The Highway Of Regret (3/?)
Title: The Highway Of Regret
Author: Troubadette
Pairing,Character(s): Eventual Artie/Tina, Brittany/Santana, mentions of Sam/Santana, Brittany/Artie, Tina/Mike
Rating: M
Word Count:
Spoilers: 2x14 promo - Speculation Fic
Summary: "Why doesn’t she love me, Artie?” When a drunken Brittany makes her feelings for Santana known at Rachel's party, it forces Artie and Tina to look back on their broken relationship and sparks realizations for Santana.
Why is there an elephant on her head? Brittany tries to open her eyes and is hit full force with bright lights. And her head hurts. And she feels sick to her stomach. And she's never drinking Puck's punch ever again. She closes her eyes tightly and rolls over, only to find another body clinging to hers. Probably Santana. She takes in a deep breath and recognises her smell, then snuggles in just a little closer. It's okay. She's safe. She can go back to sleep.
Except the fog from last night is lifting and she's remembering that no, actually, it's not okay to be in bed with Santana. Because she's with Artie. And she hasn't been in bed with Santana for, like, months. Not since Artie. It takes her a few more moments to realise she's in her underwear and this sinking feeling hits her, because she likes Artie and she never meant to cheat. She rolls away, opens her eyes again and blinks a few times to adjust to the lights before swinging her legs around the side and sitting up groggily.
The movement must have woken Santana because she's murmuring a little and rolling towards her. "Brit, what are you doing? It's still really early."
"I have to go home," she replies, waiting for her vision to clear so she can actually find her stupid clothes. "I can't be here."
"What?" Santana sits up and Brittany feels her hand tentative on her shoulder. "Of course you can be here. You're always here. It's fine. We always do this after parties."
"Not anymore, we can't," she snaps. "Because I'm with Artie now and I don't want to be a cheater." She thinks about how sad his face looked when he thought she cheated with Mike and doesn't want to see his face that sad again.
Santana huffs. "Come on, Brit, it totally doesn't count if it's with me. And we didn't even do anything."
Brittany stands up a little too quickly and regrets it. "I need to go home."
"Whatever," Santana sighs. Brittany turns to see she's rolled back over, burying her face in her pillow. And for some reason, this really annoys her.
"It's not just whatever, San... " She tries to figure out what to say, but she's tired and her head hurts and somehow, she kind of thinks there wouldn't be much point. She bends down to pick her jeans up and slides them back on. "Have you seen my shirt?"
"You left it at the party," replies Santana, muffled from the pillow. She rolls over and squints up at the ceiling. "You were dancing and you took your shirt off and Artie was throwing money at you, it was just ridiculous. And yeah, while we're at it, why are you so hung up on the cripple anyway?"
Sighing, Brittany goes over to the dresser, pulls out a blue shirt of Santana's and puts it on. "Don't call him that. He's nice."
"He's a loser, Brit," says Santana, sitting up now and looking angrier than Brittany's seen her in ages - since the time one of the football players called Brittany a slut and Santana kneed him in the groin. "He's a loser and he doesn't deserve you. He doesn't deserve a pretty, hot, popular girlfriend. Pretty, hot, popular girls should be dating way cooler guys."
She glares at Santana. "You're the one who doesn't deserve me, Santana."
"Excuse me?" she snaps. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"If you don't want to be with me, like together together, because you're too scared, then you don't deserve to be with me," says Brittany slowly, like she's only just figuring out the words for herself. And maybe she is. "And I can't keep being friends with you cos it hurts too much."
"I have never hurt you, Brittany," replies Santana, her voice low and kind of sexy but mostly dangerous. "Sure, I screw other people over - I own that - but I have never, ever, ever done that to you, so don't you dare try to pin that on me."
"You did the duet with Mercedes and not me," says Brittany calmly. "That hurt me. You're like constantly screwing Puckerman, or going after him, even if he doesn't want you. That hurts me. Then you break up Sam and Quinn and go after Sam, just to mess with Sam and... it hurts, seeing you running around hooking up with everyone. Everyone except me."
"Okay, I so didn't hook up with Mercedes."
"That's not the point." Brittany searches around in her pockets for her house keys but can't find them. She catches a glimpse of silver on the floor and picks them up. "Go back to sleep. I'm going home, I'll see you at school."
Before Santana has the chance to protest, Brittany closes the door to her room. Her heart hurts. She sees her jacket just outside Santana's door and picks it up, puts it on and heads outside in what she hopes is the direction of her house. Stupid Puck and his stupid punch. He totally only made it because it would take, like, tons of alcohol to get Lauren Zizes really drunk and everyone knows that up until now, she wasn't putting out for him. Puck's totally predictable. Brittany's mind goes back to the party and she tries to piece bits of the night together. This isn't usually something she does by herself - most of time, she either doesn't bother trying to remember a party ("a good party is one you can't remember," says Santana every hangover morning, where they wake up San's bed, have some sweet morning lady kisses and eventually get out of bed long enough to shower and make pancakes) or she lets Santana fill in the details. This time, though, she can't ask Santana. And that hurts, too.
Artie. Oh god. What did she say to him? She remembers crying and being upset and... oh god, she told him about Santana. Was he mad? He didn't seem mad. But she was so drunk and he got mad when he thought she cheated with Mike and it was a big deal to him, not cheating, so she has to make sure he isn't mad, because even if she isn't in love with Artie, he's been super nice to her and she doesn't want to him to hate her. She puts her hands into the pocket of her jacket and has an idea.
About twenty minutes later, she's knocking on the door of the Abrams house. The door opens and Mrs. Abrams opens the door, looking rather surprised to see her. "Brittany, won't you come on in," she says politely, and Brittany doesn't think Mrs. Abrams likes her very much but then realises that she hasn't showered, she probably smells like booze and maybe even looks like a panda, so she might not be making a great impression.
"Is Artie awake?" she asks, holding out a bag of groceries. "I, uh, I brought breakfast?"
"That's awfully sweet of you," says Mrs. Abrams, with a smile that's a bit not as fake as the first one. "He's a pretty heavy sleeper, let me just go and check on him."
"It's okay, Mom, I'm up," comes a voice from behind them. Brittany turns to see Artie wheeling toward them. He's wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt and it makes him look really different than his usual kind of nerdy clothes. It also makes him look really young. "Brit, hey, what are you doing here?"
"I brought you breakfast," she announces, pulling out a packet of instant pancake mix from the bag, as well as a packet of bacon. "I couldn't find the proper bacon, though, so we have to have slimy stuff. And I don't actually know how you make the box of pancakes into pancakes you can actually eat."
"We'll figure it out," says Artie with a grin. "I'm the king of pancakes, just you watch."
Artie's mom heads off into the lounge and leaves them alone, which is probably good because Artie's mom still makes Brittany kind of nervous. Artie wheels over to the stove and it's totally all little and short, just like he is. Brittany almost forgets about how sad she is because the little stove is just so cool.
"It's like, you sized," she says with awe and Artie laughs a little.
"Yeah, it is. Okay, for this box, we need an egg and some milk and some oil. I'll show you where everything is."
Moments later, they're sitting down to eat pancakes with syrup and bacon (if you put the slimy bacon into the pan, it totally turns into normal bacon) and Brittany's convinced that Artie's, like, Masterchef or something because these pancakes are way better than any of the ones Santana makes on Hangover Day. She almost says that but then thinks she shouldn't and it reminds her just how stupid everything is with Santana right now. Artie seems to notice her mood change and frowns. "Everything okay? You feeling alright? You were pretty bad last night."
"I think I said some stupid things," Brittany blurts out. "And I wanted to say that I'm sorry."
Artie's face looks a little sad at that. He sighs. "Brittany, it's okay, really."
"No, it's not okay," she argues. "You're my boyfriend and if I want to make lady babies with someone else, I shouldn't tell you because it'll hurt your feelings and I don't want to hurt your feelings. Santana hurts my feelings all the time and it sucks so I don't want to do that to you."
"You didn't hurt my feelings on purpose," he assures her. And he looks so sad, too, that she just wants to apologise again. "It's really okay."
"I'm gonna try harder, okay?" she tells him seriously. "I'm gonna forget about Santana and I'm gonna focus on being the best girlfriend ever, because I don't want you to hate me. But it has to be a secret that I like Santana, okay, because otherwise bad things will happen. Like what happened to Kurt. And so if I'm a perfect girlfriend to you, then we can be happy and Santana can be happy and everyone can be safe, okay? I don't want anyone getting hurt."
Artie takes her hand and looks at her seriously. "Brittany, you don't have to be my perfect girlfriend. You don't even have to be my girlfriend if you don't want to."
That doesn't make sense. Brittany frowns. "You're breaking up with me. Again."
Artie sighs. "No, I'm not, I'm just... if you're in love with someone else, then you shouldn't be with me." He looks down at the table. "And if I'm in love with someone else, then I shouldn't be with you."
That makes more sense. Brittany blinks. "Who are you in love with? Is it Tina?"
Artie nods. "Yes. I tried to not be but I still am."
"That's good, then," Brittany says sensibly. "Now she won't have to keep dating her cousin."
Artie looks really confused for a moment, then he grins, then he looks embarrassed and Brittany's not exactly sure why. "It's up to you what we tell people," he says after awhile. "But we can still be friends, okay? Because you're awesome."
"You're the best boyfriend I ever had," Brittany tells him seriously. "Well, you and then Kurt. His hands were much softer. But he didn't have his own set of wheels."
"Damn straight," says Artie, and he's the cutest little white gangster ever.
"We can be friends but tell people we're still boyfriend/girlfriend, if that's okay?" asks Brittany, a little nervous. Because it's lying and she doesn't like to do that, but if it makes things easier, then maybe that's a good thing. "At least, until I figure things out with Santana. Because if you're not my boyfriend then we'll probably have sex again but she'll be having sex with other people and it'll make me sad so until she's ready to only have sex with me, or until I stop being in love with her, I don't want to have sex with her." She sighs. "I'm sorry, Artie. I don't like it when things are complicated."
"I don't like it either," Artie admits. "But that's okay with me. Whatever's going to make it easier for you. Tina's with Mike and I don't want to ruin that for her. Not when Mike and I are finally getting to be friends. And I like being with you. I just... don't think I'll ever feel the way about you that I do about her."
"Then that's okay," insists Brittany. "Because I'm never going to feel the way about you that I do about Santana."
Artie laughs, one of those 'this really isn't funny' kind of laughs that always seem kind of pointless to her. "Wouldn't it be easier if we did feel that way about each other?"
"Oh, totally."
They both finish their pancakes in silence.
Author: Troubadette
Pairing,Character(s): Eventual Artie/Tina, Brittany/Santana, mentions of Sam/Santana, Brittany/Artie, Tina/Mike
Rating: M
Word Count:
Spoilers: 2x14 promo - Speculation Fic
Summary: "Why doesn’t she love me, Artie?” When a drunken Brittany makes her feelings for Santana known at Rachel's party, it forces Artie and Tina to look back on their broken relationship and sparks realizations for Santana.
Why is there an elephant on her head? Brittany tries to open her eyes and is hit full force with bright lights. And her head hurts. And she feels sick to her stomach. And she's never drinking Puck's punch ever again. She closes her eyes tightly and rolls over, only to find another body clinging to hers. Probably Santana. She takes in a deep breath and recognises her smell, then snuggles in just a little closer. It's okay. She's safe. She can go back to sleep.
Except the fog from last night is lifting and she's remembering that no, actually, it's not okay to be in bed with Santana. Because she's with Artie. And she hasn't been in bed with Santana for, like, months. Not since Artie. It takes her a few more moments to realise she's in her underwear and this sinking feeling hits her, because she likes Artie and she never meant to cheat. She rolls away, opens her eyes again and blinks a few times to adjust to the lights before swinging her legs around the side and sitting up groggily.
The movement must have woken Santana because she's murmuring a little and rolling towards her. "Brit, what are you doing? It's still really early."
"I have to go home," she replies, waiting for her vision to clear so she can actually find her stupid clothes. "I can't be here."
"What?" Santana sits up and Brittany feels her hand tentative on her shoulder. "Of course you can be here. You're always here. It's fine. We always do this after parties."
"Not anymore, we can't," she snaps. "Because I'm with Artie now and I don't want to be a cheater." She thinks about how sad his face looked when he thought she cheated with Mike and doesn't want to see his face that sad again.
Santana huffs. "Come on, Brit, it totally doesn't count if it's with me. And we didn't even do anything."
Brittany stands up a little too quickly and regrets it. "I need to go home."
"Whatever," Santana sighs. Brittany turns to see she's rolled back over, burying her face in her pillow. And for some reason, this really annoys her.
"It's not just whatever, San... " She tries to figure out what to say, but she's tired and her head hurts and somehow, she kind of thinks there wouldn't be much point. She bends down to pick her jeans up and slides them back on. "Have you seen my shirt?"
"You left it at the party," replies Santana, muffled from the pillow. She rolls over and squints up at the ceiling. "You were dancing and you took your shirt off and Artie was throwing money at you, it was just ridiculous. And yeah, while we're at it, why are you so hung up on the cripple anyway?"
Sighing, Brittany goes over to the dresser, pulls out a blue shirt of Santana's and puts it on. "Don't call him that. He's nice."
"He's a loser, Brit," says Santana, sitting up now and looking angrier than Brittany's seen her in ages - since the time one of the football players called Brittany a slut and Santana kneed him in the groin. "He's a loser and he doesn't deserve you. He doesn't deserve a pretty, hot, popular girlfriend. Pretty, hot, popular girls should be dating way cooler guys."
She glares at Santana. "You're the one who doesn't deserve me, Santana."
"Excuse me?" she snaps. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"If you don't want to be with me, like together together, because you're too scared, then you don't deserve to be with me," says Brittany slowly, like she's only just figuring out the words for herself. And maybe she is. "And I can't keep being friends with you cos it hurts too much."
"I have never hurt you, Brittany," replies Santana, her voice low and kind of sexy but mostly dangerous. "Sure, I screw other people over - I own that - but I have never, ever, ever done that to you, so don't you dare try to pin that on me."
"You did the duet with Mercedes and not me," says Brittany calmly. "That hurt me. You're like constantly screwing Puckerman, or going after him, even if he doesn't want you. That hurts me. Then you break up Sam and Quinn and go after Sam, just to mess with Sam and... it hurts, seeing you running around hooking up with everyone. Everyone except me."
"Okay, I so didn't hook up with Mercedes."
"That's not the point." Brittany searches around in her pockets for her house keys but can't find them. She catches a glimpse of silver on the floor and picks them up. "Go back to sleep. I'm going home, I'll see you at school."
Before Santana has the chance to protest, Brittany closes the door to her room. Her heart hurts. She sees her jacket just outside Santana's door and picks it up, puts it on and heads outside in what she hopes is the direction of her house. Stupid Puck and his stupid punch. He totally only made it because it would take, like, tons of alcohol to get Lauren Zizes really drunk and everyone knows that up until now, she wasn't putting out for him. Puck's totally predictable. Brittany's mind goes back to the party and she tries to piece bits of the night together. This isn't usually something she does by herself - most of time, she either doesn't bother trying to remember a party ("a good party is one you can't remember," says Santana every hangover morning, where they wake up San's bed, have some sweet morning lady kisses and eventually get out of bed long enough to shower and make pancakes) or she lets Santana fill in the details. This time, though, she can't ask Santana. And that hurts, too.
Artie. Oh god. What did she say to him? She remembers crying and being upset and... oh god, she told him about Santana. Was he mad? He didn't seem mad. But she was so drunk and he got mad when he thought she cheated with Mike and it was a big deal to him, not cheating, so she has to make sure he isn't mad, because even if she isn't in love with Artie, he's been super nice to her and she doesn't want to him to hate her. She puts her hands into the pocket of her jacket and has an idea.
About twenty minutes later, she's knocking on the door of the Abrams house. The door opens and Mrs. Abrams opens the door, looking rather surprised to see her. "Brittany, won't you come on in," she says politely, and Brittany doesn't think Mrs. Abrams likes her very much but then realises that she hasn't showered, she probably smells like booze and maybe even looks like a panda, so she might not be making a great impression.
"Is Artie awake?" she asks, holding out a bag of groceries. "I, uh, I brought breakfast?"
"That's awfully sweet of you," says Mrs. Abrams, with a smile that's a bit not as fake as the first one. "He's a pretty heavy sleeper, let me just go and check on him."
"It's okay, Mom, I'm up," comes a voice from behind them. Brittany turns to see Artie wheeling toward them. He's wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt and it makes him look really different than his usual kind of nerdy clothes. It also makes him look really young. "Brit, hey, what are you doing here?"
"I brought you breakfast," she announces, pulling out a packet of instant pancake mix from the bag, as well as a packet of bacon. "I couldn't find the proper bacon, though, so we have to have slimy stuff. And I don't actually know how you make the box of pancakes into pancakes you can actually eat."
"We'll figure it out," says Artie with a grin. "I'm the king of pancakes, just you watch."
Artie's mom heads off into the lounge and leaves them alone, which is probably good because Artie's mom still makes Brittany kind of nervous. Artie wheels over to the stove and it's totally all little and short, just like he is. Brittany almost forgets about how sad she is because the little stove is just so cool.
"It's like, you sized," she says with awe and Artie laughs a little.
"Yeah, it is. Okay, for this box, we need an egg and some milk and some oil. I'll show you where everything is."
Moments later, they're sitting down to eat pancakes with syrup and bacon (if you put the slimy bacon into the pan, it totally turns into normal bacon) and Brittany's convinced that Artie's, like, Masterchef or something because these pancakes are way better than any of the ones Santana makes on Hangover Day. She almost says that but then thinks she shouldn't and it reminds her just how stupid everything is with Santana right now. Artie seems to notice her mood change and frowns. "Everything okay? You feeling alright? You were pretty bad last night."
"I think I said some stupid things," Brittany blurts out. "And I wanted to say that I'm sorry."
Artie's face looks a little sad at that. He sighs. "Brittany, it's okay, really."
"No, it's not okay," she argues. "You're my boyfriend and if I want to make lady babies with someone else, I shouldn't tell you because it'll hurt your feelings and I don't want to hurt your feelings. Santana hurts my feelings all the time and it sucks so I don't want to do that to you."
"You didn't hurt my feelings on purpose," he assures her. And he looks so sad, too, that she just wants to apologise again. "It's really okay."
"I'm gonna try harder, okay?" she tells him seriously. "I'm gonna forget about Santana and I'm gonna focus on being the best girlfriend ever, because I don't want you to hate me. But it has to be a secret that I like Santana, okay, because otherwise bad things will happen. Like what happened to Kurt. And so if I'm a perfect girlfriend to you, then we can be happy and Santana can be happy and everyone can be safe, okay? I don't want anyone getting hurt."
Artie takes her hand and looks at her seriously. "Brittany, you don't have to be my perfect girlfriend. You don't even have to be my girlfriend if you don't want to."
That doesn't make sense. Brittany frowns. "You're breaking up with me. Again."
Artie sighs. "No, I'm not, I'm just... if you're in love with someone else, then you shouldn't be with me." He looks down at the table. "And if I'm in love with someone else, then I shouldn't be with you."
That makes more sense. Brittany blinks. "Who are you in love with? Is it Tina?"
Artie nods. "Yes. I tried to not be but I still am."
"That's good, then," Brittany says sensibly. "Now she won't have to keep dating her cousin."
Artie looks really confused for a moment, then he grins, then he looks embarrassed and Brittany's not exactly sure why. "It's up to you what we tell people," he says after awhile. "But we can still be friends, okay? Because you're awesome."
"You're the best boyfriend I ever had," Brittany tells him seriously. "Well, you and then Kurt. His hands were much softer. But he didn't have his own set of wheels."
"Damn straight," says Artie, and he's the cutest little white gangster ever.
"We can be friends but tell people we're still boyfriend/girlfriend, if that's okay?" asks Brittany, a little nervous. Because it's lying and she doesn't like to do that, but if it makes things easier, then maybe that's a good thing. "At least, until I figure things out with Santana. Because if you're not my boyfriend then we'll probably have sex again but she'll be having sex with other people and it'll make me sad so until she's ready to only have sex with me, or until I stop being in love with her, I don't want to have sex with her." She sighs. "I'm sorry, Artie. I don't like it when things are complicated."
"I don't like it either," Artie admits. "But that's okay with me. Whatever's going to make it easier for you. Tina's with Mike and I don't want to ruin that for her. Not when Mike and I are finally getting to be friends. And I like being with you. I just... don't think I'll ever feel the way about you that I do about her."
"Then that's okay," insists Brittany. "Because I'm never going to feel the way about you that I do about Santana."
Artie laughs, one of those 'this really isn't funny' kind of laughs that always seem kind of pointless to her. "Wouldn't it be easier if we did feel that way about each other?"
"Oh, totally."
They both finish their pancakes in silence.