Title: Something Deeper Chapter 2
Rating: Light R for cursing
Spoilers: None
Summary: Santana and Brittany get into an argument and it changes things.
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Santana walked towards the school the next day, trying to mentally prepare herself for another day of walking the halls alone. She didn’t like the way that sounded in her mind and tried her best to ignore the hollow feeling in her chest. She was even trying to figure out a way to fix things with Brittany. Coming up with nothing, Santana became angry with herself for even trying; why should she fix things? Brittany was the one who threw away their friendship.
Santana stopped in the middle of the parking lot and blinked back tears. Did she really mean that little to Brittany? When the hell did their friendship go from best friends with benefits to fuck buddies? Santana shook her head to get rid of these thoughts, she was not about to go all emo and cry in the parking lot. Squaring her shoulders, she headed towards the school with her head held high and bitch face in full play.
Entering into the school, the first thing Santana noticed were Kurt and Mercedes stalking towards her. She tried to walk past them but was stopped as they stood in front of her.
Santana eyed them warily, “This isn’t going to become some weird habit is it? I can’t have people constantly standing in my way to get my attention; I do have a life you know.”
“You’re alive.” Mercedes finally breathed out.
“Yeah.” Santana drawled, wait were they actually worried about her?
“We saw Coach Sylvester dragging your body around in the halls yesterday and then you didn’t come to glee-“ Kurt explained
“Which Rachel was really pissed about, she even gave a five minute speech about the importance on coming to every glee meeting. She was also convinced that you were out to destroy her career-“
Santana was surprised that they even cared. The warmth that filled her at their concern both shocked and surprised her, she almost smiled.
“Well I’m fine.”
Kurt and Mercedes both nodded.
“Good because I wanted to kill you myself and I’m happy that Coach Sylvester didn’t ruin that for me. What the hell did you do to Brittany yesterday?” Kurt stated harshly.
Santana’s eyes widened slightly at the venom in his voice. The warm feeling from before had completely disappeared and Santana had to hold back tears; figures that they would be on Brittany’s side, none of them cared about her.
“Hello? Did you hear him? Why has my girl Britt been crying since yesterday? Hell she’s still crying, like in the girl’s bathroom right now. What did you do?” Mercedes asked while putting her hands on her hips awaiting an answer.
Santana swallowed, “What did she tell you?”
They both frowned and Kurt snorted, “That’s the problem, she won’t tell us anything! All she does is sit there and silently cry, the only thing Quinn was able to get out of her was that you guys weren’t friends anymore before she burst into a new round of tears!!” The frustration was clearly evident in his voice.
Santana didn’t think she could feel any worse than she already did but after Kurt’s revelation she most definitely felt worse. They didn’t even know and jumped to Brittany’s side. The bastards didn’t even care enough to get all their facts before they chose sides. How fucked up was that?
“Whatever.” Was her reply before walking around them and ignoring their angry shouts demanding answers.
It took her a moment to realize the reason why; they were Brittany’s friends. It didn’t matter that Brittany stomped on her heart, they were her friends and they were automatically on her side. The revelation left her oddly cold and she wrapped her arms around herself as she walked to class.
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School was horrible. For the entire day Santana had to deal with being alone, angry glee members, a teary eyed Brittany, and whispers behind her back. The latter she was used to and she didn’t remember it bothering her as much as it did now. Maybe it was because she doesn’t have Brittany to take her mind off of it. The only good thing about today is the free period she has before glee. She used to spend this time in the library with Brittany doing whatever, but now it was spent hiding away from everyone.
Santana wondered when the hell life became so miserable that she had to hide from people just to get a little peace. She was even doing her homework at school, days before it was due; the blasphemy of that was not lost on her.
She was half way done with her geometry homework before she noticed a vibrant red tracksuit. She looked up to see an angry Sue Sylvester standing in front of her.
“Hi Coa-“
“Don’t speak. Get up, pack your junk, and follow me to the gym.” Sue said before turning and walking out of the library. Not daring to risk any more of her wrath, Santana quickly gathered her things and ran after her.
Once in the gym Santana was forced to stand at attention while watching as Sue paced in front of her.
“You didn’t fix things with Brittany.” She started.
Santana was about to open her mouth but was quickly silenced with a glare.
“How do I know this? Well, I just saw said cheerio standing at her locker like a kicked puppy with those mouth breathers trying to cheer her up. Let me tell you something Santana, I take insubordination very seriously. I don’t allow it in any form; you didn’t even try to follow orders. When I told you to fix things and make her happy again I wasn’t aware that you needed to be told that this was to be done immediately. If I had known you were this dense I would have given you written directions, assuming you could read, you can read can’t you?”
Santana was positively offended that she even had to ask. Her face must have said as much for Sue nodded and continued on.
“So, in accordance to my strict policies on insubordination, you’re punishment is at my discretion and I fully expect you to keep your mouth shut about what goes on here.”
“What?” She was really confused right now; she was supposed to keep this a secret?
“For you punishment, I’ve added a few things along with those suicides.”
Santana watched curiously as Sue walked over to the bleachers and came back with a black binder, which she in turn handed to her. Santana opened it and on the first page found a new diet regiment.
“That there is how you’re going to eat from now on, you’re really going to need those carbohydrates.”
Santana continued to scan the list; fruits and vegetables, whole grain. Wait, what the fuck? Wheat bread? She hated wheat bread. Looking further Santana saw no problem until she got to the part that listed smoothies. She frowned, smoothies? Why in the hell was she about to drink a smoothie?
“But Coach what about the master cleanse?” She silently hoped that she wouldn’t be forced to consume that along with all this new food being introduced to her diet.
“That you won’t be drinking anymore. With what I have planned trying it on master cleanse alone will kill you. I don’t plan on letting you die that easily. Turn the page.”
Santana gulped, she really didn’t like the way this was heading. She turned the page and looked to see what type of torture she was going to be forced to endure. What she found was a workout schedule and she paused, exercise? That was her grand evil plan? She was going to make her work out? She does that already. She continued on to read what type of exercises she was going to do when she came across the warning label.
“Coach there’s a warning label.”
“I know isn’t it wonderful. At first I planned on ignoring it and making you do things my way but then again can’t have you breaking down on me early own. So for now, we’ll start you in slow and do that one exercise every other day like it suggests.”
Santana absently nodded as she took everything in, and took a look at that weird exercise again. What the hell was a pull up and why did it need to be done every other day for best results?
“Coach, what’s a pull up?”
Sue slowly smiled and Santana felt a shiver down her spine, “We’re going to have so much fun.”
Santana gulped and was afraid to continue on but did so anyways. What she found on the next and last page was a triangle diagram with the numbers one through six on each side with the number six being at the very top. Below the diagram were simplified detailed instructions on how to use it.
“That there is your standard PT Pyramid, it brings back wonderful memories of that baby separating the weak from the strong. For now that’s what you’re going to be doing after you finish those suicides. That’s going to be you’re warm up workout if you don’t fix things with Brittany and more pages that will be added to that binder.”
Santana was slowly starting so see how this was going to be a really bad thing, and she still hadn’t explained what the fuck a pull up was. She kind of needed to know because by the looks of things she was going to be doing a lot of them along with sit ups and pushups.
“Lopez!” Santana jumped and nearly dropped the binder.
“Get a move on those suicides now!”
She placed the binder down and got started.
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Santana was late to glee and couldn’t bring herself to care: everything hurt. It surprised her because she hated being late; punctuality was kind of her thing. Just walking to glee was excruciating and Santana wished she knew the crazy bastard that came up with suicides so that she could kill them slowly with a spork. She also found out what a pull up was in the most horrible and humiliating way. And struggling to do one with Coach Sylvester laughing at her was not her idea of a good time. To make things worse, by the time she was done with those exercises, it was time for practice to start and she was not allowed to sit out because she was tired.
Walking into the glee room, Santana watched as everyone stopped in the middle of practice and an awkward silence descended upon the room.
“Santana, you’re late.” Mr. Shue said into the quiet room and Santana rolled her eyes. Hello, captain obvious, it’s so nice to meet you.
Rachel opened her mouth and Santana sighed, “Santana, as I’m sure you know, Regionals are coming up in a few months and everyone needs to put forth their best if we plan on beating Vocal Adrenaline.”
As she paused to take a breath, Santana decided to cut her short, “Spare me the lecture, Berry. I’m here now.” She ignored anything else Rachel might have said and took a seat away from Brittany. Her actions didn’t go unnoticed around the room and everyone started to whisper among themselves. Brittany looked at her, silently begging for Santana to sit next to her. Santana couldn’t do it; she couldn’t be near her and not feel the pain of rejection shoot through her.
Santana was grateful when Mr. Shue managed to get everyone under control and back on track; gratefulness that quickly left when he decided to have them practice their dance routines. By the time glee ended, Santana couldn’t find the motivation to move, let alone leave the room. Through her pain induced haze. Santana vaguely noticed Brittany hesitating near the door, waiting for Santana to leave too. Half of her wanted to stay just to spite Brittany, but the other half wanted to run to her just so Brittany could stop looking so sad. Santana moved her leg and silently hissed in pain; looks like she wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon.
Brittany seemed to have sensed that Santana wouldn’t be leaving with her and sniffled before walking out of the room alone. Santana sighed in relief when she left because her inner conflict left too. She started to relax and let her head fall back before she heard someone clear their throat. Lifting her head, Santana noticed that Mr. Shuester was still in the room.
“What?” Santana snapped, she was still a little irritated with him.
“Well, I know you’ve noticed the state that Brittany has been in lately and I’m a little worried. She won’t talk to anyone about what’s going on and I was wondering if you knew.”
“Why would I?”
“Well you are her best friend, I-“
“We’re not friends anymore.” She hated that her voice shook slightly at the end of her sentence, but she did enjoy the shocked look on Mr. Shuester’s face.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, she stopped being friends with me. Why don’t you ask her?” She was tired of having this conversation with everyone. Did they take some perverse joy in reminding her that she was friendless every chance they got? Why couldn’t she get over her heart break in peace without having to deal with all the other shit going on in the world?
“Brittany broke off the friendship? I just don’t see her doing that for no reason. Maybe you did something that upset her?” Santana couldn’t help the scoff that escaped. This was really getting old, was she really that horrible a person that everyone just assumed that she did something wrong? The thought made her pause, she didn’t like what he was implying.
“Maybe if you just apologized then things would get better.” She heard him say. Santana got up and grabbed her things; pain be damned. She was not about to sit here and listen to him accuse her like everyone else.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Were her last words before she left a stunned Mr. Shue in the glee room.
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In the parking lot, Santana was happy to be away from everyone before she groaned when she spotted Puck leaning against her car.
“Oh, for the love of god. Why the fuck can’t you guys just leave me the hell alone?”
“Look, I know we aren’t on the best of terms right now, with that whole thing with Quinn. But this thing with Brittany has got to stop. I don’t do crying chicks and she’s been crying since yesterday and I’m at my limit.”
“Look I’m not in the mood. Leave or I’m running your ass over.”
“Don’t be a bitch, Lopez. We all know you fucked up things with Brittany. Just suck it up and apologize so she can’t stop crying all over the pace.” She could tell he was starting to get angry, but she could care less: she was tired and hungry and all she wanted to do was go home and relax.
“I didn’t do anything and I’m not apologizing, now get out of my way.” She moved past him and got in her car. Puck clearly didn’t believe that she would actually run him down, so he had to jump out of the way when she put her car in reverse and started to back out of her parking space. She could hear him cursing her out, but she just turned up the volume on her radio and drove away.
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Finally making it home, Santana walked through the front door, sat her things down, and sighed.
“The day was that rough, huh?”
Santana jumped and turned to the voice, hands raised to protect herself. Upon seeing her father sitting in his chair and smirking at her, did she lower her arms and blink at him.
There was a brief silence before he responded, “Why are you staring at me?”
Her dad looked around and seemed to notice the lack of blonde near her side.
“Hey, where’s Brittany?” Santana sighed, it was official the world hated her and wanted to remind her every moment that Brittany wasn’t around.
“She’s obviously not here.”
“She’s always here. Most days I can’t get her to leave. What happened? Wait, did you guys get in an argument again?”
“Can we not talk about this?” She didn’t think she could handle having another version of this conversation for the umpteenth time today.
Santana stopped, “Wait, you’re home.”
Santana saw guilt flash on his face briefly before he smiled, “I’ve finished all my surgeries and was able to get off of work on time for a change.”
“You were gone for two days.” She bluntly reminded him and she didn’t even feel guilty about wiping the smile off his face.
“I know, I’m sorry but between back to back surgeries and emergencies, I just decided that it would be easier to sleep at work.” He tried to explain but Santana had heard it all before. She left him in the living room and went to get a snack.
He followed her into the kitchen, “Santana, say something.”
“What’s there to say? You were busy, apparently too busy to call and let me know you were still alive.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. I should have called.”
She ignored him and continued making herself a sandwich. The silence in the kitchen was tense and uncomfortable; she wished that her mother was still here.
He cleared his throat, “How was your day?”
Santana resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Was he really trying to start a conversation? He should’ve known from past experiences that they’ve never finished one.
“Fine.”
“Santana you just walked in looking worse than some of our interns; I highly doubt that your day was fine.”
She actually did roll her eyes this time, “Fine, since you want to know so badly: it was horrible.”
“What? Why?”
She looked at him, there was so many ways that she could answer and didn’t know which one to chose. Her dad looked around and seemed to notice the lack of blonde near her side.
“Is this about Brittany? Look if you had an argument, just apologize and then things will be fine.”
“Why do I have to apologize? I didn’t do anything! You’re supposed to be on my side!” Santana yelled, she couldn’t take it anymore. She could take everyone in school taking Brittany’s side, it was kind of expected, but this was her dad. He was supposed to be on her side and make things better.
Santana grabbed her sandwich and stormed up to her room.
“Santana?”
“No, leave me alone!” She slammed the door behind her, right in his face. She sat her sandwich down on her desk before she gave into the urge to throw something.
“Santana” She heard her father call from behind her door; she ignored him.
“Santana, you know I’m on your side. It’s just that the last five arguments you two have had have been your fault.”
“This isn’t some stupid argument, we’re not friends anymore.” She finally replied after a while.
“What?” She could hear her father’s shock and could imagine it mirrored on his face.
“What happened?” He managed to say after a few moments.
Santana was about to explain the entire situation, but she hesitated. She was gay for her best friend who didn’t feel the same way. Was she really prepared to come out to her dad? How would he react to this? She didn’t know, she was afraid and didn’t know what to do.
Before Santana could go into a full blown panic, her father’s pager beeped and she could hear him sigh. When she didn’t hear him immediately leave she knew that he was still waiting for an answer.
“They’re paging you.”
“I know that but someone else can take it. What’s going on between you and Brittany?”
Santana swallowed hoping that it would help against the rising panic but it didn’t, “It’s okay daddy, go save lives.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, we can talk some other time.” After a moment, she heard him move away from the door and she released the breath she didn’t know she was holding. Running a shaking hand through her hair, Santana lay down on her bed and fell asleep, the sandwich completely forgotten.
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Santana walked through the hallways on Wednesday extremely sore from yesterday. Her dad hadn’t come home that night, but at least he called and she was happy to know that he listened to her. Santana was so lost in her thoughts about yesterday and what to tell her dad when they do eventually talk, that she almost ran into Quinn who was standing in front of her again.
“Damn it, Fabray, stop standing in front of me when I’m walking!” She really wished she could hit her, but the girl was pregnant and Santana did have morals.
“Well, maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass for two seconds you would have seen me.” The urge to hit her became that much stronger.
“Are we back to this again? It’s really getting old. Come back when you have new material.” She tried to step around Quinn but was blocked again and Santana glared as hard as she could; fighting the urge to lash out.
“Did you know that I spent most of yesterday talking Brittany out of quitting glee and the cheerios?”
Santana swallowed the fear of what it would mean for her if Brittany had actually quit cheerios. This was really bad.
“No I didn’t, but then again, I wasn’t there now was I?”
“That’s my point, you weren’t there and quite frankly I’m tired of cleaning up your mess. As such, the rest of the glee members and I have decided that a ‘code red’ is in order.”
“Code red? What the hell is that?” What is this shit? They’re conspiring against her now? She really didn’t have time for this now. Coach Sylvester was expecting her in a few minutes and if she was late, Coach was going to kick her ass.
“Turn around.” Santana didn’t like the way she was smirking and wished she could slap the look off her face, but only rolled her eyes before turning around.
What she met was a wall of cold liquid and was barely able to close her eyes in time. She spit out the slushie that went into her mouth and shivered as the liquid quickly soaked into her uniform. Wiping slushie out of her eyes, Santana could see the other glee clubbers holding empty cups. Santana swallowed back tears; she wouldn’t let them have the satisfaction. At least Brittany wasn’t there; she didn’t slushie her and Santana didn’t think she would be able to handle the betrayal if she did.
The moment of shock wore off and Santana could see that everyone in the hall was laughing at her. She even saw a couple of phones being pulled out to capture proof of her fall from grace She had just been slushied by the biggest losers in the school. There was no way she was coming back from this.
Covered in slushie, Santana held her head up, glared at all of them, before walking to the nearest bathroom. Locked in an empty girl’s bathroom, Santana cried as she cleaned her uniform. She was late and Coach was going to kill her.