently started doing. Even though nailing the clown in the face was awesome, Santana thinks kissing Brittany is even better.

…

It becomes one of their yearly summer rituals. Every year when the Shrine Circus comes to town, Brittany will bring the bag full of batteries to recycle that her family has, but never actually recycles and they'll go whip batteries at clowns. Each year is a challenge of sneaking in, and finding a different and better place to hide. They have yet to be caught, but the summer before their sophomore year is definitely a close call. They probably should've waited until they'd escaped the circus to start making out.

Santana blames the adrenaline rush that comes from performing a run by battery barrage. Brittany blames Santana for pushing her up against a trailer and pressing their bodies together to avoid detection.

The only reason they manage to escape is that they manage out run their pursuers. Santana sends a silent thank you to Coach Sylvester for keeping them in ridiculous shape.

…

So when her father hands her his old laptop battery to recycle, Santana quickly agrees. She stores it in her closet with a few other batteries she's managed to collect, like the large 6 volt lantern battery she swiped from Artie, and eagerly plans for next year's battery bombardment campaign.