Fic: Let the Girls Play
Author's Note: Originally posted on Tumblr, sticking it here too.
“All right, let’s get this little charade under way,” Coach Sylvester said, irritated, blasting her whistle.
But Coach Bieste was grinning broadly, and on either side of her, Puck and Sam looked pretty excited themselves. Standing beside her, Brittany was practically vibrating, and it was really all Santana could do to contain her grin. She looked forward to this every year, McKinley’s annual powderpuff game, where the Cheerios (and any other female student who wanted to participate) would play flag football, while the football players (those who were game enough, anyway) would cheer them on. It was a big hit with the fans, so even though Coach Sylvester hated it, claiming it took time away from Cheerios practice and put her squad at unnecessary risk of injury, she let it continue, because it brought in money.
The previous two years, Santana had managed to get herself on Quinn’s team, of course, but not this year. This year was her to turn to take charge, and she stood in the front of the huddle of cheerleaders, impatiently waiting for Coach Bieste to determine which of her meatheads would pick first. Sam won the honors, and he did the dopey boyfriend thing, of course, and picked Quinn. Puck snorted and barked, “Lopez,” and she shrugged and went to stand with him, as it simply wouldn’t do to show any excitement.
“Pick Brittany next, or I’ll kick you in the balls,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth.
“I’m running this team,” Puck insisted, but one withering glare from his friend changed his attitude immediately. “Britt!” he called, after Sam had picked his second player.
Brittany beamed and bounced over to stand with him, smacking Santana’s hand in jubilation. Puck did a good job of picking the more intimidating of the girls, and Santana and Brittany gave high fives to most of them, and then suddenly there were two girls left: Tina and Rachel fucking Berry. “Whoa, whoa, what are they doing here?” she demanded, as Sam called for Tina to join his team. “Fuck,” she groaned, as Rachel uncertainly went to join her team.
“Berry!” Puck said, clapping her on the back. “What brings you to the very exciting world of women’s football?”
“All right! You have a week to practice!” Coach Bieste was saying, still grinning. “Have fun.”
“Mr. Schuester, er, suggested that Tina, Mercedes, and I join the game this year to try to-to foster camaraderie with our other teammates.” She looked hopefully at Santana and Brittany, but Brittany wasn’t paying attention, and Santana snarled. Rachel shrank away.
“Awesome,” Puck said, nodding. “All right, ladies, listen up! I know Cheerios keeps you in fantastic shape,” he said, ogling Santana’s ass, so she punched him. “So I’ll skip the pushups and all that bullshit. For now. Let’s work on some plays. Who’s quarterback?”
“Me,” Santana said, before he’d even finished his question.
“Of course. Any objections to Captain Lopez, ladies?” he asked, and all the girls knew better than to protest. Santana grinned and folded her arms. “Let’s get started, then.”
The Cheerios knew how to follow orders and how to execute formations perfectly, so Santana and Puck had almost no trouble teaching them a few basic plays. The problem was getting anyone to actually catch the ball. Brittany, because she could always read Santana, was her favored receiver, and she had a lower drop rate than any of the others, but… It wasn’t great, and Santana got frustrated, and when she got frustrated, Puck laughed at her. He tried passing drills, but they weren’t successful, so he insisted they work on a running game.
“Running the ball is fucking boring,” Santana complained, as they walked off the field later that night, the other girls chattering and walking quickly to get out of the cold.
“I know, Tom Brady,” Puck smirked. “I’ve seen you practicing your perfect spiral. But Britt’s the only one who’s got two hands, and even then…”
“Ugh, fine.”
“All right, now hear me out, but I think we might be able to use Rachel-”
“No.”
“Santana-”
“No. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing here, but I’m not running plays for her.”
“I thought you wanted to win!”
“I want to win,” Santana said evenly. “I’m doing the winning.”
Puck threw up his hands. “This is just a game, Santana. Do you really think Quinn will care if you beat her at flag football?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m putting Rachel at halfback,” he said with finality, and she just shoved him.
At their next practice, Santana tried to make Rachel drop the ball every time she handed it off, but her hands were always in the right place, and she almost always broke through the defense to gain yards. Puck was thrilled, and Rachel looked guardedly pleased with herself, as some of the other girls congratulated her at the end of practice, but when she looked at Santana, Santana just rolled her eyes and stalked into the locker room.
“San,” Brittany said, tugging on her elbow, “I know you like to throw. I’m sorry I’m not a better receiver.”
Santana sighed. “It’s not your fault, Britt.”
“We can practice more when we get to your house if you want!” she offered brightly. “I bet Alex and Juan will want to help too!”
“It’s too dark already,” Santana said, but she smiled at her best friend. “It’ll be all right. Maybe Rachel will get clobbered by the other team.”
Brittany laughed, but then a frown darkened her cheerful features. “But she’s on our team, San. We want to win, right?”
“Yeah,” Santana agreed reluctantly. “We want to win.”
So on Thursday morning, she found herself haltingly approaching Rachel at her locker. “You’re a lot better at football than I imagined,” she said, hating herself, and Rachel whipped around in surprise.
“You’re talking to me?” she said, and Santana couldn’t help but roll her eyes.
“Yes, Rachel. I’m talking to you. Listen, I want to beat Quinn’s team, and you’re, like, the best thing we’ve got, and god knows why, so I just wanted you to know. Quarterback has to keep the team together.”
“You seem to be taking this rather seriously, Santana. Isn’t this supposed to be fun?”
“It is fun. Are you having fun?” she asked, curious.
Rachel shrugged half-heartedly. “Playing a sport isn’t something I’d ever considered before. But it is nice to feel like part of a team.”
Santana nodded. “You don’t hate me, do you,” she observed, and Rachel slowly shook her head.
“None of this is really your fault, Santana.”
“Well, I haven’t helped.”
“Why should I expect you to?”
“We were teammates before this whole football thing,” she muttered, scuffing her sneaker against the dirty linoleum floor.
“You were amazing at Sectionals. I should have told you.”
“Thank you,” Santana mumbled.
“So. You’ll stop trying to drop the ball when you hand it off to me?” Rachel asked, smirking, and Santana shrugged.
“Maybe.” But she smiled slyly, and Rachel grinned, and suddenly it really didn’t matter if she got to show off her perfect spiral or not. She and Rachel could actually win this thing.
Saturday morning, Brittany was at her house, bright and early, with coffees for both of them and red and white ribbons for their hair. Santana rolled her eyes at them, but she let her friend braid her hair into pigtails and tie the ribbons around the ends because it made her happy. What made Santana happy was pulling Puck’s home jersey over her head and smearing the blacking under her eyes.
“You look hot,” Brittany appraised, and Santana winked at her.
“You too,” she said, trying to ignore the fact that number 34 belonged to frickin’ Artie.
“Oh! Do you think Rachel got a jersey? I’m not sure Finn would give her his…” she fretted.
“Of course he would. He’s a moron, not a complete asshole,” Santana said dismissively, but when she and Britt met the other girls in the locker room later, Rachel was the only one not wearing one of the boys’ jerseys.
She looked forlorn, and Santana sighed and pulled off Puck’s shirt, handing it over. “Here. Finn’s would have been too huge on you to play in anyway.”
Rachel took the jersey gratefully, and Brittany grinned and playfully pulled it on over her head. “Whose will you wear, San?” she asked, as Rachel struggled out from underneath the uniform.
“I’ll go find some meathead’s. Sit tight. Braid Rachel’s hair for her or something.”
Santana left, with the intention of going to the guys’ locker room and just taking an unused jersey, but she ran smack into Finn before she could even step into the hallway. “Frankenteen,” she grunted.
“Hey. Santana,” he said awkwardly. “I was just, uh… Maybe you could give this to Rachel?” He offered his own home jersey, and she sighed.
“Did you ever apologize for lying to her?” she demanded, yanking it from his hands.
“She messed around with Puck,” he muttered.
“Yeah, you messed around with her when you were dating Quinn,” Santana reminded him, and his eyes went wide.
“How did you-?”
“I know everything, you twit. So she fucked up, so did you. So did Puck. Did you punch him out yet?”
“I…”
“Ugh, why am I bothering. Get out,” she said, but she took the jersey back in to Rachel, who received it gratefully.
“He really wanted me to have it?” she asked, her eyes shining, and Santana could have puked.
“Just put it on,” she muttered. “We’re here to play football.”
The stands were full of Cheerios fans-and their friends and families-and the football players were on the sidelines, in half-hearted drag, but they were enjoying themselves. Santana found her family in the stand, even her mother and youngest brother, and she smiled and waved, and they yelled and waved back. Brittany’s parents and sister were there too, and they grinned and waved at both girls. “You’re gonna be awesome, San,” Brittany whispered, and Santana nodded.
“I am, aren’t I?”
Brittany laughed and pushed her, and Santana went to meet Quinn at center field for the coin toss. Quinn, her hair in its usual tight ponytail, wearing Sam’s away jersey, greeted her frostily. Actual Cheerios practice had been even more obnoxious for her than usual that week, as Quinn had been purposefully hard on her, but she’d done everything to keep from showing that it bothered her. And now it was time to put Quinn in her place.
“Ladies, shake hands,” Coach Bieste urged, and Santana and Quinn briefly gripped each other’s hands before dropping them. “All right, Ms. Fabray, call it in the air,” she instructed, and Quinn called heads. “Tails,” Coach reported, and Santana couldn’t resist indulging in a triumphant smirk.
“We’ll receive,” she chose, and Coach nodded.
She went back to her team, where Puck got them all fired up, and they lined up to receive the kickoff. It looked like Tina, Mike’s jersey hanging past her knees, was actually going to be doing the kicking. Standing next to Puck, Santana crossed her arms and smirked. This was going to be good. Brittany, still the only one who could catch anything, would be receiving, but that hardly mattered, because Santana was sure Tina’s kick would hardly clear the ground.
But it did, and Santana watched, jaw dropped, as the ball sailed to the twenty yard line, where Brittany caught it, dropped it, picked it up, and ran with it, neatly plowing through four of Quinn’s Cheerios before one of her flags was ripped off. “All right, Britt!” Puck yelled, and he smacked Santana’s ass as she headed out onto the field.
“Touch me again, and I’ll break your arm,” she said, but he only grinned.
“It’s what football players do, San. All right, let’s go, let’s go!” he yelled at his team.
“Nice work, Britt,” Santana congratulated her, as they set up on the forty yard line.
“Thanks!” Brittany beamed.
Santana called the play, a short pass to Rachel, who ducked through defenders and picked up twelve yards. Puck, on the sidelines, was losing it with unabashed joy. “Do you think he bet on the game?” Rachel asked Santana, as they both watched him.
“Probably,” Santana snorted.
As they set up on the line of scrimmage again, Santana watched the other team, narrowing her eyes. They’d obviously not practiced as diligently as her team had, but they were elbowing each other and laughing. Even Quinn, watching Santana warily, was barely suppressing a smile, and in one instant, Santana found most of her resentment of Quinn evaporating. This was a game. It was supposed to be fun. And when Santana and Puck had been younger, and they’d ruled the recess touch football game, nothing had been more fun. She winked at Quinn, who blinked back, startled.
“Again!” she instructed her team, and they set up. She gave Rachel the ball, but this time, she practically ran right into Quinn, who laughed and ripped off her flag.
“Try again, Berry,” she said, winking, and Rachel blushed.
“Ew,” Santana sighed, but Brittany was laughing, and she hugged Rachel around the neck, and then Quinn looked up and smiled cautiously, and Santana only rolled her eyes a little.
They didn’t make it into the end zone on their first drive, so Puck resignedly sent them to punt, and Santana took her place on defense. “Frickin’ quarterbacks playing defense,” Puck muttered.
“It’s a game, Noah,” Rachel reminded him. “Just let her tackle Quinn once. I think she needs to.”
Puck snorted, folding his arms. Across the field, Sam gave him a thumbs up, but he declined to return it. In fact, he probably would have returned a somewhat less polite gesture had Rachel not hung onto his arm.
On the first play, Santana barreled through everyone-even some of her own teammates-and ripped Quinn’s flag almost viciously. “Jesus!” Quinn muttered, shaking her head. “Are you happy now, Santana?”
“Not yet!” Santana sang, laughing as she tossed Quinn the flag back.
“Mercedes! I want some blocking please,” Quinn instructed, as Brittany jumped on Santana’s back, proud of her defensive prowess.
“Keep your hair on,” Mercedes retorted, and the girls laughed. Quinn just rolled her eyes, and they set up another play.
This time, Mercedes kept Santana from getting to Quinn, and she threw a pass that missed its receiver. Puck was whooping it up on the sidelines. Sam tried to call encouragement, but his voice got mostly drowned out by all the other noise. Santana stood, hands on hips, grinning as Quinn called her team into a huddle. “We are totally going to win,” she confided in Brittany, and her friend laughed and pushed her head.
By the fourth quarter, the score was tied, fourteen to fourteen. Rachel had scored a touchdown in the second quarter, and Santana had scored one herself at the end of the third. No one had been happier about that than Brittany. Not even Puck, who’d smacked her ass again when she’d jogged off the field, or Santana herself. It had taken Santana three whole plays to get over the feeling she’d had when Brittany had lifted her into her arms and spun her around in the end zone.
Now, as the seconds ticked away, and Santana gathered her team into the huddle, she realized how much fun this all had been. Brittany hadn’t stopped smiling for even a single second, and Rachel looked proud of herself again, and her Cheerios were all tired and cold and dirty, but they were grinning at her. She hadn’t seen Puck smile so much since they were kids, and the other guys: Finn and Mike, even Artie, were enjoying this just as much as the girls. In fact, Tina had scored one of the other team’s touchdowns, and Santana had never seen Mike go so crazy, and at halftime, he’d lifted her up onto his shoulders and yelled at anyone who could hear him that his girlfriend had scored that touchdown. Even she couldn’t pretend that hadn’t been adorable.
That didn’t mean she still didn’t need to win.
“All right, I think you all know I wanted to win,” she said to her team. “So we’re going to win. Right now.”
“Hell yeah we are!” Rachel yelled, and the girls laughed, and Brittany pushed her head, and they all turned hopeful eyes to their quarterback.
Santana grinned and called a passing play. “San!” Brittany protested, but Santana nudged her into place.
“Just one,” she said, winking, and as Puck watched them line up, he started screaming at her, but she ignored him.
She called for the ball, and her teammates went running, and she waited, waited until Brittany was in the right spot. Quinn was coming after her, but she danced out of her reach and fired off her spiral. It sailed perfectly through the air, just as Quinn hooked an arm around her waist and grabbed her flag. The ball landed right in Brittany’s arms, and for a second she froze. “Run!” Santana yelled, laughing, as Puck, hollering his head, off practically chased Brittany into the end zone along the sideline.
At her side, Quinn watched, flabbergasted, and when Brittany spiked the ball before being set upon by her own teammates, she turned to Santana and offered her hand. “Nice arm, Tom Brady,” she congratulated, and for a second Santana just stared at Quinn’s hand.
“I throw better than frickin’ Tom Brady,” she muttered.
“Maybe,” Quinn said slowly, “but he’s prettier.”
Santana froze, unsure how to handle the fact that Quinn had just joked with her. And then she crushed Quinn into a hug.
“All right, let’s get this little charade under way,” Coach Sylvester said, irritated, blasting her whistle.
But Coach Bieste was grinning broadly, and on either side of her, Puck and Sam looked pretty excited themselves. Standing beside her, Brittany was practically vibrating, and it was really all Santana could do to contain her grin. She looked forward to this every year, McKinley’s annual powderpuff game, where the Cheerios (and any other female student who wanted to participate) would play flag football, while the football players (those who were game enough, anyway) would cheer them on. It was a big hit with the fans, so even though Coach Sylvester hated it, claiming it took time away from Cheerios practice and put her squad at unnecessary risk of injury, she let it continue, because it brought in money.
The previous two years, Santana had managed to get herself on Quinn’s team, of course, but not this year. This year was her to turn to take charge, and she stood in the front of the huddle of cheerleaders, impatiently waiting for Coach Bieste to determine which of her meatheads would pick first. Sam won the honors, and he did the dopey boyfriend thing, of course, and picked Quinn. Puck snorted and barked, “Lopez,” and she shrugged and went to stand with him, as it simply wouldn’t do to show any excitement.
“Pick Brittany next, or I’ll kick you in the balls,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth.
“I’m running this team,” Puck insisted, but one withering glare from his friend changed his attitude immediately. “Britt!” he called, after Sam had picked his second player.
Brittany beamed and bounced over to stand with him, smacking Santana’s hand in jubilation. Puck did a good job of picking the more intimidating of the girls, and Santana and Brittany gave high fives to most of them, and then suddenly there were two girls left: Tina and Rachel fucking Berry. “Whoa, whoa, what are they doing here?” she demanded, as Sam called for Tina to join his team. “Fuck,” she groaned, as Rachel uncertainly went to join her team.
“Berry!” Puck said, clapping her on the back. “What brings you to the very exciting world of women’s football?”
“All right! You have a week to practice!” Coach Bieste was saying, still grinning. “Have fun.”
“Mr. Schuester, er, suggested that Tina, Mercedes, and I join the game this year to try to-to foster camaraderie with our other teammates.” She looked hopefully at Santana and Brittany, but Brittany wasn’t paying attention, and Santana snarled. Rachel shrank away.
“Awesome,” Puck said, nodding. “All right, ladies, listen up! I know Cheerios keeps you in fantastic shape,” he said, ogling Santana’s ass, so she punched him. “So I’ll skip the pushups and all that bullshit. For now. Let’s work on some plays. Who’s quarterback?”
“Me,” Santana said, before he’d even finished his question.
“Of course. Any objections to Captain Lopez, ladies?” he asked, and all the girls knew better than to protest. Santana grinned and folded her arms. “Let’s get started, then.”
The Cheerios knew how to follow orders and how to execute formations perfectly, so Santana and Puck had almost no trouble teaching them a few basic plays. The problem was getting anyone to actually catch the ball. Brittany, because she could always read Santana, was her favored receiver, and she had a lower drop rate than any of the others, but… It wasn’t great, and Santana got frustrated, and when she got frustrated, Puck laughed at her. He tried passing drills, but they weren’t successful, so he insisted they work on a running game.
“Running the ball is fucking boring,” Santana complained, as they walked off the field later that night, the other girls chattering and walking quickly to get out of the cold.
“I know, Tom Brady,” Puck smirked. “I’ve seen you practicing your perfect spiral. But Britt’s the only one who’s got two hands, and even then…”
“Ugh, fine.”
“All right, now hear me out, but I think we might be able to use Rachel-”
“No.”
“Santana-”
“No. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing here, but I’m not running plays for her.”
“I thought you wanted to win!”
“I want to win,” Santana said evenly. “I’m doing the winning.”
Puck threw up his hands. “This is just a game, Santana. Do you really think Quinn will care if you beat her at flag football?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m putting Rachel at halfback,” he said with finality, and she just shoved him.
At their next practice, Santana tried to make Rachel drop the ball every time she handed it off, but her hands were always in the right place, and she almost always broke through the defense to gain yards. Puck was thrilled, and Rachel looked guardedly pleased with herself, as some of the other girls congratulated her at the end of practice, but when she looked at Santana, Santana just rolled her eyes and stalked into the locker room.
“San,” Brittany said, tugging on her elbow, “I know you like to throw. I’m sorry I’m not a better receiver.”
Santana sighed. “It’s not your fault, Britt.”
“We can practice more when we get to your house if you want!” she offered brightly. “I bet Alex and Juan will want to help too!”
“It’s too dark already,” Santana said, but she smiled at her best friend. “It’ll be all right. Maybe Rachel will get clobbered by the other team.”
Brittany laughed, but then a frown darkened her cheerful features. “But she’s on our team, San. We want to win, right?”
“Yeah,” Santana agreed reluctantly. “We want to win.”
So on Thursday morning, she found herself haltingly approaching Rachel at her locker. “You’re a lot better at football than I imagined,” she said, hating herself, and Rachel whipped around in surprise.
“You’re talking to me?” she said, and Santana couldn’t help but roll her eyes.
“Yes, Rachel. I’m talking to you. Listen, I want to beat Quinn’s team, and you’re, like, the best thing we’ve got, and god knows why, so I just wanted you to know. Quarterback has to keep the team together.”
“You seem to be taking this rather seriously, Santana. Isn’t this supposed to be fun?”
“It is fun. Are you having fun?” she asked, curious.
Rachel shrugged half-heartedly. “Playing a sport isn’t something I’d ever considered before. But it is nice to feel like part of a team.”
Santana nodded. “You don’t hate me, do you,” she observed, and Rachel slowly shook her head.
“None of this is really your fault, Santana.”
“Well, I haven’t helped.”
“Why should I expect you to?”
“We were teammates before this whole football thing,” she muttered, scuffing her sneaker against the dirty linoleum floor.
“You were amazing at Sectionals. I should have told you.”
“Thank you,” Santana mumbled.
“So. You’ll stop trying to drop the ball when you hand it off to me?” Rachel asked, smirking, and Santana shrugged.
“Maybe.” But she smiled slyly, and Rachel grinned, and suddenly it really didn’t matter if she got to show off her perfect spiral or not. She and Rachel could actually win this thing.
Saturday morning, Brittany was at her house, bright and early, with coffees for both of them and red and white ribbons for their hair. Santana rolled her eyes at them, but she let her friend braid her hair into pigtails and tie the ribbons around the ends because it made her happy. What made Santana happy was pulling Puck’s home jersey over her head and smearing the blacking under her eyes.
“You look hot,” Brittany appraised, and Santana winked at her.
“You too,” she said, trying to ignore the fact that number 34 belonged to frickin’ Artie.
“Oh! Do you think Rachel got a jersey? I’m not sure Finn would give her his…” she fretted.
“Of course he would. He’s a moron, not a complete asshole,” Santana said dismissively, but when she and Britt met the other girls in the locker room later, Rachel was the only one not wearing one of the boys’ jerseys.
She looked forlorn, and Santana sighed and pulled off Puck’s shirt, handing it over. “Here. Finn’s would have been too huge on you to play in anyway.”
Rachel took the jersey gratefully, and Brittany grinned and playfully pulled it on over her head. “Whose will you wear, San?” she asked, as Rachel struggled out from underneath the uniform.
“I’ll go find some meathead’s. Sit tight. Braid Rachel’s hair for her or something.”
Santana left, with the intention of going to the guys’ locker room and just taking an unused jersey, but she ran smack into Finn before she could even step into the hallway. “Frankenteen,” she grunted.
“Hey. Santana,” he said awkwardly. “I was just, uh… Maybe you could give this to Rachel?” He offered his own home jersey, and she sighed.
“Did you ever apologize for lying to her?” she demanded, yanking it from his hands.
“She messed around with Puck,” he muttered.
“Yeah, you messed around with her when you were dating Quinn,” Santana reminded him, and his eyes went wide.
“How did you-?”
“I know everything, you twit. So she fucked up, so did you. So did Puck. Did you punch him out yet?”
“I…”
“Ugh, why am I bothering. Get out,” she said, but she took the jersey back in to Rachel, who received it gratefully.
“He really wanted me to have it?” she asked, her eyes shining, and Santana could have puked.
“Just put it on,” she muttered. “We’re here to play football.”
The stands were full of Cheerios fans-and their friends and families-and the football players were on the sidelines, in half-hearted drag, but they were enjoying themselves. Santana found her family in the stand, even her mother and youngest brother, and she smiled and waved, and they yelled and waved back. Brittany’s parents and sister were there too, and they grinned and waved at both girls. “You’re gonna be awesome, San,” Brittany whispered, and Santana nodded.
“I am, aren’t I?”
Brittany laughed and pushed her, and Santana went to meet Quinn at center field for the coin toss. Quinn, her hair in its usual tight ponytail, wearing Sam’s away jersey, greeted her frostily. Actual Cheerios practice had been even more obnoxious for her than usual that week, as Quinn had been purposefully hard on her, but she’d done everything to keep from showing that it bothered her. And now it was time to put Quinn in her place.
“Ladies, shake hands,” Coach Bieste urged, and Santana and Quinn briefly gripped each other’s hands before dropping them. “All right, Ms. Fabray, call it in the air,” she instructed, and Quinn called heads. “Tails,” Coach reported, and Santana couldn’t resist indulging in a triumphant smirk.
“We’ll receive,” she chose, and Coach nodded.
She went back to her team, where Puck got them all fired up, and they lined up to receive the kickoff. It looked like Tina, Mike’s jersey hanging past her knees, was actually going to be doing the kicking. Standing next to Puck, Santana crossed her arms and smirked. This was going to be good. Brittany, still the only one who could catch anything, would be receiving, but that hardly mattered, because Santana was sure Tina’s kick would hardly clear the ground.
But it did, and Santana watched, jaw dropped, as the ball sailed to the twenty yard line, where Brittany caught it, dropped it, picked it up, and ran with it, neatly plowing through four of Quinn’s Cheerios before one of her flags was ripped off. “All right, Britt!” Puck yelled, and he smacked Santana’s ass as she headed out onto the field.
“Touch me again, and I’ll break your arm,” she said, but he only grinned.
“It’s what football players do, San. All right, let’s go, let’s go!” he yelled at his team.
“Nice work, Britt,” Santana congratulated her, as they set up on the forty yard line.
“Thanks!” Brittany beamed.
Santana called the play, a short pass to Rachel, who ducked through defenders and picked up twelve yards. Puck, on the sidelines, was losing it with unabashed joy. “Do you think he bet on the game?” Rachel asked Santana, as they both watched him.
“Probably,” Santana snorted.
As they set up on the line of scrimmage again, Santana watched the other team, narrowing her eyes. They’d obviously not practiced as diligently as her team had, but they were elbowing each other and laughing. Even Quinn, watching Santana warily, was barely suppressing a smile, and in one instant, Santana found most of her resentment of Quinn evaporating. This was a game. It was supposed to be fun. And when Santana and Puck had been younger, and they’d ruled the recess touch football game, nothing had been more fun. She winked at Quinn, who blinked back, startled.
“Again!” she instructed her team, and they set up. She gave Rachel the ball, but this time, she practically ran right into Quinn, who laughed and ripped off her flag.
“Try again, Berry,” she said, winking, and Rachel blushed.
“Ew,” Santana sighed, but Brittany was laughing, and she hugged Rachel around the neck, and then Quinn looked up and smiled cautiously, and Santana only rolled her eyes a little.
They didn’t make it into the end zone on their first drive, so Puck resignedly sent them to punt, and Santana took her place on defense. “Frickin’ quarterbacks playing defense,” Puck muttered.
“It’s a game, Noah,” Rachel reminded him. “Just let her tackle Quinn once. I think she needs to.”
Puck snorted, folding his arms. Across the field, Sam gave him a thumbs up, but he declined to return it. In fact, he probably would have returned a somewhat less polite gesture had Rachel not hung onto his arm.
On the first play, Santana barreled through everyone-even some of her own teammates-and ripped Quinn’s flag almost viciously. “Jesus!” Quinn muttered, shaking her head. “Are you happy now, Santana?”
“Not yet!” Santana sang, laughing as she tossed Quinn the flag back.
“Mercedes! I want some blocking please,” Quinn instructed, as Brittany jumped on Santana’s back, proud of her defensive prowess.
“Keep your hair on,” Mercedes retorted, and the girls laughed. Quinn just rolled her eyes, and they set up another play.
This time, Mercedes kept Santana from getting to Quinn, and she threw a pass that missed its receiver. Puck was whooping it up on the sidelines. Sam tried to call encouragement, but his voice got mostly drowned out by all the other noise. Santana stood, hands on hips, grinning as Quinn called her team into a huddle. “We are totally going to win,” she confided in Brittany, and her friend laughed and pushed her head.
By the fourth quarter, the score was tied, fourteen to fourteen. Rachel had scored a touchdown in the second quarter, and Santana had scored one herself at the end of the third. No one had been happier about that than Brittany. Not even Puck, who’d smacked her ass again when she’d jogged off the field, or Santana herself. It had taken Santana three whole plays to get over the feeling she’d had when Brittany had lifted her into her arms and spun her around in the end zone.
Now, as the seconds ticked away, and Santana gathered her team into the huddle, she realized how much fun this all had been. Brittany hadn’t stopped smiling for even a single second, and Rachel looked proud of herself again, and her Cheerios were all tired and cold and dirty, but they were grinning at her. She hadn’t seen Puck smile so much since they were kids, and the other guys: Finn and Mike, even Artie, were enjoying this just as much as the girls. In fact, Tina had scored one of the other team’s touchdowns, and Santana had never seen Mike go so crazy, and at halftime, he’d lifted her up onto his shoulders and yelled at anyone who could hear him that his girlfriend had scored that touchdown. Even she couldn’t pretend that hadn’t been adorable.
That didn’t mean she still didn’t need to win.
“All right, I think you all know I wanted to win,” she said to her team. “So we’re going to win. Right now.”
“Hell yeah we are!” Rachel yelled, and the girls laughed, and Brittany pushed her head, and they all turned hopeful eyes to their quarterback.
Santana grinned and called a passing play. “San!” Brittany protested, but Santana nudged her into place.
“Just one,” she said, winking, and as Puck watched them line up, he started screaming at her, but she ignored him.
She called for the ball, and her teammates went running, and she waited, waited until Brittany was in the right spot. Quinn was coming after her, but she danced out of her reach and fired off her spiral. It sailed perfectly through the air, just as Quinn hooked an arm around her waist and grabbed her flag. The ball landed right in Brittany’s arms, and for a second she froze. “Run!” Santana yelled, laughing, as Puck, hollering his head, off practically chased Brittany into the end zone along the sideline.
At her side, Quinn watched, flabbergasted, and when Brittany spiked the ball before being set upon by her own teammates, she turned to Santana and offered her hand. “Nice arm, Tom Brady,” she congratulated, and for a second Santana just stared at Quinn’s hand.
“I throw better than frickin’ Tom Brady,” she muttered.
“Maybe,” Quinn said slowly, “but he’s prettier.”
Santana froze, unsure how to handle the fact that Quinn had just joked with her. And then she crushed Quinn into a hug.