The Fiction We Live - Ch.1
Title: The Fiction We Live
Chapter: 1/?
Rating: R
Pairings: Brittany/Santana
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
Warning: Super AU. Language. Femslash. Mature themes. Violence.
Author's Note: I don’t even know what the hell this is. Overactive imagination I guess.
Summary: ‘To Sue Sylvester and another fruitless year.’ The thought is followed by a bitter, barely audible, scoff. She swallows down the putrid toxin with Sue on her mind.
-----------------------------
She ducks into the nearest bar. Out of the cold air and into the smoky atmosphere. No one spares a glance in her direction. Her thick coat, baggy jeans, and scuffed sneakers are far from noteworthy. She heads straight for the bar. There’s a shot of something putrid and poisonous sitting in front of her before she’s even settled atop the barstool. The bartender knows her type. Her dark, steely eyes tell stories. She’s got a pretty face, tainted by the hint of a scar at her temple that he catches a glimpse of when she sweeps a lock of hair behind her right ear. He can tell by her posture, by the purse of her lips and the clench of her jaw, she isn’t someone to be messed with. He flickers his gaze over his many patrons. The uneasy knot in the pit of his stomach subsiding when he notices no one has spared a glance her way. The last thing he needs is a bunch of idiots ruining his bar.
She downs the muddy contents of her glass and sets it carefully upon the bar. It’s refilled within seconds. She savors the second glass a bit more, letting the poison infiltrate her bloodstream. She sips at the amber liquid and allows herself to think about her. About how she ended up here, some seedy bar in some crap city on the way to her next never ending clue. She doesn’t let herself think about it very often. Doesn’t let herself think about her. But on nights like this, when she lets herself wind down for the few hours it takes to settle the ache at her heart, she goes back to the beginning because really… It all started with that day.
She can only recall bits and pieces of the incident. Flashes of men in dark suits with guns. Watching her struggle, watching her fight against them. Her unreliable memory jumps from the fight to hearing her screaming ‘run’. Then an explosion. A scream she’s sure wretched itself from her own throat. That dark gaze. The love and the fear in those eyes. The reassuring smile stretched across those lips. Hands holding her back, pulling further and further away from her until all that’s left is darkness. She woke up alone in her apartment. All of her memories a foggy mess. The terrible ache in her heart was all that remained. Her frantic search for answers began that day.
Her glass is refilled again. She downs her poison and slams it down onto the bar a lot hasher than she intended. There’s an almost unnoticeable crack running along the side. The bartender notices and replaces the glass, filled to the brim, without a word. Her vision is starting to blur. It’s easier for her to remember when she isn’t actively trying to push the memories out of her mind.
She found every trace of her life with her a mere apparition. She tried to find records, tried to find anything and came up painfully empty handed. The answers didn’t come until Sue Sylvester found her. Sue trained her. Taught her how to fight, how to use a gun, how to use a computer, how to interrogate the shit out of someone. She taught her to be strong. To be hard. Her hand clenches around her glass, her jaw tightening at the memory of her late mentor. Eyes flaring with rage as they burn into the amber liquid in her glass.
‘To Sue Sylvester and another fruitless year.’ The thought is followed by a bitter, barely audible, scoff. She swallows down the putrid toxin with Sue on her mind.
She showed up at Sue’s hideout on what started as an insignificant day last year to find a wreck. She remembers standing in front of the burnt remains of the hide out. Watching from the large crowd as crews of firemen and police attempted to pick through the rubble. She could feel the hard plastic of her cell phone in her pocket as she gripped it. She could feel the harsh thud of her heart in her ribcage. Her last link to her had been silenced. Sue was going to help her find the people that murdered the love of her life. Sue was going to help her take them down. Sue was going to provide the answers she so desperately needed and Sue was dead. She pulled the cell phone from her pocket with the intent to destroy the last traceable link she had left to Sue. She noticed a voice message from her mentor and gave in to the urge to listen.
“I haven’t got much time. Bastards didn’t even have the decency to look me in the face when they shot up my lung.”
There was a hacking cough. A sharp inhale.
“When you get here they’ll be half way to their leader with anything on you they can salvage from my computer which is a whole lot of nothing. You don’t exist anymore, you hear. Stop chasing a ghost, kid. I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it once more. She wouldn’t want you dying for her. She would want you to move on, be happy. Live a normal life. Forget about her and all of this malarkey…”
A hopeless chuckle. More coughing. Shuffling. The familiar click of Sue’s trusty revolver. A gun shot in the background.
“I know you won’t give up. There isn’t an ounce of yellow in you. Just thought I’d clear my conscience before I get shot to hell.”
The pause was eerie. She could hear Sue’s shallow breathing. Could almost see the soft expression the older woman would sometimes get when Sue didn’t think she was looking. She could feel the embrace, the comfort of the pride in Sue’s almost motherly gaze.
“I’ll miss you. You’re the closest thing I had to one of my own which is why I owe this to you. I got a hold of some information last week, something big. She… she’s not dead.”
She remembers feeling the bile rising in her throat at the admission. The sick fire stirring in her gut. She was alive. There was a round of shots fired. Sue screaming obscenities and one last labored sentence.
“Find her. Make me proud, kiddo.”
Muffled voices and blaring gunshots, Sue’s proclamation that they’d never get her alive and then the loud crackle of a shattered cell phone. Deafening silence rang harshly against her eardrums. Sue was dead, Santana was alive, and Brittany had a mission to complete for all of them.
There’s a tingle of hope stirring beneath her chest at the thought. She’d followed all of her leads to dead ends. Travelled from city to city on the promise of finding Santana. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have anything solid. That there isn’t a lick of proof. She has hope. That’s all she needs.
Her steadying buzz and reflecting thoughts are interrupted by someone knocking into her back. She feels the anger radiating through her pores. The rage swimming in her fuzzy head. She whirls around to face the idiot and finds a red faced, hot headed, drunk whose attention is focused on the stage she never even spared a glance at. The guy is yelling something crude about one of the strippers. It’s nothing new to her. She usually ignores it, continues with her drinking, and doesn’t give an errant thought to the harassed stripper. It’s the stripper’s response to the drunk that catches her attention.
The stripper is an exact replica of Santana. She watches the drunk advance on the look-a-like, hand poised to backhand the stripper, seemingly in slow motion. Her response is pure reflex, a blur of action and violence. She has the drunkard on the ground and unconscious in less than ten seconds. The bar quiets, the patrons and employees staring at her in baffled silence. She brushes the remnants of shattered glass off of her thick coat. The action seems to ignite a fire. All hell breaks loose and she’s acting on pure instinct, protecting the woman that looks so similar to her lost love. Her head is still dizzy, her vision a blurred fray as they make it out of the bar and into her stolen sports car.
“Woohoo!” The feisty stripper hollers out of the open window. She flips the disgruntled patrons the bird as they drive past the entrance. “Eat my pussy, mother fuckers!”
The crude language sounds wrong to Brittany. The thick accent sounds so completely wrong. Brittany shifts into fifth gear. Stormy sapphire eyes never leaving the road as she jerks the other woman back into her seat. “Shut up, sit down, and put your freaking seatbelt on!”
“The fuck!” The stripper glares viciously at Brittany’s profile but complies with the strange blonde’s commands.
Brittany glances in the rear view mirror. Sees flashing lights in the distance. Hears sirens quickly approaching. She slams her foot on the gas, makes a sharp right turn and a hard left into an empty alleyway. She kills the lights and the engine. The only sounds are the distant screech of sirens and the dark haired woman’s labored breathing. Brittany surveys the area for the telltale flash of red, white, and blue. She finds nothing. The sounds of the sirens are moving further away. Without so much as a word, the blonde gets out of the car.
She appears at the passenger’s side door, face stoic. “You can leave now.”
With the halfhearted intonation Brittany circles back to the trunk. Digging through the contents. She pulls her shirt off. Slipping on an expensive looking white blouse and a classy cream colored blazer. Shimming out of her loose fitting jeans and into an elegant black pencil skirt. Trades her scuffed tennis shoes for fashionable heels. She shoves a Beretta 92 into the gun holster beneath her blazer. A holster with a Glock 19 encased is strapped to her thigh. Brittany stuffs a rich black Fendi purse with a .44 Magnum, two rounds of bullets, and a few magazine clips for her other two firearms. A thick wad of bills and fake identification cards are shoved into a zipped pocket of the bag before she slips the purse onto her shoulder.
The stripper’s dark, curious gaze doesn’t faze Brittany when she finally closes the trunk. Gas can in one hand and matches in the other. “I’m sure I told you to leave.”
“Not my fault you got me mixed up with the law. Way I see it, I can’t go back to my life without doing time and I don’t have the obvious experience you’ve got with running.”
Brittany feels the annoyance stir within her but shows nothing. “Your point.”
“My point is,” The dark haired woman scowls. It takes her three long strides before she’s standing in front of Brittany. Glaring up at the stoic blonde through smudged make up and disheveled hair. “I didn’t ask you to help me out back there. You got me mixed up in this shit pile and you need to get me out.”
Brittany sets the gas can down on the concrete next to her and opens the trunk once more. Blue eyes landing on a Ruger P95. She glances at the brunette then at the handgun once more before taking a hold of the weapon. Brittany levels the scowling woman with a hard stare. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
When the dark haired woman only stares at the weapon in disdain, Brittany frowns. She nudges the other woman’s arm with the handle. “Do what I tell you or you’re on your own. Your choice.”
“Fine.” The feisty brunette fiddles with the holster. Unsure as to where in the fuck she is supposed to hide the damn thing. She’s still in her lingerie.
“Put this on.” Brittany tosses the baffled brunette a backless red dress with a black sash around the middle and a flared skirt. The blonde’s jaw clenches at the arched brow she receives. She snatches the holster away from the stripper and fastens it around a toned, caramel colored thigh. “You have thirty seconds to get that dress on.”
Thirty seconds and multiple eye rolls later the two women are walking casually down the street. Brittany keeps her eyes open and her senses sharp. She figures the cops have a more detailed description of the brunette and a substandard one at best of Brittany herself. Without the whorish make up caked onto her face, the brunette could pass for someone else. She also looks a hell of a lot more like Santana. It unnerves Brittany. The way this woman, so different from Santana, looks so much like her.
“What’s your name?” Brittany forces the question out of her clenched throat.
“Cinnamon.” The brunette drawls. “But everybody calls me Cin. Yours?”
“Brittany.” Cin’s flirty tone has Brittany’s eye twitching.
“Fitting.” The brunette scoffs. “You gonna fill me in on the plan here?”
A resounding boom fills the silent night air. Brittany can almost taste the burning rubber and gunpowder. The cops will find the discarded sports car within minutes. The blonde makes a beeline for a maroon Porsche Cayenne Turbo S. Brittany manages to get the door open in less than a minute without looking the least bit suspicious. She motions for a gaping Cin to get in. Once they’re safely inside the vehicle and coasting effortlessly down the freeway Brittany speaks. She figures she might as well fill her new companion in.
“I won’t sugar coat it. There are people who want me dead and they’ll want you dead too. After they get the information they need from you, of course.”
Cin snorts. “I’ve got a gun strapped to my thigh, I’m riding in a stolen car, and I’m running from the police. Now you’re telling me I’ve got a hit out on me too? This is seriously not my day.”
“I don’t have a hit out on me. I have a warrant.”
“The fuck is the difference?”
Brittany’s grip tightens around the steering wheel. “I’m wanted by the government.”
“Are you a fucking spy?”
“No.”
“That’s the type of answer a spy would give.”
“It’s not.”
“Bet you can cheat a lie detector test, huh.”
“I can.”
“See?” Cin grins despite the anxious churning in her gut. “You’re a spy.”
Chapter: 1/?
Rating: R
Pairings: Brittany/Santana
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
Warning: Super AU. Language. Femslash. Mature themes. Violence.
Author's Note: I don’t even know what the hell this is. Overactive imagination I guess.
Summary: ‘To Sue Sylvester and another fruitless year.’ The thought is followed by a bitter, barely audible, scoff. She swallows down the putrid toxin with Sue on her mind.
-----------------------------
She ducks into the nearest bar. Out of the cold air and into the smoky atmosphere. No one spares a glance in her direction. Her thick coat, baggy jeans, and scuffed sneakers are far from noteworthy. She heads straight for the bar. There’s a shot of something putrid and poisonous sitting in front of her before she’s even settled atop the barstool. The bartender knows her type. Her dark, steely eyes tell stories. She’s got a pretty face, tainted by the hint of a scar at her temple that he catches a glimpse of when she sweeps a lock of hair behind her right ear. He can tell by her posture, by the purse of her lips and the clench of her jaw, she isn’t someone to be messed with. He flickers his gaze over his many patrons. The uneasy knot in the pit of his stomach subsiding when he notices no one has spared a glance her way. The last thing he needs is a bunch of idiots ruining his bar.
She downs the muddy contents of her glass and sets it carefully upon the bar. It’s refilled within seconds. She savors the second glass a bit more, letting the poison infiltrate her bloodstream. She sips at the amber liquid and allows herself to think about her. About how she ended up here, some seedy bar in some crap city on the way to her next never ending clue. She doesn’t let herself think about it very often. Doesn’t let herself think about her. But on nights like this, when she lets herself wind down for the few hours it takes to settle the ache at her heart, she goes back to the beginning because really… It all started with that day.
She can only recall bits and pieces of the incident. Flashes of men in dark suits with guns. Watching her struggle, watching her fight against them. Her unreliable memory jumps from the fight to hearing her screaming ‘run’. Then an explosion. A scream she’s sure wretched itself from her own throat. That dark gaze. The love and the fear in those eyes. The reassuring smile stretched across those lips. Hands holding her back, pulling further and further away from her until all that’s left is darkness. She woke up alone in her apartment. All of her memories a foggy mess. The terrible ache in her heart was all that remained. Her frantic search for answers began that day.
Her glass is refilled again. She downs her poison and slams it down onto the bar a lot hasher than she intended. There’s an almost unnoticeable crack running along the side. The bartender notices and replaces the glass, filled to the brim, without a word. Her vision is starting to blur. It’s easier for her to remember when she isn’t actively trying to push the memories out of her mind.
She found every trace of her life with her a mere apparition. She tried to find records, tried to find anything and came up painfully empty handed. The answers didn’t come until Sue Sylvester found her. Sue trained her. Taught her how to fight, how to use a gun, how to use a computer, how to interrogate the shit out of someone. She taught her to be strong. To be hard. Her hand clenches around her glass, her jaw tightening at the memory of her late mentor. Eyes flaring with rage as they burn into the amber liquid in her glass.
‘To Sue Sylvester and another fruitless year.’ The thought is followed by a bitter, barely audible, scoff. She swallows down the putrid toxin with Sue on her mind.
She showed up at Sue’s hideout on what started as an insignificant day last year to find a wreck. She remembers standing in front of the burnt remains of the hide out. Watching from the large crowd as crews of firemen and police attempted to pick through the rubble. She could feel the hard plastic of her cell phone in her pocket as she gripped it. She could feel the harsh thud of her heart in her ribcage. Her last link to her had been silenced. Sue was going to help her find the people that murdered the love of her life. Sue was going to help her take them down. Sue was going to provide the answers she so desperately needed and Sue was dead. She pulled the cell phone from her pocket with the intent to destroy the last traceable link she had left to Sue. She noticed a voice message from her mentor and gave in to the urge to listen.
“I haven’t got much time. Bastards didn’t even have the decency to look me in the face when they shot up my lung.”
There was a hacking cough. A sharp inhale.
“When you get here they’ll be half way to their leader with anything on you they can salvage from my computer which is a whole lot of nothing. You don’t exist anymore, you hear. Stop chasing a ghost, kid. I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it once more. She wouldn’t want you dying for her. She would want you to move on, be happy. Live a normal life. Forget about her and all of this malarkey…”
A hopeless chuckle. More coughing. Shuffling. The familiar click of Sue’s trusty revolver. A gun shot in the background.
“I know you won’t give up. There isn’t an ounce of yellow in you. Just thought I’d clear my conscience before I get shot to hell.”
The pause was eerie. She could hear Sue’s shallow breathing. Could almost see the soft expression the older woman would sometimes get when Sue didn’t think she was looking. She could feel the embrace, the comfort of the pride in Sue’s almost motherly gaze.
“I’ll miss you. You’re the closest thing I had to one of my own which is why I owe this to you. I got a hold of some information last week, something big. She… she’s not dead.”
She remembers feeling the bile rising in her throat at the admission. The sick fire stirring in her gut. She was alive. There was a round of shots fired. Sue screaming obscenities and one last labored sentence.
“Find her. Make me proud, kiddo.”
Muffled voices and blaring gunshots, Sue’s proclamation that they’d never get her alive and then the loud crackle of a shattered cell phone. Deafening silence rang harshly against her eardrums. Sue was dead, Santana was alive, and Brittany had a mission to complete for all of them.
There’s a tingle of hope stirring beneath her chest at the thought. She’d followed all of her leads to dead ends. Travelled from city to city on the promise of finding Santana. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have anything solid. That there isn’t a lick of proof. She has hope. That’s all she needs.
Her steadying buzz and reflecting thoughts are interrupted by someone knocking into her back. She feels the anger radiating through her pores. The rage swimming in her fuzzy head. She whirls around to face the idiot and finds a red faced, hot headed, drunk whose attention is focused on the stage she never even spared a glance at. The guy is yelling something crude about one of the strippers. It’s nothing new to her. She usually ignores it, continues with her drinking, and doesn’t give an errant thought to the harassed stripper. It’s the stripper’s response to the drunk that catches her attention.
The stripper is an exact replica of Santana. She watches the drunk advance on the look-a-like, hand poised to backhand the stripper, seemingly in slow motion. Her response is pure reflex, a blur of action and violence. She has the drunkard on the ground and unconscious in less than ten seconds. The bar quiets, the patrons and employees staring at her in baffled silence. She brushes the remnants of shattered glass off of her thick coat. The action seems to ignite a fire. All hell breaks loose and she’s acting on pure instinct, protecting the woman that looks so similar to her lost love. Her head is still dizzy, her vision a blurred fray as they make it out of the bar and into her stolen sports car.
“Woohoo!” The feisty stripper hollers out of the open window. She flips the disgruntled patrons the bird as they drive past the entrance. “Eat my pussy, mother fuckers!”
The crude language sounds wrong to Brittany. The thick accent sounds so completely wrong. Brittany shifts into fifth gear. Stormy sapphire eyes never leaving the road as she jerks the other woman back into her seat. “Shut up, sit down, and put your freaking seatbelt on!”
“The fuck!” The stripper glares viciously at Brittany’s profile but complies with the strange blonde’s commands.
Brittany glances in the rear view mirror. Sees flashing lights in the distance. Hears sirens quickly approaching. She slams her foot on the gas, makes a sharp right turn and a hard left into an empty alleyway. She kills the lights and the engine. The only sounds are the distant screech of sirens and the dark haired woman’s labored breathing. Brittany surveys the area for the telltale flash of red, white, and blue. She finds nothing. The sounds of the sirens are moving further away. Without so much as a word, the blonde gets out of the car.
She appears at the passenger’s side door, face stoic. “You can leave now.”
With the halfhearted intonation Brittany circles back to the trunk. Digging through the contents. She pulls her shirt off. Slipping on an expensive looking white blouse and a classy cream colored blazer. Shimming out of her loose fitting jeans and into an elegant black pencil skirt. Trades her scuffed tennis shoes for fashionable heels. She shoves a Beretta 92 into the gun holster beneath her blazer. A holster with a Glock 19 encased is strapped to her thigh. Brittany stuffs a rich black Fendi purse with a .44 Magnum, two rounds of bullets, and a few magazine clips for her other two firearms. A thick wad of bills and fake identification cards are shoved into a zipped pocket of the bag before she slips the purse onto her shoulder.
The stripper’s dark, curious gaze doesn’t faze Brittany when she finally closes the trunk. Gas can in one hand and matches in the other. “I’m sure I told you to leave.”
“Not my fault you got me mixed up with the law. Way I see it, I can’t go back to my life without doing time and I don’t have the obvious experience you’ve got with running.”
Brittany feels the annoyance stir within her but shows nothing. “Your point.”
“My point is,” The dark haired woman scowls. It takes her three long strides before she’s standing in front of Brittany. Glaring up at the stoic blonde through smudged make up and disheveled hair. “I didn’t ask you to help me out back there. You got me mixed up in this shit pile and you need to get me out.”
Brittany sets the gas can down on the concrete next to her and opens the trunk once more. Blue eyes landing on a Ruger P95. She glances at the brunette then at the handgun once more before taking a hold of the weapon. Brittany levels the scowling woman with a hard stare. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
When the dark haired woman only stares at the weapon in disdain, Brittany frowns. She nudges the other woman’s arm with the handle. “Do what I tell you or you’re on your own. Your choice.”
“Fine.” The feisty brunette fiddles with the holster. Unsure as to where in the fuck she is supposed to hide the damn thing. She’s still in her lingerie.
“Put this on.” Brittany tosses the baffled brunette a backless red dress with a black sash around the middle and a flared skirt. The blonde’s jaw clenches at the arched brow she receives. She snatches the holster away from the stripper and fastens it around a toned, caramel colored thigh. “You have thirty seconds to get that dress on.”
Thirty seconds and multiple eye rolls later the two women are walking casually down the street. Brittany keeps her eyes open and her senses sharp. She figures the cops have a more detailed description of the brunette and a substandard one at best of Brittany herself. Without the whorish make up caked onto her face, the brunette could pass for someone else. She also looks a hell of a lot more like Santana. It unnerves Brittany. The way this woman, so different from Santana, looks so much like her.
“What’s your name?” Brittany forces the question out of her clenched throat.
“Cinnamon.” The brunette drawls. “But everybody calls me Cin. Yours?”
“Brittany.” Cin’s flirty tone has Brittany’s eye twitching.
“Fitting.” The brunette scoffs. “You gonna fill me in on the plan here?”
A resounding boom fills the silent night air. Brittany can almost taste the burning rubber and gunpowder. The cops will find the discarded sports car within minutes. The blonde makes a beeline for a maroon Porsche Cayenne Turbo S. Brittany manages to get the door open in less than a minute without looking the least bit suspicious. She motions for a gaping Cin to get in. Once they’re safely inside the vehicle and coasting effortlessly down the freeway Brittany speaks. She figures she might as well fill her new companion in.
“I won’t sugar coat it. There are people who want me dead and they’ll want you dead too. After they get the information they need from you, of course.”
Cin snorts. “I’ve got a gun strapped to my thigh, I’m riding in a stolen car, and I’m running from the police. Now you’re telling me I’ve got a hit out on me too? This is seriously not my day.”
“I don’t have a hit out on me. I have a warrant.”
“The fuck is the difference?”
Brittany’s grip tightens around the steering wheel. “I’m wanted by the government.”
“Are you a fucking spy?”
“No.”
“That’s the type of answer a spy would give.”
“It’s not.”
“Bet you can cheat a lie detector test, huh.”
“I can.”
“See?” Cin grins despite the anxious churning in her gut. “You’re a spy.”