Let it burn 1/1 (Sectionals challenge 29, Story time)
Disclaimer: Please ignore the awful metaphor usage, not to mention my failure with knowledge of fires. Other than that, there's no spoilers, and no (I think) character death.
Let it burn:
It’s ironic really, the way Santana loves fire. It started as a child, with the incandescent crackle of a firework, to a teen admiring the stars shifting softly in their shells. She admired fire, to tell the truth, when nobody else seemed to understand it.
“Fire is free,” Santana had exclaimed,
glowing with her revelation. “It’s not tied down by boundaries or expectations.
It just flies, captures everything with its warmth and light. It’s beautiful,
don’t you think?”
Quinn had laughed. Told her to keep her mouth closed, so as not to make a fool of herself. Three years on when she had the courage to tell Brittany, the girl had nodded her head enthusiastically and added:
“And fire always goes with rain. Rain like, stops it getting out of control. They’re awesome together. Fire is cool, but you should never have fire without rain.”
Another year later; and Santana was still able to appreciate the amber glow sparkling at the end of her cigar. Maybe that’s why she took up smoking in the first place; she muses.
“What are you thinking about?”
Berry’s inched forward, eyeing her curiously. Santana throws her head back, takes another deep drag and watches the smoke pool around her tongue to snake past her lips.
She doesn’t answer.
“What does...?” Berry hesitates this time, tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, and smiles apprehensively. “What does it feel like? Smoking, I mean.”
“Sex,” Santana answers bluntly. “It feels good, hurts the first time - but it’s never anything special. No matter who you do it with.”
“No matter how unfulfilling your past sexual deviance may have come to be, rest assured Santana it holds more than simple pleasure for some,” Berry rushes; cheeks burning.
Santana smirks at her reply.
“Spoken like a true virgin,” She drawls, spinning another spiral of smoke through her teeth.
The fire dances across the cigar, spidery branches lighting and fading like a million suns. It’s captivating- the way one flame can spread its beauty like this, when Berry has to open her mouth again. It seems not even alcohol is enough to quieten the
girl. Maybe morphine, she infers. Santana can’t help but wonder if Puck could set something up...
“Is it true? That smoking cigars can help add a certain finesse to the tone of your voice, opening up an entire genre of music to my talent?”
Santana considers her. She had clearly chosen to follow Santana outside, leaving Finnocence to tread on Fabray’s toes instead. Her quick ramblings of ‘open air’ and ‘getting space’ were clearly irrelevant in the smoky atmosphere, crowded by the door. Berry had clearly come here with the explicit intent of smoking, just like her.
Wordlessly she hands over the cigar, tips it up so the ash doesn’t rain down her god-awful sweater,
and places the edge to her lips.
“Inhale,” She orders softly. “Now take in air, before letting go.”
The ensuing coughing fit really doesn’t surprise her. What does is the casual insistence with which Rachel takes it from her again after, steadying her posture before taking another long drag. Santana gazes as Rachel blows the smoke, watching the fires dance at the end of the cigar. She tells herself the shaking is from the cold.
“It tastes weird,” Rachel mumbles.
Santana shudders further when she realizes she’d referred to her as Rachel in her mind. This glee club shit really was getting to her.
“It tastes good, “Santana corrects her, stealing the rest for herself.
The faded commotion from inside intensifies, a round of cheering and laughter erupting around the chill evening air.
“We should get back inside,” Berry nods, slinking back through the door.
Santana sighs, drops the cigar, and follows numbly.
Most of the glee club are up and dancing when she enters the room. Fancy and his hobbit boyfriend are making out in the corner, Puck and Lauren drooling over each other by Berry’s dads bar- not quite dancing but not making out either. Rachel slips between Sam and Mercedes (and damn, ‘Cedes covers her annoyance quick), and picks up her drink slickly, as if they had never left.
Brittany is spinning around Mike as Tina and Artie watch from the sidelines, Puck and Lauren occasionally glancing over to admire their moves. She would join in, confident of her own skills, were she not dizzy from the cigar and just a little bit tipsy. Instead Quinn drags her into the other main throng, where Mercedes had grabbed Fancy (and by proxy, Hobbit) into the dance. She takes the nearest drink left unattended, and smiles as she feels herself loosen up. This wasn’t actually as bad as she’d feared.
For a bunch of losers they certainly partied well.
The inevitable drinking games and drunken duets pass in a heated blur, till Santana can literally feel her head spinning. She can’t hear beyond the pounding music, can’t smell past the stench of alcohol, can’t feel beyond Brittany’s fingers sliding over her hips as they swayed to the beat. Head tipped back, her eyes close till all she knows is the constant thump of the drum stirring under her skin like a heartbeat. Brittany’s hair brushing her neck, slick with sweat. Brittany’s breath panting in her ear. Brittany’s eyes, bright and burning, just a little bit like desire.
The hands drop. Santana stirs, eyes opening sleepily, smile wavering. Brittany peels herself away, the sound of her running resonating through the house like the pounding inside Santana’s brain.
“Quinn?”
The girl is bent over coughing, the sounds bright and piercing in the now silent room. Santana looks around. Everyone seemed to be paused in motion, waiting for activity to resume. Only Brittany had moved, wrapping herself around Quinn, offering water and helping her to sit.
“You okay?” Santana asks eventually, catching up with the rest of the club.
Brittany takes Quinn’s drink from her and shoves it toward Santana, whether as the answer or
as an offer, she isn’t sure.
“Sssh, Blaine- You can’t just-“
Kurt dissolves into high pitched giggles, and just like that the world is set back into motion. Tina extends a hand toward her, and Quinn must be okay now- Brittany is looking after her. She might as well dance, she concedes, as Artie spins Sam around his chair. Only... something seemed so terribly off, without Brittany around. The air seemed thick and wrong in her throat, the lights too bright, and the sounds too loud.
It was as if the event had sent her crashing into reality and left her to drown.
“Loosen up, Lopez.”
Puck is wrapping an arm around her bare shoulders, trademark smirk plastered across his smug
face.
“Where’s the bodyguard?” She jokes, but it falls flat.
“Seriously, you’ve been tense ever since Quinn coughed- you know she was just wrecked, right? She’s cool, I swear,” Puck rambles drunkenly. “You might as well come dance with us- you’ll have fun that way.”
“Really? I don’t ever remember coming where you were concerned,” Santana spits, before shrugging him off to collapse at the bar.
Her head swims,and somehow the rest of New Directions are able to dance circles round her whilst she needs to take a breather. This isn’t right. Santana definitely needs a drink. Only two drinks later, she feels worse than ever. Her throat feels tight and closed, and she vaguely registers coughing over the side of the bar.Shit, she was worse than Fabray.
Only then Blaine drops to the floor, and the room freezes for the final time.
They quieten again, each person stopping and steadying themselves in the throbbing heat.Time slows to a sickening pace, till a deafening crash shatters the silence. Santana can hear screaming; see the door crumple under the fist of flames erupting from outside, feel the unbearable heat hit them like a tidal wave. And through all this, think: That’s what you get; for playing with fire.
Santana rushes with the roar of a blossoming conflagration licking the walls of the house, dusting the room into blackness in its wake. Her hands quickly find themselves turning over Blaine, checking his airways, scanning for any injuries. She briefly considers throwing Rachel and Kurt bodily to get them out of here,before the plumes of smoke do just that. But as suddenly as the group begins to leave, she hears thundering footsteps as Brittany charges into the room. Santana can’t help but swear under her breath, coughing and choking as she inhales.
The heat is incredible now, washing the blonde’s pale skin in sweat and tears. Another crash ripples through the room, the glass of the drinking cabinet firing through the room like knives. The floor feels hot under her feet; too hot, and she can barely register Brittany’s languid, fluid movements as the girl trips and sways under the pressure. But Blaine’s cheeks are white, dowsed in sweat, and he doesn’t even wince as another explosion adds to the orchestrating rage around them.
He doesn’t even move.
Santana runs into Brittany then, shaky hands grabbing his blackened arms- the fire must’ve spread onto the floor, she intones, and she didn’t even notice- before charging up those long, long stairs and to the door. Blaine is swamped by Kurt then, charcoal skin marred with tears (and when did he get burned? Did it happen to them all? Maybe she just didn’t notice, too focused on saving Blaine) and the echo of Mercedes’ coughing and Artie leaning over the side of his chair to throw up, Rachel and Finn sobbing as they stared at the collective mess around them hits her like a freight train- maybe Santana hadn’t saved them all like she thought.
She didn’t even know what had happened to the half of them, only enough to count the numbers still in danger and do what she had to do.
“We called,” Tina whispers shakily, “We called the fire brigade, they should be here soon- And ambulance- Not long now.”
Santana nods. It was okay. They were safe, even as another rumble sounded behind them, the walls crashing down one by one around the house. It didn’t matter. They were safe.They were alive. They were going to be okay. It didn’t matter. They would be fine. It was alright, it was-
“Brittany?” Sam croaks, watery eyes turned toward her. “Where- Where is she?”
And just like that, the bottom half of the house is swallowed by fire.
“Brittany!”
She can’t see. She can’t even breathe; and running through the house feels like running through treacle, or cotton.
“Brittany!”
Her throat feels full, like she has some giant fucking tube down her neck that scratches each time she moves, craning her neck to try and find Brittany. She has to find her. She has to save her. Even as the heat licks up her trousers and Santana yanks off the enflamed item, not sure if it’s the right thing to do. She stumbles on the stairs, hands flying out to the banister to find it’s not even there. The ground feels thin and fragile beneath her, like the slightest step could send her crashing into nothing.
“Brittany!”
Heart thundering in her chest, she nearly screams upon crashing whatever’s in the way to see if she’s there, only to see black fingers curl around the empty smoke. It’s like something out of a freaking horror film, and she has no way of telling if the screams pealing in her ears are her own, Brittany’s, or the group just outside, pleading with her to just come out.
“Brittany!”
Santana’s voice breaks now, shuddering with tears she really doesn’t have the time for as her foot connects with the barricade of fire the bar had created.
“Brittany!”
The world dips and turns around her, ending in a resounding crack as her head hits the floor. Desperate fingers reach into the walls of smoke, finding nothing but more reason to burn. Mouth tightly sealed in an effort to stop the feeling of lead sinking into her chest. Eyes squeezed tight around the sharp light around her, covered in a film of grey.
Her head pounding. Heart racing. Sharp jolts of pain as her bared skin swallows that gorgeous tongue of red. And, ever so quietly, a broken voice lulling her toward sleep.
“I set fire to the rain, and I threw us into the flames. When we fell, something died 'Cause I knew that that was the last time, the last time...”
“Brittany?”
And just like that, blackened fingers come to entwine with her own.
“They’ll be here soon,” She whimpers, nodding resolutely. “They’ll come get us. It’ll be okay.”
Brittany’s tears are beautifully refreshing, like a cool shower upon her skin in the blistering heat. The rise and fall of the flames around them reflected like a single gold ring in her eyes; a solar eclipse clouding the soft blue sky; plunging them into darkness.
“They’ll be here,” Brittany promises, her words falling like raindrops or kisses against her battered skin.
“They’ll be here.”
Santana licks her lips in agreement, nestling her head on the girl’s shoulder as another wave of noise permeates the burning building, the rushing of footsteps not unlike Brittany’s as she had run to help Quinn. Black fingers grip tighter, an unmovable force against the destruction around them. Santana feels Brittany beside her, and smiles through her tears.
They were going to be okay.
I set fire to the rain
Watched it pour as I touch your face
Well, it burned while I cried
'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name.