I Never Was Too Good (At Following Rules)
Title: I Never Was Too Good (At Following Rules)
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None in particular.
Summary: "Because, Santana, girls don't marry princesses."
A/N: [Picture Show 6/14]- "Lessons In Love (All Day, All Night)"
All day, all night, I got the lights in my eyes
And I’m falling for you
Keep cool, stay tough
But that’s never enough
She still remembers being five years old and getting sat down on her grandmother’s ugly brown couch with all the weird tulips scattered across its arms. She remembers the question that got her there-Abuela, when will I find my Disney Princess? Like Daddy found when Mama married him.-and the glint in her grandmother’s eyes. She remembers the feeling that always came with that couch, the realization that this was trouble and that she should have used her brain before her mouth, like her teacher keeps telling her when she winds up in the Think About Your Mistake corner.
The Think About Your Mistake corner sucked, but it was a heck of a lot better than the stupid tulip couch, which itched and made her stomach go tight with fear. Abuela was never big on caning, but she was more likely to do it than Mom or Dad have ever been, and the few times it did happen were more than enough.
She remembers thinking, even at five, that it would be stupid to get spanked for a question like that one. What’s so wrong with wanting your Disney Princess? Aladdin got his, and so did Eric (although, true, she kind of had flippers), and Simba (even if she wasn’t so much a princess as a lion, but whatever, she was much cooler than that stupid bimbo Cinderella). If all of those dopes could get their princess on, why shouldn’t Santana? After all, she could have wiped the floor with an streetrat like Aladdin-or that sucker Charming, for God’s sake-in two seconds flat.
And she wouldn’t have ended up with a fish girl, either.
She remembers thinking all of this, rapid-fire, clear as day. Clearer still is the image of Abuela settling her even-then old bones carefully atop the coffee table and leaning in, one gnarled hand sweeping Santana’s up from her nervously bouncing knee.
“Santana,” she remembers like a slap across the face, “you won’t be finding a princess.”
It was as simple as that, like Abuela couldn’t imagine needing to explain further, and Santana remembers her own eyes widening. She remembers the tight fist clenching in her stomach, worse than any accusation of taking too long to finish dinner, too long to deserve a snack afterwards.
“But why?” she remembers demanding. “Dad got one. Everyone gets one.”
She remembers wanting to cry, and reminding herself, even then, that tears were for wusses.
The dry-paper rasp of Abuela’s hand leaving hers, the awkward pull of Abuela’s mouth as her head tilted-they’re still with her now. She still hears the answer between her ears, the volume ratcheted all the way up.
“Because, Santana,” her grandmother said stiffly, “girls don’t marry princesses.”
And that was that.
Girls don’t marry princesses-it felt weak back then, like a story without the courtesy of an ending, but if her grandmother said it…Abuela always said lying was the worst sin. If Abuela says it, it must be true, the biggest kind of truth, the kind everyone believes in so wholeheartedly, they don’t even need to discuss it. Santana is a girl, and girls don’t marry princesses. Let it go.
And she did, as only a five-year-old can. She let it go, walking slowly back to the yard and her raggedy soccer ball, and she forgot. Mostly.
What does a five-year-old need a princess for?
***
She remembers being seven years old, and running smack into a girl with long white-gold hair and a teddy bear. It’s that bear she remembers most vividly: scuffed, with green fur and only one jeweled eye, its paws Sharpie’d to hell and back again. The bear was the strangest thing.
The girl, comparatively, was just pretty.
“Sorry,” she remembers blurting, not because she really was, but because she always got in trouble for making the sissy kids cry. Sometimes, saying sorry shut them up before the teacher could come running and plant her in time-out. It was worth the extra effort.
She remembers saying it, and then just staring at that bear. The girl, for her part, only grinned.
“You’re new!”
She wasn’t, not to the whole school. She had just been swapped over from the other class-the second-third split, the one where she overturned the arts-and-crafts table in protest for them hiding the glitter glue. That class didn’t get her, so this new teacher-a young woman with a sunny smile and painfully green eyes-took her in. Like a stray dog.
At the time, she kind of felt special. Looking back now, Santana thinks the whole thing was pretty pathetic. What kind of teacher is so lame, they can’t even handle a precocious seven-year-old?
She remembers shrugging, hands in her pockets, still staring at that stupid bear. “I guess. Sort of. I’m Santana.” Always introduce yourself first. It gives you the chance to run away after the other person has gone, before the conversation can really get going.
“Brittany,” the girl had said, wiggling the bear around under Santana’s nose. “And this is Sherlock.”
“Sherlock,” Santana remembers repeating dumbly. “Like the stories.”
Brittany had wrinkled her nose, crystal eyes gleaming under crappy fluorescent lights. “What stories?”
It was the first of a million never minds, Santana shaking her head and pressing on to the next point. The bear was weird, she remembers thinking, but the girl…
The girl looked like Cinderella, if Cinderella hadn’t been so whiny, or Sleeping Beauty, if the idiot had bothered to wake her own ass up. She had a smile like Ariel’s, all bright and strong, and legs that looked strong, like Jasmine’s. Her hair, Santana remembers noticing, was the color of Nala’s fur.
The girl was, no doubt about it, a princess-and all Santana could do was gape.
Girls don’t marry princesses, she remembers telling herself firmly, her heart sinking in her chest. They just don’t.
Which was sad, and kind of totally unfair, because Brittany had such a nice smile, and such blue eyes, and the clasp of her hand around Santana’s wrist felt so much stronger than she was ready for. And, when Santana forgot to raise her hand an hour later, and accidentally let a swear word slip out as she was giving her answer, and found herself sitting in time-out anyway, Brittany snuck over. No one ever sneaks into time-out, but Brittany did, and Santana remembers the way she grinned fearlessly and shoved Sherlock tight against Santana’s unprepared chest.
Girls don’t marry princesses, but-no one ever said anything about marriage. Only grown-ups got married. Kids like her were too little, too untangled from the adult madness to even think about getting married. So, maybe girls didn’t marry princesses-but who could say they couldn’t be friends with them?
As far as she could tell, being friends was a whole lot easier.
Thinking back, Santana wonders if she was really ever dumb enough to believe that.
***
She remembers being twelve years old-twelve on the cusp of thirteen-sitting cross-legged on the Pierce family room floor. Brittany’s white-gold lion hair had turned darker over the years, until it was just pure gold, spun through the gaps in Santana’s fingers. She remembers the first time she truly noticed it, as something more than just hair-as something lovely and special, belonging only to Brittany. Something Brittany wanted to share with her.
She remembers realizing how important that could be, for someone their age. Sharing in elementary school was expected, even mandatory, but at twelve, it became a choice. You don’t share things when you’re twelve because someone forces you to; you do it because you like the idea.
Brittany liked the idea of sharing everything she had with Santana. Even now, years later, she’s a little dumbstruck by that fact.
She remembers trailing her fingers through silk, following the brush with her hands as Brittany’s shoulders bopped along to the music on the TV. How surprisingly warm the locks were against her skin, drifting lazily down around the middle of Brittany’s back. She remembers thinking that there was something important about this, too-how Brittany’s hair could feel like something else entirely, something too grand for Santana to put into normal teenage terms-and that maybe it was even more important than the Pierces going out this evening without them, trusting them alone in the house.
She’d never been trusted to stay on her own before that day.
She remembers Brittany shaking her hands off, and falling back against her chest, then, heedless of her bent knees, or the hairbrush, or her surprise. Brittany was done with the hair thing; Brittany was moving on to the next desire. Brittany has always been like that, to some degree. Santana thinks she likes it. It keeps her on her toes.
She remembers the smell of Brittany’s hair beneath her nose: burnt cookies and happiness. The weight of Brittany’s back against her thin chest, pushing her to skid backwards on the plush carpet until her hands fell behind her, holding them both up. The echo of her grandmother’s voice in her ears:
Girls don’t marry princesses.
She hadn’t gone two weeks without remembering that law, the concrete truth smackdown Abuela laid without any care or thought as to how it would make Santana feel. Not two weeks without reminding herself that it wasn’t okay to fall in love with a princess, not when you were born with princess-parts, not when your grandmother had been so serious and so sure about it.
But at twelve years old, who falls in love?
Santana remembers telling herself, a little angry, a little frustrated, that it wasn’t love she was looking for. Love was stupid and weak, the crap that leads you to risk your life facing dragons and sociopathic gay uncles. Love was pointless, even then; she’d heard enough of her parents’ arguments to be certain of that.
Love was dumb, and girls don’t marry princesses, but who cared? Brittany was her best friend, and she smelled so nice, and when her head tilted back against the slope of Santana’s shoulder, her teeth showing in the happiest grin imaginable, Santana remembers feeling sad. Sad, because being best friends with a princess maybe wasn’t as awesome as it could have been. Because being best friends with a princess always sort of left you wanting more.
She remembers not thinking about it, not letting herself put the action into words in her head. She remembers just going, her neck bending, her mouth clumsily striking a spot just left of Brittany’s grin. Pausing, embarrassed, and then trying again, dead-on this time. She remembers the thrill in her stomach when Brittany made that sound-the tiny muffled oomph, like making a catch you didn’t expect at the end of the ninth inning-and moved her mouth in response. A real kiss, like on TV, like she hadn’t seen between her parents in who knew how long.
Girls don’t marry princesses, she remembers thinking, winding gray carpet fibers between her fingers and tugging. Relishing the difference between this and the softness of Brittany’s sleek gold hair.
It started right then, the hiding. Because girls aren’t supposed to marry princesses, and everybody knows that. If she wanted to keep this, the tingle of Brittany on her lips, the beaming smile she received for her daring, it would have to be a secret.
It was important, she remembers thinking, more important than sharing or being left alone in a big, empty house. It was the most important thing possible.
Santana doesn’t know how she thought it would last.
***
She remembers being halfway to fifteen- a striking July, just about ready to dive feet-first into the high school sewage system-and laying with Brittany in her bed. Her room is in the basement, so it only made sense that they would be here, stretched out in sticky tank tops and shorts that probably should have seen the Purple Heart donation bag a year ago. Not that it mattered. The more skin, the better, on a day like that one. She remembers the heat being her reason.
She remembers knowing, even then, that the excuse was kind of bullshit.
They were still keeping The Secret, then-Brittany’s idea, the capital letters, like it belonged to a federal government agency and not to a pair of sneaking teenage girls-stealing moments only when no one else could ever see. Because no one else could ever know, because girls don’t marry princesses.
She remembers the flare of anger in her stomach at the thought, laying there with Brittany’s strong legs twined between her own. She remembers feeling hateful, spiteful, thinking, Who says? Who has the right to decide a thing like that? She remembers sucking in a breath and holding it, letting her fingertip roam across the smooth plane of Brittany’s forehead, down the length of her nose, catching on the thumbprint above her top lip. She remembers steadying herself as Brittany wriggled nearer, just a bit, just enough to make her skin hum with recognition.
They were on the brink of something new, she knows now-and knew then, even if she couldn’t comprehend it in full-something as great and as dangerous as pushing a weird teddy into the delinquent new classmate’s arms, or kissing, alone, in a house with no parents. It echoed in the languid, almost sleepy stroke of Brittany’s legs against her own, toes trailing across her ankle bone and up, down, fluid motions along a shin bone still bruised from last week’s soccer game. The courage it took to pull Brittany’s knuckles against sun-chapped lips and hold them there. The buzz of summer sun, creeping through the crack of window set into the base of the house.
It was something great, and huge, and too much for halfway to fifteen, but all at once, she was there-there, and not turning back. She remembers telling herself that Brittany deserved to feel special, as special as Santana had felt for so many years, just for being her friend. She remembers glowering at the neon-bright sign in her head, the glaring commandment tattooed into the very middle of her brain:
Girls don’t marry princesses.
Fuck that, she remembers thinking, and, very deliberately, inching across the pillow. Feeling her way across the pad of Brittany’s lip, smiling when Brittany sighed softly in response. Growing bolder, her hand touching down upon pale skin, the bit that glowed between shirt and shorts. She remembers the ache in her teeth at how sweet Brittany felt, at how strange it was to be touching someone else this way. Intimate, and new, and beautiful in a way she doesn’t imagine her grandmother ever could understand. Just skin, just the edge of Brittany’s hip, and yet…
She remembers pulling Brittany that last miniscule inch to meet her, and just like that, being flush against her best friend’s body. Feeling the thrum of a heartbeat, syncing up to her own, and the strangely familiar rush of Brittany’s pelvis against the front of her shorts. One motion, one swift decision, and that was all; Brittany’s gasp, her hand closing on the base of Santana’s ribcage, said it all. She remembers grinning, the stupid, silly grin of a kid in love. A kid with a secret. A kid with a beautiful, golden-haired princess, sweat trickling down her neck, blue eyes wide as hips bumped and jumbled in this new, terrifying way.
Taking Brittany’s face in one hand, kissing her then, felt so different than the kisses of the past. Different than a first-brush, dart-away dance, or even from the sensation of Brittany’s lips parting beneath hers in the treehouse after dinner. Different than anything she’d ever felt, and Santana remembers smiling into the kiss. Smiling, and holding tight to Brittany’s hip, guiding her gently in until they met again, and again, a slow, building friction that seemed to light her from the inside.
She remembers Brittany’s arm around her waist, the stroke of her palm upon Santana’s tailbone, easing them together and apart like a sailboat bouncing against a dock’s edge. She remembers the way Brittany’s kiss scorched, slow, tentative, but happy. Unmistakably, undeniably wanting, the way Santana had felt on so many nights, bursting into consciousness with her pulse racing back in some shocking dream.
She remembers rolling until Brittany was stretched out before her, until her arms trembled with the effort of holding herself up. She remembers the fear, occurring to her the way things do only when you’re trying something for the first time, the concern that she might crush Brittany if she were to lay down. And she remembers the way Brittany giggled, arching up to kiss her again, hands clasped at the base of Santana’s spine. Holding her. Reassuring her.
Brittany always seemed to know what was going on in a way Santana couldn’t begin to track. Brittany, who seemed so careful, fingers winding in cotton and pulling slowly, patiently, blue eyes following each new bit of skin as it was revealed. She remembers feeling momentarily shaken, when the shirt drew up over her shoulders and dropped, and then-nothing. No fear. Just Brittany, gazing at her like she’d been waiting her whole life to see what Santana really had to offer under all the tight t-shirts and brazen laughter.
Just Brittany, lifting her hips from the bed and letting the shorts go, letting the underwear follow, until just Brittany became something Santana had only dared to imagine. Until just Brittany became less a fantasy and more her best friend, laying naked in her bed, letting her take it all in.
She remembers the shock of touching bare skin for the first time, of Brittany’s hips jolting against the mattress, of Brittany’s eyes going dark as they watched, lip between her teeth. She remembers the surprise in Brittany’s voice, squeaking out something like careful when Santana’s finger sank below a flat stomach. She remembers going slow, slower than she’s ever done anything in her life, because Brittany’s brow was furrowing in some meld of fear and expected pain.
She remembers taking forever to learn Brittany’s curves and angles, her mouth caught open against Brittany’s taut bicep, dark hair plastered to her own forehead. She remembers feeling afraid that she would do something wrong, something that would bring a shout of agony, that would make Brittany shove her away. She remembers barely even being aware of her own center, wet and achingly hot, pushing against Brittany’s bare thigh as she worked. She remembers the way Brittany’s hand shot across her body, clenching at Santana’s shoulder, striving to stay grounded.
She remembers how wonderful it felt, seeing the surprise in Brittany’s eyes, watching her lips part and her head bend against the pillow. She remembers feeling on top of the world, prouder than she’d ever been in her life, and thinking, Suck it. Girls can marry whoever they damn well please. She had her princess, and no one-no one-was going to strip that away.
She flashes back now to a few months later, standing stupidly in the school parking lot. Telling Noah Puckerman she’d go out with him as long as he forgot everything he just saw. She wonders how she ever could have been so naïve, to think that moment would never come.
***
She remembers last week, standing-shaking-before a bathroom mirror. Applying lip gloss that would only rub off in the next hour, staring herself down in the smudged glass. Looking like someone else entirely, like a grown-up, built-up version of herself. Like an adult.
An adult with her princess in the next room.
It’s startling every time she sees herself this way, in life or in memory: a grown child, wrapped in clothes that shouldn’t belong to her, coated in makeup that doesn’t fit right on her face. Hidden away from the beautiful girl in the bedroom, the girl who shared her ridiculous teddy, who kept The Secret for too long, who stretched her long limbs upon that dark bedspread and whimpered Santana’s name on a sticky summer day. Hidden away from her best friend.
Brittany doesn’t like it when she does this, she knows. She remembers the disappointment in crystal eyes, the slight droop of a chin, the gentle twist of fingers in her lap. She knows Brittany doesn’t get it, why she would waste all this time and energy on something so stupid.
But Brittany never learned the golden rule. Brittany never had an Abuela to deliver that particular brand of tough love.
Girls don’t marry princesses. Which means girls don’t fall in love with princesses. Girls aren’t stupid enough to think that, as long as they hide it in a safe locked box, no one will ever find out about the rules they’re breaking.
Girls don’t marry princesses, and Santana understands that now. It’s just not something you do. It’s not a Disney movie, not a hyped-up story with a happy ending. It just doesn’t happen.
She remembers last week, running a thumb below her lip to catch an unwelcome smear, locking eyes with her reflection. Making a promise she should have made a long time ago. A promise to be strong. To be cool. To keep it all out.
Sex isn’t dating.
Sex isn’t love.
Girls don’t marry princesses.
Some rules, she’s learning at last, just can’t be broken.
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None in particular.
Summary: "Because, Santana, girls don't marry princesses."
A/N: [Picture Show 6/14]- "Lessons In Love (All Day, All Night)"
All day, all night, I got the lights in my eyes
And I’m falling for you
Keep cool, stay tough
But that’s never enough
She still remembers being five years old and getting sat down on her grandmother’s ugly brown couch with all the weird tulips scattered across its arms. She remembers the question that got her there-Abuela, when will I find my Disney Princess? Like Daddy found when Mama married him.-and the glint in her grandmother’s eyes. She remembers the feeling that always came with that couch, the realization that this was trouble and that she should have used her brain before her mouth, like her teacher keeps telling her when she winds up in the Think About Your Mistake corner.
The Think About Your Mistake corner sucked, but it was a heck of a lot better than the stupid tulip couch, which itched and made her stomach go tight with fear. Abuela was never big on caning, but she was more likely to do it than Mom or Dad have ever been, and the few times it did happen were more than enough.
She remembers thinking, even at five, that it would be stupid to get spanked for a question like that one. What’s so wrong with wanting your Disney Princess? Aladdin got his, and so did Eric (although, true, she kind of had flippers), and Simba (even if she wasn’t so much a princess as a lion, but whatever, she was much cooler than that stupid bimbo Cinderella). If all of those dopes could get their princess on, why shouldn’t Santana? After all, she could have wiped the floor with an streetrat like Aladdin-or that sucker Charming, for God’s sake-in two seconds flat.
And she wouldn’t have ended up with a fish girl, either.
She remembers thinking all of this, rapid-fire, clear as day. Clearer still is the image of Abuela settling her even-then old bones carefully atop the coffee table and leaning in, one gnarled hand sweeping Santana’s up from her nervously bouncing knee.
“Santana,” she remembers like a slap across the face, “you won’t be finding a princess.”
It was as simple as that, like Abuela couldn’t imagine needing to explain further, and Santana remembers her own eyes widening. She remembers the tight fist clenching in her stomach, worse than any accusation of taking too long to finish dinner, too long to deserve a snack afterwards.
“But why?” she remembers demanding. “Dad got one. Everyone gets one.”
She remembers wanting to cry, and reminding herself, even then, that tears were for wusses.
The dry-paper rasp of Abuela’s hand leaving hers, the awkward pull of Abuela’s mouth as her head tilted-they’re still with her now. She still hears the answer between her ears, the volume ratcheted all the way up.
“Because, Santana,” her grandmother said stiffly, “girls don’t marry princesses.”
And that was that.
Girls don’t marry princesses-it felt weak back then, like a story without the courtesy of an ending, but if her grandmother said it…Abuela always said lying was the worst sin. If Abuela says it, it must be true, the biggest kind of truth, the kind everyone believes in so wholeheartedly, they don’t even need to discuss it. Santana is a girl, and girls don’t marry princesses. Let it go.
And she did, as only a five-year-old can. She let it go, walking slowly back to the yard and her raggedy soccer ball, and she forgot. Mostly.
What does a five-year-old need a princess for?
***
She remembers being seven years old, and running smack into a girl with long white-gold hair and a teddy bear. It’s that bear she remembers most vividly: scuffed, with green fur and only one jeweled eye, its paws Sharpie’d to hell and back again. The bear was the strangest thing.
The girl, comparatively, was just pretty.
“Sorry,” she remembers blurting, not because she really was, but because she always got in trouble for making the sissy kids cry. Sometimes, saying sorry shut them up before the teacher could come running and plant her in time-out. It was worth the extra effort.
She remembers saying it, and then just staring at that bear. The girl, for her part, only grinned.
“You’re new!”
She wasn’t, not to the whole school. She had just been swapped over from the other class-the second-third split, the one where she overturned the arts-and-crafts table in protest for them hiding the glitter glue. That class didn’t get her, so this new teacher-a young woman with a sunny smile and painfully green eyes-took her in. Like a stray dog.
At the time, she kind of felt special. Looking back now, Santana thinks the whole thing was pretty pathetic. What kind of teacher is so lame, they can’t even handle a precocious seven-year-old?
She remembers shrugging, hands in her pockets, still staring at that stupid bear. “I guess. Sort of. I’m Santana.” Always introduce yourself first. It gives you the chance to run away after the other person has gone, before the conversation can really get going.
“Brittany,” the girl had said, wiggling the bear around under Santana’s nose. “And this is Sherlock.”
“Sherlock,” Santana remembers repeating dumbly. “Like the stories.”
Brittany had wrinkled her nose, crystal eyes gleaming under crappy fluorescent lights. “What stories?”
It was the first of a million never minds, Santana shaking her head and pressing on to the next point. The bear was weird, she remembers thinking, but the girl…
The girl looked like Cinderella, if Cinderella hadn’t been so whiny, or Sleeping Beauty, if the idiot had bothered to wake her own ass up. She had a smile like Ariel’s, all bright and strong, and legs that looked strong, like Jasmine’s. Her hair, Santana remembers noticing, was the color of Nala’s fur.
The girl was, no doubt about it, a princess-and all Santana could do was gape.
Girls don’t marry princesses, she remembers telling herself firmly, her heart sinking in her chest. They just don’t.
Which was sad, and kind of totally unfair, because Brittany had such a nice smile, and such blue eyes, and the clasp of her hand around Santana’s wrist felt so much stronger than she was ready for. And, when Santana forgot to raise her hand an hour later, and accidentally let a swear word slip out as she was giving her answer, and found herself sitting in time-out anyway, Brittany snuck over. No one ever sneaks into time-out, but Brittany did, and Santana remembers the way she grinned fearlessly and shoved Sherlock tight against Santana’s unprepared chest.
Girls don’t marry princesses, but-no one ever said anything about marriage. Only grown-ups got married. Kids like her were too little, too untangled from the adult madness to even think about getting married. So, maybe girls didn’t marry princesses-but who could say they couldn’t be friends with them?
As far as she could tell, being friends was a whole lot easier.
Thinking back, Santana wonders if she was really ever dumb enough to believe that.
***
She remembers being twelve years old-twelve on the cusp of thirteen-sitting cross-legged on the Pierce family room floor. Brittany’s white-gold lion hair had turned darker over the years, until it was just pure gold, spun through the gaps in Santana’s fingers. She remembers the first time she truly noticed it, as something more than just hair-as something lovely and special, belonging only to Brittany. Something Brittany wanted to share with her.
She remembers realizing how important that could be, for someone their age. Sharing in elementary school was expected, even mandatory, but at twelve, it became a choice. You don’t share things when you’re twelve because someone forces you to; you do it because you like the idea.
Brittany liked the idea of sharing everything she had with Santana. Even now, years later, she’s a little dumbstruck by that fact.
She remembers trailing her fingers through silk, following the brush with her hands as Brittany’s shoulders bopped along to the music on the TV. How surprisingly warm the locks were against her skin, drifting lazily down around the middle of Brittany’s back. She remembers thinking that there was something important about this, too-how Brittany’s hair could feel like something else entirely, something too grand for Santana to put into normal teenage terms-and that maybe it was even more important than the Pierces going out this evening without them, trusting them alone in the house.
She’d never been trusted to stay on her own before that day.
She remembers Brittany shaking her hands off, and falling back against her chest, then, heedless of her bent knees, or the hairbrush, or her surprise. Brittany was done with the hair thing; Brittany was moving on to the next desire. Brittany has always been like that, to some degree. Santana thinks she likes it. It keeps her on her toes.
She remembers the smell of Brittany’s hair beneath her nose: burnt cookies and happiness. The weight of Brittany’s back against her thin chest, pushing her to skid backwards on the plush carpet until her hands fell behind her, holding them both up. The echo of her grandmother’s voice in her ears:
Girls don’t marry princesses.
She hadn’t gone two weeks without remembering that law, the concrete truth smackdown Abuela laid without any care or thought as to how it would make Santana feel. Not two weeks without reminding herself that it wasn’t okay to fall in love with a princess, not when you were born with princess-parts, not when your grandmother had been so serious and so sure about it.
But at twelve years old, who falls in love?
Santana remembers telling herself, a little angry, a little frustrated, that it wasn’t love she was looking for. Love was stupid and weak, the crap that leads you to risk your life facing dragons and sociopathic gay uncles. Love was pointless, even then; she’d heard enough of her parents’ arguments to be certain of that.
Love was dumb, and girls don’t marry princesses, but who cared? Brittany was her best friend, and she smelled so nice, and when her head tilted back against the slope of Santana’s shoulder, her teeth showing in the happiest grin imaginable, Santana remembers feeling sad. Sad, because being best friends with a princess maybe wasn’t as awesome as it could have been. Because being best friends with a princess always sort of left you wanting more.
She remembers not thinking about it, not letting herself put the action into words in her head. She remembers just going, her neck bending, her mouth clumsily striking a spot just left of Brittany’s grin. Pausing, embarrassed, and then trying again, dead-on this time. She remembers the thrill in her stomach when Brittany made that sound-the tiny muffled oomph, like making a catch you didn’t expect at the end of the ninth inning-and moved her mouth in response. A real kiss, like on TV, like she hadn’t seen between her parents in who knew how long.
Girls don’t marry princesses, she remembers thinking, winding gray carpet fibers between her fingers and tugging. Relishing the difference between this and the softness of Brittany’s sleek gold hair.
It started right then, the hiding. Because girls aren’t supposed to marry princesses, and everybody knows that. If she wanted to keep this, the tingle of Brittany on her lips, the beaming smile she received for her daring, it would have to be a secret.
It was important, she remembers thinking, more important than sharing or being left alone in a big, empty house. It was the most important thing possible.
Santana doesn’t know how she thought it would last.
***
She remembers being halfway to fifteen- a striking July, just about ready to dive feet-first into the high school sewage system-and laying with Brittany in her bed. Her room is in the basement, so it only made sense that they would be here, stretched out in sticky tank tops and shorts that probably should have seen the Purple Heart donation bag a year ago. Not that it mattered. The more skin, the better, on a day like that one. She remembers the heat being her reason.
She remembers knowing, even then, that the excuse was kind of bullshit.
They were still keeping The Secret, then-Brittany’s idea, the capital letters, like it belonged to a federal government agency and not to a pair of sneaking teenage girls-stealing moments only when no one else could ever see. Because no one else could ever know, because girls don’t marry princesses.
She remembers the flare of anger in her stomach at the thought, laying there with Brittany’s strong legs twined between her own. She remembers feeling hateful, spiteful, thinking, Who says? Who has the right to decide a thing like that? She remembers sucking in a breath and holding it, letting her fingertip roam across the smooth plane of Brittany’s forehead, down the length of her nose, catching on the thumbprint above her top lip. She remembers steadying herself as Brittany wriggled nearer, just a bit, just enough to make her skin hum with recognition.
They were on the brink of something new, she knows now-and knew then, even if she couldn’t comprehend it in full-something as great and as dangerous as pushing a weird teddy into the delinquent new classmate’s arms, or kissing, alone, in a house with no parents. It echoed in the languid, almost sleepy stroke of Brittany’s legs against her own, toes trailing across her ankle bone and up, down, fluid motions along a shin bone still bruised from last week’s soccer game. The courage it took to pull Brittany’s knuckles against sun-chapped lips and hold them there. The buzz of summer sun, creeping through the crack of window set into the base of the house.
It was something great, and huge, and too much for halfway to fifteen, but all at once, she was there-there, and not turning back. She remembers telling herself that Brittany deserved to feel special, as special as Santana had felt for so many years, just for being her friend. She remembers glowering at the neon-bright sign in her head, the glaring commandment tattooed into the very middle of her brain:
Girls don’t marry princesses.
Fuck that, she remembers thinking, and, very deliberately, inching across the pillow. Feeling her way across the pad of Brittany’s lip, smiling when Brittany sighed softly in response. Growing bolder, her hand touching down upon pale skin, the bit that glowed between shirt and shorts. She remembers the ache in her teeth at how sweet Brittany felt, at how strange it was to be touching someone else this way. Intimate, and new, and beautiful in a way she doesn’t imagine her grandmother ever could understand. Just skin, just the edge of Brittany’s hip, and yet…
She remembers pulling Brittany that last miniscule inch to meet her, and just like that, being flush against her best friend’s body. Feeling the thrum of a heartbeat, syncing up to her own, and the strangely familiar rush of Brittany’s pelvis against the front of her shorts. One motion, one swift decision, and that was all; Brittany’s gasp, her hand closing on the base of Santana’s ribcage, said it all. She remembers grinning, the stupid, silly grin of a kid in love. A kid with a secret. A kid with a beautiful, golden-haired princess, sweat trickling down her neck, blue eyes wide as hips bumped and jumbled in this new, terrifying way.
Taking Brittany’s face in one hand, kissing her then, felt so different than the kisses of the past. Different than a first-brush, dart-away dance, or even from the sensation of Brittany’s lips parting beneath hers in the treehouse after dinner. Different than anything she’d ever felt, and Santana remembers smiling into the kiss. Smiling, and holding tight to Brittany’s hip, guiding her gently in until they met again, and again, a slow, building friction that seemed to light her from the inside.
She remembers Brittany’s arm around her waist, the stroke of her palm upon Santana’s tailbone, easing them together and apart like a sailboat bouncing against a dock’s edge. She remembers the way Brittany’s kiss scorched, slow, tentative, but happy. Unmistakably, undeniably wanting, the way Santana had felt on so many nights, bursting into consciousness with her pulse racing back in some shocking dream.
She remembers rolling until Brittany was stretched out before her, until her arms trembled with the effort of holding herself up. She remembers the fear, occurring to her the way things do only when you’re trying something for the first time, the concern that she might crush Brittany if she were to lay down. And she remembers the way Brittany giggled, arching up to kiss her again, hands clasped at the base of Santana’s spine. Holding her. Reassuring her.
Brittany always seemed to know what was going on in a way Santana couldn’t begin to track. Brittany, who seemed so careful, fingers winding in cotton and pulling slowly, patiently, blue eyes following each new bit of skin as it was revealed. She remembers feeling momentarily shaken, when the shirt drew up over her shoulders and dropped, and then-nothing. No fear. Just Brittany, gazing at her like she’d been waiting her whole life to see what Santana really had to offer under all the tight t-shirts and brazen laughter.
Just Brittany, lifting her hips from the bed and letting the shorts go, letting the underwear follow, until just Brittany became something Santana had only dared to imagine. Until just Brittany became less a fantasy and more her best friend, laying naked in her bed, letting her take it all in.
She remembers the shock of touching bare skin for the first time, of Brittany’s hips jolting against the mattress, of Brittany’s eyes going dark as they watched, lip between her teeth. She remembers the surprise in Brittany’s voice, squeaking out something like careful when Santana’s finger sank below a flat stomach. She remembers going slow, slower than she’s ever done anything in her life, because Brittany’s brow was furrowing in some meld of fear and expected pain.
She remembers taking forever to learn Brittany’s curves and angles, her mouth caught open against Brittany’s taut bicep, dark hair plastered to her own forehead. She remembers feeling afraid that she would do something wrong, something that would bring a shout of agony, that would make Brittany shove her away. She remembers barely even being aware of her own center, wet and achingly hot, pushing against Brittany’s bare thigh as she worked. She remembers the way Brittany’s hand shot across her body, clenching at Santana’s shoulder, striving to stay grounded.
She remembers how wonderful it felt, seeing the surprise in Brittany’s eyes, watching her lips part and her head bend against the pillow. She remembers feeling on top of the world, prouder than she’d ever been in her life, and thinking, Suck it. Girls can marry whoever they damn well please. She had her princess, and no one-no one-was going to strip that away.
She flashes back now to a few months later, standing stupidly in the school parking lot. Telling Noah Puckerman she’d go out with him as long as he forgot everything he just saw. She wonders how she ever could have been so naïve, to think that moment would never come.
***
She remembers last week, standing-shaking-before a bathroom mirror. Applying lip gloss that would only rub off in the next hour, staring herself down in the smudged glass. Looking like someone else entirely, like a grown-up, built-up version of herself. Like an adult.
An adult with her princess in the next room.
It’s startling every time she sees herself this way, in life or in memory: a grown child, wrapped in clothes that shouldn’t belong to her, coated in makeup that doesn’t fit right on her face. Hidden away from the beautiful girl in the bedroom, the girl who shared her ridiculous teddy, who kept The Secret for too long, who stretched her long limbs upon that dark bedspread and whimpered Santana’s name on a sticky summer day. Hidden away from her best friend.
Brittany doesn’t like it when she does this, she knows. She remembers the disappointment in crystal eyes, the slight droop of a chin, the gentle twist of fingers in her lap. She knows Brittany doesn’t get it, why she would waste all this time and energy on something so stupid.
But Brittany never learned the golden rule. Brittany never had an Abuela to deliver that particular brand of tough love.
Girls don’t marry princesses. Which means girls don’t fall in love with princesses. Girls aren’t stupid enough to think that, as long as they hide it in a safe locked box, no one will ever find out about the rules they’re breaking.
Girls don’t marry princesses, and Santana understands that now. It’s just not something you do. It’s not a Disney movie, not a hyped-up story with a happy ending. It just doesn’t happen.
She remembers last week, running a thumb below her lip to catch an unwelcome smear, locking eyes with her reflection. Making a promise she should have made a long time ago. A promise to be strong. To be cool. To keep it all out.
Sex isn’t dating.
Sex isn’t love.
Girls don’t marry princesses.
Some rules, she’s learning at last, just can’t be broken.