Girl, I've Never Loved One Like You (Lea/Dianna)
Name: Girl, I've Never Loved One Like You
Pairing: Lea/Dianna
Rating: PG-13, I suppose
Summary: Dianna's mother is terrifying. No, seriously.
Author's Note: This was prompted to me a while ago. In All That I Can See is My Future in Your Hands, Lea mentions that Dianna's mother scares her. SO, that means this is in the universe of happiness that is I First Saw You on a Sunday and Loving You is Easier than Breathing. I wrote a version of this and then deleted it, and then I came back and re-wrote it and made it better. So be happy. The title is from Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. I kind of love that song.
Lea is not wearing the correct amount of clothes the first time she meets Dianna's parents.
It's a disgustingly hot day in L.A., and she's dressed accordingly, so it's hardly her fault that she's dressed the way she is. It's not as if Dianna's ever voiced any concern that her parents were going to randomly show up at their shared door, and she never said anything against Lea's choice of ninety degree weather clothing either, so Lea doesn't think anything of it when she picks out her clothes for the day.
Well, that's not true. It had been entirely intentional, picking the pair of shorts she currently had on. They were just a normal pair of Nike tiny-ass running shorts, really, but they seemed to cause a reaction to be relished from Dianna, a lingering along her entire lower half that probably occurred because the shorts were about as long as Lea's hand. When she had bought them with Jonathan at the Nike store in New York, she had really just been trying to find a pair of shorts that she could run along the reservoir with him in, and she almost hadn't bought them until he had mentioned something about them making her legs look delicious enough for hordes of girls to just jump her in the streets. Which had not been comforting until she noticed the hot saleslady eyeing her from across the store with them on, and then she bought five pairs of them.
But honestly. She had only worn them to confirm to herself that Dianna Agron was completely and totally very gay, and she had hoped that this confirmation would just somehow push her into jumping the girl. And she was very close to doing that when a knock sounded from the door.
Dianna got up slowly, her hand sliding down Lea's legs in her lap in a way that was decidedly not friendly at all, before making her way over to the door and squealing once she got it open. Lea actually rolled off the couch in her surprise at Dianna's excited squealing, and thunked her leg quite painfully against the coffee table, and she's muttering to herself about moving the goddamn thing when she looks up to see Dianna looking down at her worriedly, her arm thrown around a woman who looks a lot like her and her hand on a man who's hair matched hers perfectly.
"Lea," Dianna starts, cocking her head to the side and smiling down at Lea, who slowly gets up as she realizes who exactly is standing in front of her. "These are my parents!" she says excitedly, bounding over to grab Lea's hand and pulling her over to the two adults in the door. Lea's mind literally goes into full-on panic mode when she realizes that her hand has landed on Dianna's lower back, verging on ass, and fuck her if Dianna's mother isn't staring the hand disappearing behind her daughter's back like it's the spawn of Satan reaching up from the depths to corrupt the youth of America.
She watches with pain and horror as Dianna's mother's eyes drift to Lea's main body, drifting over the sweat-drenched tank top that allowed a bright red bra to barely show through and her goddamn fucking two-inches of nylon shorts, and she resigns herself to the fact that she will never be able to date Dianna now because her mother absolutely believes she's a slut. Which, okay, Lea would be willing to admit that the term has been placed on her before, maybe not without reason. But damn it, she really really wanted to date the girl! Or, at least have her slutty, Satan-y way with her!
"Hi Mr. and Mrs. Agron," Lea says, trying to turn on the charm now that she's completely fucked. She feels Dianna's hand reach behind her back and grab Lea's hand on her ass and hold it, her fingers lacing through Lea's, and Lea's smile widens in accordance, but the look on Mrs. Agron's face is not amused. Her eyes are flitting back and forth between the two girls, and Lea's ready to throw herself off the tallest building she can find where death is guaranteed.
After a few minutes of conversation, Dianna finally suggests that they beat the heat and go swimming, that she and Lea had been about to do before her parents surprised her. Which, okay, had been true, but Lea had really meant to come out wearing bikinis until Dianna's mouth was practically watering and then it would be much easier to become unclothed and do things that Lea's pretty sure should not be thought about in the presence of the adults who parented the girl you're fantasizing about.
So this is where she is now: sorting through her excessive amount of clothing, trying to find something that wasn't slutty and whoreish and made her look like she belonged in strip joint but also didn't make her look like a nun. Which didn't seem possible, really, and she was about ready to fake throw up and bow out of the trip to the beach when Dianna wanders into her room asking for a hair tie.
"Lea, you do realize that it's ninety-seven out, right? Just wear a bikini and one of those...bikini cover things," Dianna remarks, looking down at the mess of clothing on Lea's bed with amusement before going over to the entire drawer of Lea's dresser dedicated to swimwear and rifling through it before coming out with what had to be the smallest, most revealing swimsuit she had, and she had only ever wore it once, that one time when she and Dianna had gone to a beach party and when she was trying to fall asleep way later on, she could hear Dianna moaning in the next room over. Which, she hadn't mentioned, but the almost lecherous look on Dianna's face is an indication that she remembers exactly how Lea had looked in the damn thing.
Well, it's not as if Lea could resist that.
They go in the car Dianna's parents took to surprise their daughter in, which opens up an entirely new set of problems, because it's kind of a small car, and Lea and Dianna are forced into the backseat. Or, Dianna pulls Lea into the backseat with her, and Lea just sort of goes along with it.
This, of course, would be okay if it weren't for the fact that Lea and Dianna have issues with being near each other. It's been commented on before, by numerous people, that if the two were in a good five feet of each other they'd quickly be touching in some form. And, true to form, it takes a little less than two minutes for Dianna to have her head on Lea's shoulder, singing along with the radio, and still maintaining a grip on her hand.
Which, okay, Lea kind of loves it. Her roommate/best friend/love interest is absolutely adorable, and possibly the most gorgeous girl to ever walk the planet and Lea sort of feels like a teenage boy when she gets this close, and she always gets this stupid smile on her face when something like this happens. She can't contain how happy it makes her, which is sappy, and she would never ever say this to anyone, ever. It would ruin her carefully constructed sweet but sour street cred. She had actually said something along the lines of how Dianna makes her feel, a weird mix of statements like floating, like I just kicked Chuck Norris' ass, amazing, superfreakingawesome, like I'm the cheese to her macaroni and stuff like that. She had been slightly tipsy. And he had laughed. So she was not bringing up any of that ever.
So, now Dianna's caressing Lea's hand and she's singing one of Lea's favorite songs practically into her ear, and Lea's grinning like an absolute idiot, and she realizes too late that Mrs. Agron is staring into the mirror looking at the two girls in the backseat. She also realizes too late that Dianna has her other hand on Lea's bare thigh (although, how on earth she missed that in the first place is a good question) and that her own hand is settled on Dianna's pale thigh (she had noticed that, actually) and it probably looks like Lea is corrupting Dianna to her whoreish, horrible, slutty, disgusting ways, and she's never ever ever ever going to get the damn girl now.
They finally get to the beach and before Lea has a chance to start spouting on about something that will make Dianna's parents actually like her (although she had no idea what that topic would be), Mrs. Agron is asking her about something Lea would normally be okay with talking about, but when her prospective girlfriend/possible love of her life's mother is asking it, it feels sort of like her stomach is dropping to the sand.
"So, Lea, I heard you bared your breasts on Broadway?" she asks, and the look on her face is so terrifying that Lea almost has a heart attack, or, better yet, just runs away screaming down the beach. It also doesn't help that Lea is currently letting Dianna rub sunscreen all over her stomach right now (like she was going to stop the girl from doing that even if her parents were right there?) and she's intently focused on the view she's getting due to Dianna's currently position of kneeling in front of Lea. So she immediately has a moment of, holy fuck she can read minds?
"Um, yeah. Yeah, but Jon's gay. The guy I did the...scene with," she says, and she's not even sure why that was really relevant, but she felt it needed to be said. "It was, uh, tastefully done."
"Have you ever dated any of your costars?" Mrs. Agron asks, and Lea can literally feel Dianna's hand pause from where it's moved to her lower back, and now that she can't see Dianna's face it's unnerving, and Lea's going to have a heart attack. Because, this question seems really loaded, like she's asking four things at once, and Lea gets the feeling that the woman actually knows something about Dianna's feelings toward Lea and is really just feeling Lea out. Which, not cool, at all. On a scale of one to ten, the coolness level is hitting at negative twenty-three.
Lea finally says something after careful deliberation over wording.
"I, uh, no. Not before, but that was because I was never really...interested. Or, they were never really interested...back. I'm perfectly okay with the idea, if the interest is...there. In return," Lea finally says, and now she's not only slut who's totally okay with nudity but she's also an ineloquent idiot. Fuck.
The only reward she gets for her cautious statement is Dianna's hand resuming movement, brushing against the tie of her bikini before drifting back down to the curve of her ass. Which ultimately triggers a huge, stupid grin on Lea's face and Mrs. Agron is looking at her curiously. Before the absolutely terrifying woman can continue her line of questioning, Dianna's is back to Lea's front, holding up the sunscreen bottle with a stunning smile on her face, sweetly asking if Lea can put it on her.
Lea's pretty sure she's either going to die of this torture or Mrs. Agron is going to shoot her. She's currently hoping for the latter.
She dutifully takes the bottle, and starts on Dianna's back, trying not to notice too much how soft the girl's skin is and the way Dianna gives a little shiver when Lea's hand actually lands on her back. It's kind of awesome, and she sort of feels like she's about to start spouting poetry about her love for this girl when Mrs. Agron starts talking again.
"Well, are you interested in anyone you're working with now?"
Holy mother of fucking Jesus Christ that asteroid should just crash into the earth now is the thought that runs through Lea's head, and she completely agrees with her inner voice. She'd gladly welcome the apocalypse if it meant she didn't have to answer this question. She slowly tries to work her way through how to answer this question and vaguely wishes that Mr. Agron or Dianna would make this stop. But she kind of realizes that the questions are hardly that intrusive, and she remembers Jonathan's mom asking all sorts of questions like this, but holy fuck she's terrified.
"Well..." she starts, as if words will suddenly start pouring out. She slides her hand up right under the tie on Dianna's bikini and leaves her hand between the girl's shoulder blades before she answers the question. "I certainly can't deny the attractiveness of the entire cast...but I have an interest," she says, and Mrs. Agron is now staring her down but Lea's distracted by the tremble that wracks through Dianna's body right before she turns around and looks down at Lea with a look that cannot even be described.
Her eyes are dark, and she's smiling, but it's not a normal Dianna smile, it isn't oh look at the pretty cemetary Dianna and it isn't I like you a lot, Lea Dianna, it's I would enjoy throwing you down on the sand and screwing you so senseless your ability to walk is compromised Dianna and holy shit Lea's kind of okay with that. Except, Mrs. Agron is looking at them with marked interest. Lea doesn't want to compromise this moment, but she doesn't want to continue it with Dianna's mother staring them down, because that would probably cement Lea's status as an undesirable (if it wasn't already nailed down the minute Lea put on those goddamn shorts this morning), so she slowly reaches out and grabs Dianna's face, rubbing sunscreen over it and trailing down to her neck and then to her chest, skipping over the top half of the bikini and landing her hands on Dianna's stomach, easily rubbing the white sunscreen in to blend with Dianna's already pale skin. By the time she's finished, Dianna's eyes have progressed to a color previously unseen to Lea and she's shaking almost imperceptibly.
"Race you," Lea whispers, right before she turns and sprints towards the gentle waves crashing against the burning hot sand, running into the water quite happily, because she hears Dianna's happy squeal behind her (Lea would probably find her childish if it weren't so fucking adorable), and because Mrs. Agron had said something about not getting in because she had just eaten. She barely gets chest high before Dianna catches her, almost climbing on Lea in an attempt to slow her down, her arms around Lea's shoulders before Lea turns around, smiling up at the her.
"Hi," Dianna says happily, smiling down at her, looking vaguely like a goddess, and if it wouldn't cause drowning, Lea would probably be perfectly happy with bowing down at her feet. They're a good four inches apart, not quite touching except for Dianna's hands settled on Lea's neck and Lea's own hands sliding down to either side of Dianna's rib cage, and it's so nice.
Lea doesn't especially know why she hasn't done anything about her feelings for this girl, because, okay, it's been exceedingly obvious for a good few weeks that Dianna's gay in general (she had actually said that in a roundabout way to Lea before she ever moved in), but it isn't like Lea's blind. Dianna is very interested in Lea, or at least, very interested in Lea's body, as evidenced by her lingering eyes and hands. But, she wasn't exactly sure how Dianna actually felt about her. She knew how she felt about Dianna, from the very beginning. The girl had started their first ever conversation with the topic of rainbows, which admittedly had thrown Lea a little before Dianna actually started talking about them.
Lea was from New York City, where people were only nice when you had just bared your breasts for them and sung your heart out (and when you were a cute little kid also singing your heart out), and the winters were cold and the summers were hot and even though the city was magical in its own way, it was never a mystery. It was just New York City and it demanded respect and adoration despite its housing of annoying street merchants and people who got smashed every time there was even a miniscule holiday. Lea was used to that, used to people who were nice only when they had to be, used to looking up to see skyscrapers and not necessarily the sky. But Dianna Agron was everything that Lea never expected, so much Lea's antithesis that it was almost impossible not to love her.
And she did. Love Dianna, that is. And she's been in love before, and it's not that those were terrible relationships that ended absolutely horribly, but she's always felt like she was just waiting for someone who understood her perfectly, like she was just waiting for someone who she hadn't known quite yet. Lea had felt everything when she looked to the girl talking about rainbows quite animatedly, and she wouldn't quite say that it was love at first sight, but it was close. It didn't take much more for her to feel like she would absolutely never be okay without the girl near her, didn't take much longer for her to know that it felt like nothing ever mattered before her. And she felt that Dianna sometimes felt the same way, but for a girl who was so much a romantic, Dianna's feelings were pretty well wrapped up and kept away from the light of day. But more and more, Lea had felt like Dianna was letting it show.
But she hadn't done anything about it yet, because she was terrified. The way she felt about Dianna felt huge and gigantic compared to anything she had ever felt before, and she didn't quite know how to approach it. Jonathan had, true to form, told a story about how she had been pretty smashed once and hit on a girl and had her wrapped around her finger five minutes later with just a few words and a kiss, and suggested she do that. Which, Lea hadn't been exactly sure whether he meant the getting smashed part or the just jumping her part, but neither of those seemed good enough for Dianna Agron, possible love of her life.
So, this moment felt rather verge-y. And it seemed pretty verge-y, because they were both leaning forward and she saw Dianna's eyes get more hooded before they just slid shut, and it was verge-y until the moment Lea was literally blinded by a huge splash of seawater coming right at her still-open eyes. Dianna immediately lets go of Lea and turns on who Lea assumes to be her father, because she's shouting, "Daddy!" at her (another tally mark goes up under the adorable column just for saying daddy). Lea, of course, can't see the splash fight that ensues, as she's trying to get the painful water out of her eyes, and she sort of wants to cry because they were so close.
By the time she gets her eyes clear, Dianna's ten feet away, giggling and laughing as her father picks her up and dunks her under the water, coming up spluttering and gasping for air, which makes Lea smile until she realizes that someone is right next to her, and holy fuck, she knows who it is.
"She likes you," Mrs. Agron says, and Lea is now sure the universe is angry with her for something and is conspiring to cause her death. Of course, the woman doesn't leave it there and continues talking. "And you like her too."
Lea feels like it would be a good idea to say something, but she just nods. She's fucked anyways, so she might as well do it with honesty.
"Don't hurt her," the woman says, and it isn't said threateningly, but it absolutely terrifies Lea, completely. Mrs. Agron swims away to join her husband and daughter, splashing away and Lea's pretty sure she just peed herself.
//
A year later and Lea is up late, possibly going insane. She's in her own apartment, listening to Spring Awakening (because she's a total narcissist, obviously), and she's got the most unsexy clothes on possible, mostly because it feels like the place is freezing. Which is because Dianna's not here, because it's not hers and Dianna's, and that's her own fault anyway. So she's compounding her own feelings of guilt with her feelings of loneliness, which adds on more guilt and she's just a circle of idiocy, because she should've never freaked out and left Dianna.
And she hasn't even left Dianna, either, really, and that's just more idiotic. The girl deserves more than Lea, because Lea's a mess of her own making, and Lea alternates between hating what she does to Dianna and avoiding the girl and refusing to be out of her presence. Dianna probably thinks she's certifiably insane, but Lea doesn't quite know how to handle herself because she's had this goddamn ring and this plan for a month and it feels like an iron weight. Sometimes she considers just screwing it all and just asking Di, but then it wouldn't have the same declarative feeling, and it wouldn't be so awesome.
It's raining outside, covering up Lea's occasional hitting her head on her table, and almost covering up the knock coming from the door. Lea looks up quickly from where her head is resting painfully (she's pretty sure she has a permanent bruise that makeup is getting increasingly upset over) and looks down at the mess of stuff spread out on her table and throws a blanket over it haphazardly, halfway hoping that it's Dianna in a mood where she wouldn't question the dubious set-up on the table. Instead, when she opens the door, it's Dianna's mother, and an all-consuming panic quickly comes over her.
The woman looks absolutely pissed, the look on her face the sort of look Dianna gets when Lea refuses getting a puppy, a weird cross between pouting and anger, except the elder Agron's look is missing the pouting and embracing the anger. Lea's still completely terrified of Mrs. Agron, even though she's gotten to know her better, and now she realizes why.
The woman rushes in, glaring at Lea the entire time and Lea feels a strong need to thunk her head on the heavy oak door but resists only to turn around and find the woman pointing accusingly at her.
"You are a bitch," is what she starts with, and Lea almost nods in agreement before she remembers that she's supposed to be...on her own side. It seems bad that she needs to remind herself of that.
"I told you not to hurt my daughter," she continues, and Lea realizes that this must mean Dianna's actually told her mother something, which means Dianna's really upset, and she silently curses that she has to wait one more week to enact the plan, if it ever happens, because Dianna wouldn't mention a thing to her mother if she weren't on her last rope.
"And instead you seem intent on either driving her insane or completely breaking her heart!"
Lea feels the infernal shaking start in her hands and raises them so she can look at them accusingly. She doesn't exactly like being told this, even if she has thought it before, because it breaks her own heart when she's desperately trying to fix the mess she made and making a bigger mess in the process, and she can't even describe how heart-wrenching it is when she thinks about how her actions hurt Dianna, because she loves the girl, so so so much. Obviously, because under a blanket on her table is an entire plan on how to propose to her, publicly and truly.
Mrs. Agron seems to notice that Lea appears to suffering from a permanent panic attack and takes in the girl's appearance, and Lea watches as she starts at Lea's forehead where the bruise is apparent because she didn't put on makeup after her shower, to her sweatshirt and sweatpants to her shaking hands.
She still looks angry, but now she looks somewhat concerned, like she's not sure whether she could be sued for causing a panic attack. Lea moves past Mrs. Agron quickly, not quite thinking about what she's doing before she throws the blanket off the table, revealing an entire dry erase board dedicated to the planning of her proposal and several stacks of paper filled with music and lyrics for the song, and sitting on the end closest to Mrs. Agron is the ring, box open because Lea had been staring at it while hitting her head on the table.
Lea stares at her still-shaking hands, this time accusing them of being idiots because she just showed her entire plan to her hopefully future fiancé's mother (holy fuck) and Mrs. Agron is just staring down at everything Lea just showed her.
"You...you're going to propose?" she finally asks, and it's the first time Lea's ever seen her seem completely blindsided, but she still terrifies her, so she's not going to try and revel in it. Lea just nods.
"Then why on earth are you acting the way you are?" Mrs. Agron asks, sounding frustrated, and Lea has the good sense not to shrug, because when she had done that to Jonathan he didn't speak to her for a day (which seemed excessive for a best friend). She tries to gather herself up to some semblance of eloquence.
"I can't stand what I did. It was stupid and I love her more than anything, and I know I'm acting stupid now, too, but...I don't know how to do it differently. I know I'm risking everything, but I know this is how I should do it," she says, sitting down on the edge of her couch, watching her hands slowly stop shaking.
"Lea..." Mrs. Agron starts, stepping closer before stopping. "Well, you have my blessing," she says, and Lea almost falls off the couch in her shock. She quickly looks around the room as if someone's going to jump out saying, 'you've been punk'd!' (was that still going on?), but no one's there, and she looks over to Mrs. Agron with an open mouth.
"What? I like you, Lea. You're perfect for my daughter. She's always needed someone willing to feel her up on a beach in front of her parents," she says, laughing. Lea's vision goes black for a second, because holy mother of God she just said that. "You make her happy. You know, when you're not being a colossal bitch."
Lea can't even speak. The minute Mrs. Agron leaves her apartment, she's going to go jump up and down on her bed for a good ten minutes, because even though the framing of the sentence included an insult and a suggestion that she noticed Lea's propensity to touch Dianna excessively and possibly inappropriately in a public forum, there was definitely a compliment, and that pretty much rocks.
Of course, Mrs. Agron immediately turns on the terrifying.
"But if you mess up like you did ever again...well, I would advise you didn't."
She then turns and walks over to the door and opens it, looking back at Lea once more and saying something about calling her if she needed any help, but Lea's mostly focused on the fact that she can't feel her hands she's so terrified at the threat just issued to her.
//
"I can't believe you never told me any of this," Dianna mumbles, her face pressed into Lea's collarbone. They're stretched out on their gigantic couch watching something Lea probably wouldn't watch if it were her choice, but Dianna had pouted and Lea still can't deal with that well. And anyway, she had just spent the last twenty minutes explaining her two more important encounters with Dianna's mother, punctuated by Dianna laughing at Lea's hysterical accounts of being terrified.
"I didn't think it would be a good idea to mention that your mother scared me. I have street cred, you know," Lea says, fiddling with Dianna's left hand where the engagement ring is glittering.
"Sure you do," Dianna mutters, giggling when Lea gives a gasp that implies she's insulted. "You proposed quite sentimentally on national television, and then you cried," she says, kissing Lea's collarbone. "I think whatever New York badassery street cred you had is pretty much shot."
"Well...you cried too. So whatever," Lea mutters, kissing Dianna's forehead. She can admit silently to herself that her street cred is pretty much shot, but she isn't going to say it out loud until she absolutely has to. Jonathan already laughed for five minutes today when she tried to make the case that she was still edgy ("You're practically domesticated," he had said through his tears of laughter. Lea had not appreciated this.) and was still sore about it anyway.
"Yeah, but my street cred was non-existent before that. I mean, I'm supposed to be the teddy bear of this relationship," Dianna says, tucking her head between Lea's shoulder and neck and sighing happily.
Lea doesn't say anything because she has an overwhelming wave of happiness rip through her, and she just pulls Dianna closer.
She's pretty sure she'd be infinitely happy continuing to ruin her street cred for the rest of her life if it meant she got Dianna. Even if her mother was terrifying.
the end.
Pairing: Lea/Dianna
Rating: PG-13, I suppose
Summary: Dianna's mother is terrifying. No, seriously.
Author's Note: This was prompted to me a while ago. In All That I Can See is My Future in Your Hands, Lea mentions that Dianna's mother scares her. SO, that means this is in the universe of happiness that is I First Saw You on a Sunday and Loving You is Easier than Breathing. I wrote a version of this and then deleted it, and then I came back and re-wrote it and made it better. So be happy. The title is from Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. I kind of love that song.
Lea is not wearing the correct amount of clothes the first time she meets Dianna's parents.
It's a disgustingly hot day in L.A., and she's dressed accordingly, so it's hardly her fault that she's dressed the way she is. It's not as if Dianna's ever voiced any concern that her parents were going to randomly show up at their shared door, and she never said anything against Lea's choice of ninety degree weather clothing either, so Lea doesn't think anything of it when she picks out her clothes for the day.
Well, that's not true. It had been entirely intentional, picking the pair of shorts she currently had on. They were just a normal pair of Nike tiny-ass running shorts, really, but they seemed to cause a reaction to be relished from Dianna, a lingering along her entire lower half that probably occurred because the shorts were about as long as Lea's hand. When she had bought them with Jonathan at the Nike store in New York, she had really just been trying to find a pair of shorts that she could run along the reservoir with him in, and she almost hadn't bought them until he had mentioned something about them making her legs look delicious enough for hordes of girls to just jump her in the streets. Which had not been comforting until she noticed the hot saleslady eyeing her from across the store with them on, and then she bought five pairs of them.
But honestly. She had only worn them to confirm to herself that Dianna Agron was completely and totally very gay, and she had hoped that this confirmation would just somehow push her into jumping the girl. And she was very close to doing that when a knock sounded from the door.
Dianna got up slowly, her hand sliding down Lea's legs in her lap in a way that was decidedly not friendly at all, before making her way over to the door and squealing once she got it open. Lea actually rolled off the couch in her surprise at Dianna's excited squealing, and thunked her leg quite painfully against the coffee table, and she's muttering to herself about moving the goddamn thing when she looks up to see Dianna looking down at her worriedly, her arm thrown around a woman who looks a lot like her and her hand on a man who's hair matched hers perfectly.
"Lea," Dianna starts, cocking her head to the side and smiling down at Lea, who slowly gets up as she realizes who exactly is standing in front of her. "These are my parents!" she says excitedly, bounding over to grab Lea's hand and pulling her over to the two adults in the door. Lea's mind literally goes into full-on panic mode when she realizes that her hand has landed on Dianna's lower back, verging on ass, and fuck her if Dianna's mother isn't staring the hand disappearing behind her daughter's back like it's the spawn of Satan reaching up from the depths to corrupt the youth of America.
She watches with pain and horror as Dianna's mother's eyes drift to Lea's main body, drifting over the sweat-drenched tank top that allowed a bright red bra to barely show through and her goddamn fucking two-inches of nylon shorts, and she resigns herself to the fact that she will never be able to date Dianna now because her mother absolutely believes she's a slut. Which, okay, Lea would be willing to admit that the term has been placed on her before, maybe not without reason. But damn it, she really really wanted to date the girl! Or, at least have her slutty, Satan-y way with her!
"Hi Mr. and Mrs. Agron," Lea says, trying to turn on the charm now that she's completely fucked. She feels Dianna's hand reach behind her back and grab Lea's hand on her ass and hold it, her fingers lacing through Lea's, and Lea's smile widens in accordance, but the look on Mrs. Agron's face is not amused. Her eyes are flitting back and forth between the two girls, and Lea's ready to throw herself off the tallest building she can find where death is guaranteed.
After a few minutes of conversation, Dianna finally suggests that they beat the heat and go swimming, that she and Lea had been about to do before her parents surprised her. Which, okay, had been true, but Lea had really meant to come out wearing bikinis until Dianna's mouth was practically watering and then it would be much easier to become unclothed and do things that Lea's pretty sure should not be thought about in the presence of the adults who parented the girl you're fantasizing about.
So this is where she is now: sorting through her excessive amount of clothing, trying to find something that wasn't slutty and whoreish and made her look like she belonged in strip joint but also didn't make her look like a nun. Which didn't seem possible, really, and she was about ready to fake throw up and bow out of the trip to the beach when Dianna wanders into her room asking for a hair tie.
"Lea, you do realize that it's ninety-seven out, right? Just wear a bikini and one of those...bikini cover things," Dianna remarks, looking down at the mess of clothing on Lea's bed with amusement before going over to the entire drawer of Lea's dresser dedicated to swimwear and rifling through it before coming out with what had to be the smallest, most revealing swimsuit she had, and she had only ever wore it once, that one time when she and Dianna had gone to a beach party and when she was trying to fall asleep way later on, she could hear Dianna moaning in the next room over. Which, she hadn't mentioned, but the almost lecherous look on Dianna's face is an indication that she remembers exactly how Lea had looked in the damn thing.
Well, it's not as if Lea could resist that.
They go in the car Dianna's parents took to surprise their daughter in, which opens up an entirely new set of problems, because it's kind of a small car, and Lea and Dianna are forced into the backseat. Or, Dianna pulls Lea into the backseat with her, and Lea just sort of goes along with it.
This, of course, would be okay if it weren't for the fact that Lea and Dianna have issues with being near each other. It's been commented on before, by numerous people, that if the two were in a good five feet of each other they'd quickly be touching in some form. And, true to form, it takes a little less than two minutes for Dianna to have her head on Lea's shoulder, singing along with the radio, and still maintaining a grip on her hand.
Which, okay, Lea kind of loves it. Her roommate/best friend/love interest is absolutely adorable, and possibly the most gorgeous girl to ever walk the planet and Lea sort of feels like a teenage boy when she gets this close, and she always gets this stupid smile on her face when something like this happens. She can't contain how happy it makes her, which is sappy, and she would never ever say this to anyone, ever. It would ruin her carefully constructed sweet but sour street cred. She had actually said something along the lines of how Dianna makes her feel, a weird mix of statements like floating, like I just kicked Chuck Norris' ass, amazing, superfreakingawesome, like I'm the cheese to her macaroni and stuff like that. She had been slightly tipsy. And he had laughed. So she was not bringing up any of that ever.
So, now Dianna's caressing Lea's hand and she's singing one of Lea's favorite songs practically into her ear, and Lea's grinning like an absolute idiot, and she realizes too late that Mrs. Agron is staring into the mirror looking at the two girls in the backseat. She also realizes too late that Dianna has her other hand on Lea's bare thigh (although, how on earth she missed that in the first place is a good question) and that her own hand is settled on Dianna's pale thigh (she had noticed that, actually) and it probably looks like Lea is corrupting Dianna to her whoreish, horrible, slutty, disgusting ways, and she's never ever ever ever going to get the damn girl now.
They finally get to the beach and before Lea has a chance to start spouting on about something that will make Dianna's parents actually like her (although she had no idea what that topic would be), Mrs. Agron is asking her about something Lea would normally be okay with talking about, but when her prospective girlfriend/possible love of her life's mother is asking it, it feels sort of like her stomach is dropping to the sand.
"So, Lea, I heard you bared your breasts on Broadway?" she asks, and the look on her face is so terrifying that Lea almost has a heart attack, or, better yet, just runs away screaming down the beach. It also doesn't help that Lea is currently letting Dianna rub sunscreen all over her stomach right now (like she was going to stop the girl from doing that even if her parents were right there?) and she's intently focused on the view she's getting due to Dianna's currently position of kneeling in front of Lea. So she immediately has a moment of, holy fuck she can read minds?
"Um, yeah. Yeah, but Jon's gay. The guy I did the...scene with," she says, and she's not even sure why that was really relevant, but she felt it needed to be said. "It was, uh, tastefully done."
"Have you ever dated any of your costars?" Mrs. Agron asks, and Lea can literally feel Dianna's hand pause from where it's moved to her lower back, and now that she can't see Dianna's face it's unnerving, and Lea's going to have a heart attack. Because, this question seems really loaded, like she's asking four things at once, and Lea gets the feeling that the woman actually knows something about Dianna's feelings toward Lea and is really just feeling Lea out. Which, not cool, at all. On a scale of one to ten, the coolness level is hitting at negative twenty-three.
Lea finally says something after careful deliberation over wording.
"I, uh, no. Not before, but that was because I was never really...interested. Or, they were never really interested...back. I'm perfectly okay with the idea, if the interest is...there. In return," Lea finally says, and now she's not only slut who's totally okay with nudity but she's also an ineloquent idiot. Fuck.
The only reward she gets for her cautious statement is Dianna's hand resuming movement, brushing against the tie of her bikini before drifting back down to the curve of her ass. Which ultimately triggers a huge, stupid grin on Lea's face and Mrs. Agron is looking at her curiously. Before the absolutely terrifying woman can continue her line of questioning, Dianna's is back to Lea's front, holding up the sunscreen bottle with a stunning smile on her face, sweetly asking if Lea can put it on her.
Lea's pretty sure she's either going to die of this torture or Mrs. Agron is going to shoot her. She's currently hoping for the latter.
She dutifully takes the bottle, and starts on Dianna's back, trying not to notice too much how soft the girl's skin is and the way Dianna gives a little shiver when Lea's hand actually lands on her back. It's kind of awesome, and she sort of feels like she's about to start spouting poetry about her love for this girl when Mrs. Agron starts talking again.
"Well, are you interested in anyone you're working with now?"
Holy mother of fucking Jesus Christ that asteroid should just crash into the earth now is the thought that runs through Lea's head, and she completely agrees with her inner voice. She'd gladly welcome the apocalypse if it meant she didn't have to answer this question. She slowly tries to work her way through how to answer this question and vaguely wishes that Mr. Agron or Dianna would make this stop. But she kind of realizes that the questions are hardly that intrusive, and she remembers Jonathan's mom asking all sorts of questions like this, but holy fuck she's terrified.
"Well..." she starts, as if words will suddenly start pouring out. She slides her hand up right under the tie on Dianna's bikini and leaves her hand between the girl's shoulder blades before she answers the question. "I certainly can't deny the attractiveness of the entire cast...but I have an interest," she says, and Mrs. Agron is now staring her down but Lea's distracted by the tremble that wracks through Dianna's body right before she turns around and looks down at Lea with a look that cannot even be described.
Her eyes are dark, and she's smiling, but it's not a normal Dianna smile, it isn't oh look at the pretty cemetary Dianna and it isn't I like you a lot, Lea Dianna, it's I would enjoy throwing you down on the sand and screwing you so senseless your ability to walk is compromised Dianna and holy shit Lea's kind of okay with that. Except, Mrs. Agron is looking at them with marked interest. Lea doesn't want to compromise this moment, but she doesn't want to continue it with Dianna's mother staring them down, because that would probably cement Lea's status as an undesirable (if it wasn't already nailed down the minute Lea put on those goddamn shorts this morning), so she slowly reaches out and grabs Dianna's face, rubbing sunscreen over it and trailing down to her neck and then to her chest, skipping over the top half of the bikini and landing her hands on Dianna's stomach, easily rubbing the white sunscreen in to blend with Dianna's already pale skin. By the time she's finished, Dianna's eyes have progressed to a color previously unseen to Lea and she's shaking almost imperceptibly.
"Race you," Lea whispers, right before she turns and sprints towards the gentle waves crashing against the burning hot sand, running into the water quite happily, because she hears Dianna's happy squeal behind her (Lea would probably find her childish if it weren't so fucking adorable), and because Mrs. Agron had said something about not getting in because she had just eaten. She barely gets chest high before Dianna catches her, almost climbing on Lea in an attempt to slow her down, her arms around Lea's shoulders before Lea turns around, smiling up at the her.
"Hi," Dianna says happily, smiling down at her, looking vaguely like a goddess, and if it wouldn't cause drowning, Lea would probably be perfectly happy with bowing down at her feet. They're a good four inches apart, not quite touching except for Dianna's hands settled on Lea's neck and Lea's own hands sliding down to either side of Dianna's rib cage, and it's so nice.
Lea doesn't especially know why she hasn't done anything about her feelings for this girl, because, okay, it's been exceedingly obvious for a good few weeks that Dianna's gay in general (she had actually said that in a roundabout way to Lea before she ever moved in), but it isn't like Lea's blind. Dianna is very interested in Lea, or at least, very interested in Lea's body, as evidenced by her lingering eyes and hands. But, she wasn't exactly sure how Dianna actually felt about her. She knew how she felt about Dianna, from the very beginning. The girl had started their first ever conversation with the topic of rainbows, which admittedly had thrown Lea a little before Dianna actually started talking about them.
Lea was from New York City, where people were only nice when you had just bared your breasts for them and sung your heart out (and when you were a cute little kid also singing your heart out), and the winters were cold and the summers were hot and even though the city was magical in its own way, it was never a mystery. It was just New York City and it demanded respect and adoration despite its housing of annoying street merchants and people who got smashed every time there was even a miniscule holiday. Lea was used to that, used to people who were nice only when they had to be, used to looking up to see skyscrapers and not necessarily the sky. But Dianna Agron was everything that Lea never expected, so much Lea's antithesis that it was almost impossible not to love her.
And she did. Love Dianna, that is. And she's been in love before, and it's not that those were terrible relationships that ended absolutely horribly, but she's always felt like she was just waiting for someone who understood her perfectly, like she was just waiting for someone who she hadn't known quite yet. Lea had felt everything when she looked to the girl talking about rainbows quite animatedly, and she wouldn't quite say that it was love at first sight, but it was close. It didn't take much more for her to feel like she would absolutely never be okay without the girl near her, didn't take much longer for her to know that it felt like nothing ever mattered before her. And she felt that Dianna sometimes felt the same way, but for a girl who was so much a romantic, Dianna's feelings were pretty well wrapped up and kept away from the light of day. But more and more, Lea had felt like Dianna was letting it show.
But she hadn't done anything about it yet, because she was terrified. The way she felt about Dianna felt huge and gigantic compared to anything she had ever felt before, and she didn't quite know how to approach it. Jonathan had, true to form, told a story about how she had been pretty smashed once and hit on a girl and had her wrapped around her finger five minutes later with just a few words and a kiss, and suggested she do that. Which, Lea hadn't been exactly sure whether he meant the getting smashed part or the just jumping her part, but neither of those seemed good enough for Dianna Agron, possible love of her life.
So, this moment felt rather verge-y. And it seemed pretty verge-y, because they were both leaning forward and she saw Dianna's eyes get more hooded before they just slid shut, and it was verge-y until the moment Lea was literally blinded by a huge splash of seawater coming right at her still-open eyes. Dianna immediately lets go of Lea and turns on who Lea assumes to be her father, because she's shouting, "Daddy!" at her (another tally mark goes up under the adorable column just for saying daddy). Lea, of course, can't see the splash fight that ensues, as she's trying to get the painful water out of her eyes, and she sort of wants to cry because they were so close.
By the time she gets her eyes clear, Dianna's ten feet away, giggling and laughing as her father picks her up and dunks her under the water, coming up spluttering and gasping for air, which makes Lea smile until she realizes that someone is right next to her, and holy fuck, she knows who it is.
"She likes you," Mrs. Agron says, and Lea is now sure the universe is angry with her for something and is conspiring to cause her death. Of course, the woman doesn't leave it there and continues talking. "And you like her too."
Lea feels like it would be a good idea to say something, but she just nods. She's fucked anyways, so she might as well do it with honesty.
"Don't hurt her," the woman says, and it isn't said threateningly, but it absolutely terrifies Lea, completely. Mrs. Agron swims away to join her husband and daughter, splashing away and Lea's pretty sure she just peed herself.
//
A year later and Lea is up late, possibly going insane. She's in her own apartment, listening to Spring Awakening (because she's a total narcissist, obviously), and she's got the most unsexy clothes on possible, mostly because it feels like the place is freezing. Which is because Dianna's not here, because it's not hers and Dianna's, and that's her own fault anyway. So she's compounding her own feelings of guilt with her feelings of loneliness, which adds on more guilt and she's just a circle of idiocy, because she should've never freaked out and left Dianna.
And she hasn't even left Dianna, either, really, and that's just more idiotic. The girl deserves more than Lea, because Lea's a mess of her own making, and Lea alternates between hating what she does to Dianna and avoiding the girl and refusing to be out of her presence. Dianna probably thinks she's certifiably insane, but Lea doesn't quite know how to handle herself because she's had this goddamn ring and this plan for a month and it feels like an iron weight. Sometimes she considers just screwing it all and just asking Di, but then it wouldn't have the same declarative feeling, and it wouldn't be so awesome.
It's raining outside, covering up Lea's occasional hitting her head on her table, and almost covering up the knock coming from the door. Lea looks up quickly from where her head is resting painfully (she's pretty sure she has a permanent bruise that makeup is getting increasingly upset over) and looks down at the mess of stuff spread out on her table and throws a blanket over it haphazardly, halfway hoping that it's Dianna in a mood where she wouldn't question the dubious set-up on the table. Instead, when she opens the door, it's Dianna's mother, and an all-consuming panic quickly comes over her.
The woman looks absolutely pissed, the look on her face the sort of look Dianna gets when Lea refuses getting a puppy, a weird cross between pouting and anger, except the elder Agron's look is missing the pouting and embracing the anger. Lea's still completely terrified of Mrs. Agron, even though she's gotten to know her better, and now she realizes why.
The woman rushes in, glaring at Lea the entire time and Lea feels a strong need to thunk her head on the heavy oak door but resists only to turn around and find the woman pointing accusingly at her.
"You are a bitch," is what she starts with, and Lea almost nods in agreement before she remembers that she's supposed to be...on her own side. It seems bad that she needs to remind herself of that.
"I told you not to hurt my daughter," she continues, and Lea realizes that this must mean Dianna's actually told her mother something, which means Dianna's really upset, and she silently curses that she has to wait one more week to enact the plan, if it ever happens, because Dianna wouldn't mention a thing to her mother if she weren't on her last rope.
"And instead you seem intent on either driving her insane or completely breaking her heart!"
Lea feels the infernal shaking start in her hands and raises them so she can look at them accusingly. She doesn't exactly like being told this, even if she has thought it before, because it breaks her own heart when she's desperately trying to fix the mess she made and making a bigger mess in the process, and she can't even describe how heart-wrenching it is when she thinks about how her actions hurt Dianna, because she loves the girl, so so so much. Obviously, because under a blanket on her table is an entire plan on how to propose to her, publicly and truly.
Mrs. Agron seems to notice that Lea appears to suffering from a permanent panic attack and takes in the girl's appearance, and Lea watches as she starts at Lea's forehead where the bruise is apparent because she didn't put on makeup after her shower, to her sweatshirt and sweatpants to her shaking hands.
She still looks angry, but now she looks somewhat concerned, like she's not sure whether she could be sued for causing a panic attack. Lea moves past Mrs. Agron quickly, not quite thinking about what she's doing before she throws the blanket off the table, revealing an entire dry erase board dedicated to the planning of her proposal and several stacks of paper filled with music and lyrics for the song, and sitting on the end closest to Mrs. Agron is the ring, box open because Lea had been staring at it while hitting her head on the table.
Lea stares at her still-shaking hands, this time accusing them of being idiots because she just showed her entire plan to her hopefully future fiancé's mother (holy fuck) and Mrs. Agron is just staring down at everything Lea just showed her.
"You...you're going to propose?" she finally asks, and it's the first time Lea's ever seen her seem completely blindsided, but she still terrifies her, so she's not going to try and revel in it. Lea just nods.
"Then why on earth are you acting the way you are?" Mrs. Agron asks, sounding frustrated, and Lea has the good sense not to shrug, because when she had done that to Jonathan he didn't speak to her for a day (which seemed excessive for a best friend). She tries to gather herself up to some semblance of eloquence.
"I can't stand what I did. It was stupid and I love her more than anything, and I know I'm acting stupid now, too, but...I don't know how to do it differently. I know I'm risking everything, but I know this is how I should do it," she says, sitting down on the edge of her couch, watching her hands slowly stop shaking.
"Lea..." Mrs. Agron starts, stepping closer before stopping. "Well, you have my blessing," she says, and Lea almost falls off the couch in her shock. She quickly looks around the room as if someone's going to jump out saying, 'you've been punk'd!' (was that still going on?), but no one's there, and she looks over to Mrs. Agron with an open mouth.
"What? I like you, Lea. You're perfect for my daughter. She's always needed someone willing to feel her up on a beach in front of her parents," she says, laughing. Lea's vision goes black for a second, because holy mother of God she just said that. "You make her happy. You know, when you're not being a colossal bitch."
Lea can't even speak. The minute Mrs. Agron leaves her apartment, she's going to go jump up and down on her bed for a good ten minutes, because even though the framing of the sentence included an insult and a suggestion that she noticed Lea's propensity to touch Dianna excessively and possibly inappropriately in a public forum, there was definitely a compliment, and that pretty much rocks.
Of course, Mrs. Agron immediately turns on the terrifying.
"But if you mess up like you did ever again...well, I would advise you didn't."
She then turns and walks over to the door and opens it, looking back at Lea once more and saying something about calling her if she needed any help, but Lea's mostly focused on the fact that she can't feel her hands she's so terrified at the threat just issued to her.
//
"I can't believe you never told me any of this," Dianna mumbles, her face pressed into Lea's collarbone. They're stretched out on their gigantic couch watching something Lea probably wouldn't watch if it were her choice, but Dianna had pouted and Lea still can't deal with that well. And anyway, she had just spent the last twenty minutes explaining her two more important encounters with Dianna's mother, punctuated by Dianna laughing at Lea's hysterical accounts of being terrified.
"I didn't think it would be a good idea to mention that your mother scared me. I have street cred, you know," Lea says, fiddling with Dianna's left hand where the engagement ring is glittering.
"Sure you do," Dianna mutters, giggling when Lea gives a gasp that implies she's insulted. "You proposed quite sentimentally on national television, and then you cried," she says, kissing Lea's collarbone. "I think whatever New York badassery street cred you had is pretty much shot."
"Well...you cried too. So whatever," Lea mutters, kissing Dianna's forehead. She can admit silently to herself that her street cred is pretty much shot, but she isn't going to say it out loud until she absolutely has to. Jonathan already laughed for five minutes today when she tried to make the case that she was still edgy ("You're practically domesticated," he had said through his tears of laughter. Lea had not appreciated this.) and was still sore about it anyway.
"Yeah, but my street cred was non-existent before that. I mean, I'm supposed to be the teddy bear of this relationship," Dianna says, tucking her head between Lea's shoulder and neck and sighing happily.
Lea doesn't say anything because she has an overwhelming wave of happiness rip through her, and she just pulls Dianna closer.
She's pretty sure she'd be infinitely happy continuing to ruin her street cred for the rest of her life if it meant she got Dianna. Even if her mother was terrifying.
the end.