Brittany/Santana
Title: “The words that she can’t say”
Author: glori_ficus
Pairing, Character(s): Brittany/Santana, some appearances from Quinn and Tina.
Rating: Um.. PG-13? I’m sort of clueless about this ratings thing, so please tell me if I’m mistaken.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters.
Spoilers: Up to 1x07 Throwdown for sure. Maybe a bit of next episode’s promo.
Summary: There was a lot that Santana needed to express.
"The Words That She Can't Say"
“You what?”
Brittany answered with a shrug from her seat at the rehearsing room. They were the only two left and Santana was already on her feet and adjusting her uniform to go, but not before blowing up at something that the blonde had casually informed her.
“I told you, Tina’s helping me with Spanish.”
A complete look of disbelief shot across Santana’s face. “Um, hello? You know I can speak Spanish, why didn’t you ask me?”
Brittany stared at her hands as she played with the folds of her cheerleader uniform skirt. “I didn’t want to bother you and…” Her voice becoming and almost incoherent mumble. “…And Tina doesn’t lose her temper when I don’t get it.”
“Pff, that girl can barely sp-p-p-peak English, let alone a foreign language.” Santana added in a cruel tone, mimicking Tina’s stuttering.
Brittany stood up and crossed her arms, looking upset. “Don’t be like that.”
An eye-roll followed suit. “Please! Don’t tell me you’re going to defend those geeks?”
“They’re our friends.”
“No, no, Britt, be real here for a second. They’re our team-mates and I like them and all, but we’re not really friends.” She put on a condescending expression. “It’s bad enough that Quinn seems to have been abducted by aliens and her double is, like, BFF with Berry now.”
Brittany pouted. It was so cute that the sight made Santana regret sounding so harsh.
“Well, Tina’s my friend, and I really like her, okay?”
Santana’s right eyebrow rose with suspicion. “Do you like her better than me?” She abruptly looked down in embarrassment, because that wasn’t what she intended to ask at all. Where did that came from? Santana Lopez was not, by any means, insecure. She was a Cheerio for god sakes!
“What?” Brittany asked, taking a couple steps towards her. “Santana, what are you talking about? You know I love you!”
After hearing those words, she quickly glanced up to find a blushing, slightly anxious face watching back at her. Usually, they didn’t use phrases like “I love you” or any similar expression. And specially not with the sincerity that Brittany uttered those words.
Santana self-consciously swallowed in an attempt to clear her throat and calm herself. And in her most catastrophic decision ever, she cracked a joke. “You’re not going all lesbo on me, are you?” She put on a taunting smirk, but it didn’t last long.
Because Brittany turned around and bolted out of the room, much to Santana’s surprise.
“Britt!” She called, an awful feeling settling into the pit of her stomach, and when she finally snapped out of it and ran to the halls, the blonde was nowhere to be seen.
She couldn’t find her as she checked the bathroom and then the parking lot. In mild worry, she was about to send her a text message when she spotted Quinn getting ready to step into her car.
“Hey Quinn!” She yelled, noticing as she approached her that Rachel Berry was in the front seat of Quinn’s red vehicle.
Well, this type of situation was normal by now, but it still continued to baffle Santana. Ever since the news about Quinn’s pregnancy hit the school, her reputation went downhill and she became somewhat of a social outcast. But, Santana considered, that it wasn’t at the same level of the likes of Rachel, and definitely not bad enough that she had to suddenly spend so much time with her.
Quinn still had her; Santana, and Brittany. Sure, they weren’t walking around bragging about her friendship with the pregnant girl, but they were still her friends.
“Hey, what’s up?” Quinn looked at her, her hand resting on top of the door’s handle.
Santana planted herself in front of her and gave a fleeting look at Rachel, who waved at her happily, only to receive a very fake smile in return.
“Please tell me you’re driving her into the middle of nowhere and abandoning her there.”
Quinn didn’t bat an eye as she answered. “Maybe after our stop at Starbucks. I have this muffin craving, you wouldn’t believe.”
Santana sneered. “And you don’t think that going with the tranny will kill your appetite?”
Quinn, seemingly out of nowhere, gave her a knowing smile. “You know, Santana… Somebody once told me that I had a lot I needed to express. You should let out whatever it’s bothering you, because you’re acting really bitchy right now.”
“Excuse me?”
“You could try singing.”
Santana could only look astonished as Quinn patted her lightly on the shoulder, and then got inside her car where she exchanged a couple of words with Rachel.
She blinked several times, still trying to process the image of both girls smiling at each other before Quinn turned on the ignition and drove away. Santana thought that the world was definitely upside down.
What's more, she fought the urge to slap her forehead when she realized she never asked Quinn if she had seen Brittany.
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Next day everything was weird for Santana. Classes shared with Brittany were weird. Cheerleader practice was extremely weird, and Glee Club was, also, plain weird.
They were on a small break while Mr. Schue went to fetch the band. Santana glanced around the rehearsing room to notice that Quinn was hanging around with Rachel, Brittany doing the same with Kurt, and not surprising in the least, Mike was chatting with Artie and Finn while Puck was with Matt, Tina and Mercedes. So needless to say, she felt pretty lonely and isolated as she pretended to focus on learning her sheet music. She discreetly stole glances towards Brittany whenever she could, only to find her immersed in her conversation with Kurt.
Santana couldn’t help but wonder how on earth she ended up being the one that was sitting all alone. Why her fellow popular kids would rather hang out with the ones at the bottom of the chain instead of her?
And when Tina moved towards Kurt and Brittany, being welcomed with bright smiles, she wondered what the hell was it about Tina that made Britt choose her over Santana, her best and oldest friend.
Even if it was just to help her with Spanish.
She exhaled loudly, but the sound got lost among the constant chatter of the room. Screw this, she thought, and being so besides herself she began to sing some main lines from the song she was supposed to learn the back vocals of it.
“Every time I think of you
I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue
It's no problem of mine but it's a problem I find
Living a life that I can't leave behind”
She started low, half singing, half whispering the words.
“There's no sense in telling me
The wisdom of a fool won't set you free
But that's the way that it goes
And it's what nobody knows
And every day my confusion grows”
Santana’s voice gradually grew in confidence, her eyes glued to the words in front of her like there was nothing else in this world. She paced back and forwards, following the rhythm of the song.
“Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I'm waiting for that final moment
You'll say the words that I can't say”
She finished the verse and paused to catch her breath, only to notice that every single person was staring at her.
“Wow, Santana, that was great!” Mr. Schue, who was standing in the doorway, broke the silence. He walked towards the group of kids, band in tow, and smiled. “I definitely think you should have some solo lines in this one.”
Santana felt pretty embarrassed, but her blush wasn’t too noticeable with her dark complexion, so she pretended to be calm about the whole thing with a simple “Whatever.”
“Maybe we could make Santana, Brittany, Mike and Matt as the center of this song.” Will clapped his hands enthusiastically. “Let’s see how it works with different people doing the main vocals. Alright?”
Everyone gave different types of approvals, some nods, a couple of “yeah”, and a very unenthusiastic “sure” from Rachel.
Mike and Matt gave each other high fives and moved forward. Brittany seemed reluctant and a bit scared, because even though the girl was one of the best dancers in there, she didn’t feel confident enough in her singing to have any sort of lead. Or so, Santana pretended to believe, because the alternative would be that Brittany was scared of her, and she didn’t want to consider that option.
As the four leads got together to get instructions from Will, it was the closest Santana had been to Brittany in the whole day, and still feeling a wall of awkwardness between them, she couldn’t avoid the sadness that invaded her.
After class was over, Will told her in privacy that her performance had been beautiful and very heartfelt. Santana awkwardly thanked him.
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It wasn’t until a couple of days later that Brittany showed up at her doorstep, all humble and shy and embarrassed and Santana felt terrible, because it should have been the other way around.
“Can we talk?” Brittany asked, trying hard to maintain eye contact with the other girl.
Santana moved aside to let her through, and led her to the bedroom, even though the blonde already knew every inch of the house by heart.
They sat down, Santana on her bed and Brittany on the desk chair. It felt so bizarre, this walking on eggshells around each other. Santana thought she should apologize as soon as possible.
But it was Brittany who did it first. “I’m sorry, S.”
It was crazy; she didn’t even know why the other girl was apologizing for and she had to stop this nonsense. “What? No, I’m the one who’s sorry. You did nothing wrong.”
“Yeah, I did.” Brittany looked directly at her eyes, with that honest, doe-eyed expression that she could pull off so well. “I’ve been hiding stuff from you.”
“Stuff?” The question came in a broken voice.
“Yeah, I… I…” Brittany paused, bit her lip and then mumbled to herself; “It seemed so much easier when Kurt said it.”
“What? Why? What did he say?”
“That I should…, that I like…”
“What?!” Santana felt so anxious she almost leaped from her bed.
And the answer came in a whisper so small she almost missed it.
“I like girls.”
She liked Tina. That was Santana’s first terrifying thought. Brittany liked girls. Brittany liked Tina. Brittany was abandoning her for a stuttering loser with no sense of good fashion whatsoever. And that made her irrationally angry.
Which was probably not the best expression to receive after a confession of that caliber, and it was the reason why Brittany’s eyes began watering.
“I understand if you don’t want to be my friend after this…”
But Santana didn’t listen. “Is it Tina?” She abruptly stood up.
The other girl just gawked at her in confusion.
“Mercedes? Rachel? Which one of those losers seduced you? I bet it was that skanky goth wannabe Tina.” She accused, her voice dripping with disgust.
“What on earth are you talking about? Nobody seduced anyone!” Brittany attempted to defend herself and the other girls, getting up to her feet and trying to grasp control on a situation that was spiraling out of it.
“Do you like Tina?!”
“Are you blind? I don’t like Tina, I like you!”
Seeing the mortified face that was staring at her, it took Santana ten seconds to process that small but vital piece of information. But it only took her two beats to lurch forward and throw herself against Brittany. She desperately smashed her lips onto the other girl’s mouth and took a possessive grip on her waist.
The kiss was borderline aggressive at first, as if it were the only way Santana knew of expressing her feelings, and keeping them bottled up was causing her to drown in them. She eased her pace when she noticed Brittany hesitantly but surely surrendering to the sudden assault.
It was almost too much when Santana felt two arms draping around her shoulders and fingertips entangling with the hair near her scalp, making her feel compelled to pin the girl against her bedroom door. Santana pushed her body even closer, their heaving chests pressing their breasts together, naked knees brushing with each other and exploring tongues smoothly touching.
When Santana pulled back, Brittany gasped loudly.
“I just don’t... understand.”
Santana grinned, feeling more free and alive than she ever remembered being. “Well, I’ll explain more slowly this time. Pay attention.”
She kissed her once more, only more tenderly this time and Brittany smiled against her lips.
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Santana propped herself against the lockers and smiled at the girl she had come to see. “Hey Tina.”
She received a strange look, and a string of stuttering for an answer that could pass off as “Hi Santana.”
“I wanted to ask you.” She tilted her head a bit, going straight to the point. “Do you mind if I take over and help Brittany with her Spanish?”
Tina furrowed her brow in confusion, not expecting to hear that question. “What? Oh! S-sure!” She finally smiled at the cheerleader and seemed to relax slightly. “Actually, please do. I don’t think she learns t-t-too much with me.”
“Are you sure?” Santana sought confirmation, and seeing the other girl nod, she beamed brightly. “Thanks!”
“No prob.”
“Anyway, I’ll see you at Glee Club then!” She earnestly waved at her and carried on her path through the crowded halls of school.
Tina simply smiled at her, not really getting why it was so important for Santana to teach Brittany Spanish. But it was a relief in fact, because as much as she liked the blonde cheerleader, tutoring her with Spanish was one of the most difficult tasks she ever attempted to do.