Wanna Grow Old (With You)
Title: Wanna Grow Old (With You)
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, Sam Evans/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None in particular.
Summary: When Sam and Tina finally get all hitched and shit, it is quite probably the weirdest thing Santana has ever been best man to in her life.
The fact that Sam and Tina hook up remains surprising for about fifteen seconds-until they realize that everyone in Glee has had a crack at each other somewhere down the line, and though most of the relationships last about as long as a good hearty piss, a few have been known to stick. Puck and Rachel make it a whole three years before collapsing into good-natured violence and occasional drunken sexcapades; Quinn and Artie push through until she graduates college and his job moves him across the world to friggin’ Sweden. Sam and Tina were expected to live up to those expectations, and those expectations only.
So when the announcement comes out three years after they’ve all graduated college, or are busy roaming the New York streets searching for steady food sources, or whatever it is they’re doing, it’s sort of a shock. Temporarily, at least.
“They’re going to have,” Santana informs Brittany dumbly, turning the invitation over in her hands to check for a April Fools stamp, “the strangest looking children.”
Brittany grins, looping her arms around her shoulders and kissing her cheek. “We’re going to be in the wedding,” she predicts cheerfully, and swipes the embossed card from between Santana’s fingers. “I bet you anything.”
Santana would like to dispute this possibility, because the last time she agreed to stand up in one of her friends’ weddings, another friend got very, very smashed up by a truck. Besides, it's pretty damn unlikely that even Tina-who is still the shyest of them all, from what she can tell, but doesn’t completely lack social skills-doesn't have enough new friends to fill a bridal party. At best, they’re probably going to wind up playing usher to the most elderly and gratingly-Southern of Sam’s great-aunts.
Except her phone beeps the next day, playing the Mission Impossible theme in Sam’s distinctive drawl, and just like that, she and Brittany have signed on to be-not bridesmaids-Sam’s friggin’ groomsmen.
It’s the two of them, and Puck, and Finn, and she’s pretty sure this is going to turn into a trainwreck of hilarious proportions. Balancing out the other side, Tina has drafted Quinn, and Rachel, and Mercedes, and just like that, the gang is bundling back together again. After years of trickling emails and obnoxious Facebook “likes,” they will all be in the same place-twenty-five, carrying God knows how much baggage, and ridiculous as ever.
Trainwreck. For sure.
And so fucking weird.
***
They runs into Kurt first, which is fitting, because he’s solely responsible for dressing each member of the party. He’s taller than Santana remembers, but slim as ever, draped in a scarf that makes him look like a forty-five-year-old art enthusiast. Still bitchy, still elegant, and when he hugs her, it’s with a tiny sneer of disapproval.
“Santana Lopez, you cut your hair.”
She has, although it’s grown just past her shoulders now, and it’s not like she ever chose to just shear the whole mop off in the first place. Her lip twists, fist thunking against his bicep.
“Please. I’m still prettier than you.”
He snorts, reaching around her to pull Brittany into his arms. She’s considerably more genial, smacking a kiss off his lips and cradling his face in both hands. Santana watches with arms folded across her chest, amused when Hummel’s ice-bitch demeanor gives way to a broad smile.
“You two are going to look fantastic when I’m through with you. True ladykillers.”
“Just as long as I’m hotter than Puckerman,” Santana snips off. He arches an eyebrow, blue eyes bright and utterly lacking that twitchy uncertainty she remembers from high school.
“If you were aiming to offer me a challenge, I assure you-that wasn’t it.”
***
Mike plows headlong into her a half hour before the rehearsal dinner is set to begin, spilling an armful of clothing and his cell phone onto the sidewalk with a muffled grunt. Santana is already laughing, bending to pick up a wayward belt before she even recognizes him.
His hair is shaggier now, and he’s wearing his shirts tighter, but he’s still Mike-still bright-eyed and sporting a charming smile when she slaps an open palm against his chest and blurts, “Changster, they invited you?”
“’Course,” he insists, sounding very barely affronted. “I was the one who hooked ‘em up. Sam never would’ve gotten past date three without my help.”
That’s pretty creepy to think about, Mike playing Asian Yenta to his ex and a former teammate, but that’s Mike for you: cool, easy, stress-free. Mike, whose arms are long when he twirls her around in a bear hug, and whose chest is broad and strong beneath his jacket, who roars with laughter when Brittany bursts through the front doors of the church and all but tackles him in excitement.
“How come you aren’t in the wedding party, then, Mr. Matchmaker?” Santana accuses, reeling her woman back from ripped abs and even white teeth. Brittany leans on her shoulder, head tilted. Mike shrugs.
“It’s Tina’s day,” he says easily, and she’s amazed to see not a shadow of discomfort flickering in brown eyes. “I didn’t want to add to her jitters. And there are still a few of her family members who aren’t, uh-totally on board with our break-up.”
Santana doesn’t bother asking what he means, but an hour later, when they’re seated at the dinner table, she overhears Tina’s Aunt Josephine murmur something about “that perfect boy” and “still time to elope.”
Never a shortage of drama, she thinks as Brittany’s fingers squeeze her knee. Not with the fuckin’ New Directions.
***
The preparations the next morning come in a jumbled flurry that can only be described as crazytown, and Santana finds herself getting bounced from the elaborate makeup table (at which Sugar Motta, of all people, applies mascara and lipstick to her face in record time) to the bathroom where hair is being wrenched and twisted with absolutely no regard for the well-being of her scalp. Brittany stumbles along behind her, shouting life updates across the room to Quinn-who is still rolling her eyes at them, even though it’s been a year and a half since they’ve met in person, and, honestly, that bitch should feel lucky to have them around-and turning up her nose when Rachel hurtles her excitable midget self against Santana’s body.
“She’s still mine,” she announces loudly, gesticulating at Santana’s face even as her arm winds protectively around her hip. “She doesn't have sex with anybody but me now.”
Rachel makes a sputtering noise like she’s forgotten how to block that particular fact out and windmills backwards, nearly smacking Mercedes across the nose in her hurry. She recieves a very pointed glare for her troubles.
“Remember, I’ve got me a Grammy now,” Mercedes informs her, tone half an inch from teasing. “You mess up my face, I can have Bruno, or Kanye, or Jason here like that.”
“Mraz?” Quinn wonders carelessly, sweeping by with her fingers struggling to hold her hair in an elaborate twist. Mercedes gives a low chuckle.
“Honey, do you think I would ever waste my time on Jason Mraz?”
“I like him,” Brittany announces, still possessively nuzzling against Santana’s neck. Mercedes bestows upon her a cheekily patronizing smile.
“Of course you do. You are incredibly white.”
They’ve all changed, in little ways, Santana thinks as she watches Rachel zip up Quinn’s Morticia Adams black dress, and Mercedes swipe a tube of lipstick from Sugar’s hands, and Tina bustle out of the bathroom with her skirt hiked to her thighs. Little, painfully noticable things, like how Quinn wears her glasses more often than not these days, and those weird blonde highlights that glint up from the underside of Rachel’s hair, and the way Tina smiles with her eyes now, her whole mouth stretching with boundless glee. Tiny things that probably don’t matter in the grand scheme of things-not when Fabray is still rolling those hazel eyes and snorting at everything Santana says, and when Rachel still hasn’t learned to shut up, and when Sugar opens her mouth and lets loose a string of insults that end in a not-so-apologetic shrug-but she notices them anyway. They were idiots in high school, drama queens and jackasses with big dreams, and they’re probably still idiots now-but, like it or not, these are her friends. Friends she maybe hasn’t seen since sophomore year of college, but all the same-
Quinn slaps a hand down on her shoulder, smirking. “Nice suit.”
“Nice shoes,” Santana snips back, tapping her toe against the heel that seems to stretch on forever, giving Quinn a totally unnecessary couple of inches over her. “Good thing Wheels couldn’t make it, you’d make him look like a damn toddler in that chair.”
Her old best friend shakes her head, tipping silver frames down her nose. “Still a bitch, Lopez.”
“Always, Fabray,” she answers pleasantly, and adjusts her tie. “How do I look?”
“Sexy,” Brittany breathes, as if Santana couldn’t say the very same thing about her, with her matching black pants and plum-and-emerald vest, the crisp sleeves of her white collared shirt folded up above her elbows. Quinn shrugs.
“Marginally attractive and very, very gay. What’s with the webs?”
“It’s a secret,” Santana says, because she can’t bring herself to explain that she’s got this red vest with black webbing etched up and down its front to resemble Spider-Man-because this is fucking Sam Evans’ wedding, and Sam Evans thought it would be an awesome idea to color-coordinate each groomsman’s vest and tie to a different Avenger.
Sam Evans is an idiot, but he’s her idiot, so she makes do. Besides, she looks damn hot in a suit, and Brittany is just as smokin’, jacket slung over one shoulder, dangling from her fingertips.
“Well,” Santana says with a clap of her hands, because no one else seems to be saying it, “I think it’s time to get this show on the road, kids.”
Tina’s cheeks go bright pink under her veil, and Santana wonders if vomit-dodging is about become the next activity in this very long, very strange day. She hopes not. Puke is so not her color.
***
Luckily, the making sure Tina doesn’t pass out, or run away, or get revoltingly sick all over her nice clean dress thing mostly falls into bridesmaid territory. Now that they’re all dressed and sexified, Santana is pretty sure she and Brittany don’t have to keep hanging out in the Panic Attacks and Catty Remarks room. Leave it to Quinn and Big-Mouth Berry to pull the Weeping Asian from her flaming carwreck of last-minute cold feet; she’s going to stand between Sam-in his Captain America-spangled vest-and Brittany up at the altar. She’s got the much better end of this ridiculous wedding deal, from what she can tell.
Puck rocks up on his heels, fingers plucking at his red-and-yellow Iron Man vest. His head is sporting little more than dark stubble these days, and his skin is weathered from working construction over in California, but the stretch of his mouth is as lewd and as confident as ever. Santana rolls her eyes before he can even speak, sensing what’s coming.
But, shockingly, what slips forth isn’t an underhanded commentary on the merits of threesome; all he says is, “You look good, Lopez.” And sounds like he actually means it, from a place somewhere significantly north of his dick.
This really is a weekend for lunacy.
“You too,” she responds, squeezing Brittany’s hand. “You’re all grown up and shit.”
“I hear that happens,” he drawls, wiggling his eyebrows at the space between Brittany and herself. “And you two? Am I gonna be your number one lesbro at the sassy lady nuptials, or what?”
“Hey,” Sam remarks mildly, fingers rap-tapping spastically against his hipbone. “I called it first.”
“When?” Santana snorts. His eyes go wide, lips pursing with no small amount of indignance.
“I made you, like, my best chick-man!”
“I thought I was your best man,” Finn protests, towering high above them in his red-and-gray Thor-inspired vest. Sam twitchily regards him with a tilt of the head, shrugging.
“Yeah, but you’re not getting married next.”
He puffs out his lower lip, scraping bitten-down nails through close-cropped brown hair. “M’ workin’ on it.”
Brittany giggles, swinging Santana’s hand forward and back like an overexcited child. “Tell you what, Finn. You can be my best man, and Sam can be Santana’s-“
“Hey!” Santana and Puck yelp in unison. Brittany shrugs.
“What? It's my wedding, too.”
“We are not letting the galumphing idiot who outed me to the whole damn state stand up in our wedding,” Santana snarls, even as Puck cries, “I’ve known you guys since we were seven.”
Brittany shrugs again, fingers tightening between Santana’s. “Good point.”
“I thought we were letting that go,” Finn mumbles, looking somewhat sheepish when Santana fires a sharp glare at the side of his monstrously sized head.
“Fat chance, Lardo.”
“Dude!” Sam interrupts. “Can we maybe focus on getting-married guy for, like, twelve seconds?”
Santana opens her mouth to tell him to mind his own weird conversation about upcoming wedding ceremonies, but the band is striking up in the corner-and, freaky, that bass kid looks disturbingly like the dude who followed them around all through high school-and the procession is starting to wind its way down the aisle. Looking almost green in the face, Sam straightens his shoulders and tips his head back, struggling for air.
“Your woman is bangin’,” Santana whispers in his ear when Tina appears at the other end of the church.
“Yeah,” Brittany adds, blue eyes twinkling. “You’re lucky we didn’t get to her first.”
“Could’ve had a real hot ethnic blend thing going, if you know what I mean,” Santana finishes, swelling with pride when the petrified expression on his face shatters into helpless giggles. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Tina cock her head left, curious and amused and still looking pretty damn close to heaving her guts all over the bouquet.
It’s the weirdest wedding ever, with Mike sitting in the front row, and Rachel glancing hesitantly between Puck and Finn like she sort of wants to jump them both, and Sam and Tina getting fucking married-but, somehow, Santana thinks it suits. Even if they are all kind of insane with their superhero-themed formal wear, and those goofy punk-style bridesmaid dresses, and the way Sam’s huge fish lips engulf Tina’s thin ones whole.
Insane, but cute, in its own way. Not that she’s ever going to admit that. Not ever.
Sam is her boy and everything, but she kind of makes a point of refusing to inflate any man’s head for any reason at all. Even on his special day.
***
The reception is somehow even more surreal than the rest of the weekend. They aren't there long at all before dinner gives way to drinks and dancing; Kurt gets totally plastered and winds up grinding all over Puck, who grips his hips and sticks his tongue perversely out at Rachel as payback for-Santana figures-the dance Finn asked for at the first sign of a slow song. She spots Quinn slumped over the bar, sweet-talking the barely-legal-looking kid behind it, and Mercedes rocking out the karaoke machine in the corner while Sugar plays back-up vocals, and she’s pretty sure Mike has been trapped between a pair of ancient Asian great-aunt types for the better part of the hour. Which she should probably help him out with, but honestly, the dude should have known better than to try for cheese cubes while Tina’s near-and-dear were lurking around the refreshments.
Besides, Brittany has ditched her suit coat and is currently doing a damn good job of keeping up with Kurt’s display-except she’s sober, and has actual rhythm, and, y’know, boobs, so Santana is just slightly more invested. Especially when Brittany drops to a squat and works her way back up Santana’s body, ass pressed firmly to her groin, and, yeah-wedding receptions are much more awesome than the church part could ever hope to be.
She spots Sam in the middle of the floor, doing a few of his signature still-mortifying body rolls while Tina giggles hysterically, and flashes him the thumbs up. He winks back, one hand reaching around his new bride’s neck and sliding her into about the zillionth kiss of the evening; Santana flicks her gaze away, miming a gag that he manages to miss completely.
It’s probably going to be weird, she thinks hazily, even as Brittany turns in her arms and grasps her by the tie. Hanging out with Sam now is going to mean hanging out with Tina, and even though that’s been the case for a couple of years now, she’s not totally sure how she feels about it. Not that Tina isn’t great and everything, but if there’s one New Directions chick Santana has never quite figured out, Tina would be it. And now she’s married to Santana’s best guy friend, and is probably going to start popping out his melon-lipped children any day now, and it’s just really fucking weird.
“Hey,” Brittany whispers in that husky little voice she uses when she means, pay attention to me, I’m horny. Santana snaps back to the present, head spinning under the pleasant buzz of a few drinks, and slips her hands into Brittany’s back pockets.
Brittany’s mouth is warm and lazy against her own, opening pleasantly when her tongue nudges against the hum on her lips. Her arms loop around Santana’s neck, hips still rutting to the beat of some old Nicki Minaj bit, and between kisses, she murmurs, “We’re going to be next, right?”
Santana grins, clenching adventurous fingers around a firm ass until Brittany’s hips jerk against her out of time. “Of course. Not like there’s a whole lot of competition, right?”
Brittany’s nails scrape along the nape of her neck, tugging at the fine hairs that have come loose from her elegant Kurt-styled hairdo. “We should’ve been first,” she grumps, as well as a sunny blonde can grump while riding slowly against her hot girlfriend’s thigh in the middle of a dance floor. She isn’t really cranky, but something in her eyes flash all the same, and Santana’s expression fades to faint adoration.
“The laws will change soon,” she promises, as if she’s got any control over it. Brittany cradles the back of her skull, tilting her head into a rougher-than-anticipated kiss. She whines into Brittany’s mouth, tongue skidding over teeth, and temporarily forgets they’re at a very public, very much someone else’s party.
“I don’t care about the laws,” Brittany mumbles against her skin, running her lips restlessly along Santana’s jaw and biting at her lightly. “Wanna marry you. Like, now.”
“Sammy would get all miffed if we ruined his special day,” Santana teases. Brittany makes that face she used to reserve for Finn’s Heroic Leader Speeches, or Blaine’s hair care products.
“All right,” she decides at last, smoothing two fingers down Santana’s webslinger tie. “Tomorrow, then. And we can have our honeymoons together.”
“No way,” Santana protests, spinning them both around and beginning to walk Brittany back toward the table where their jackets and purses wait. “I am not spending my honeymoon listening to Evans rave about Star Wars and Sean Connery.” She pauses, momentarily distracted when Brittany delivers a long lick just above her collar. “And I’m not listening to him have wild newlywed monkey sex with Lucy Liu. My honeymoon is going to be all about you, and me, and twelve different positions before lunchtime.”
Brittany leans back, hands fitting neatly against Santana’s shoulders and bunching her shirt carelessly. Her eyes search Santana’s, her lips crooking up at the corners.
“I love you,” she says simply, just when Santana has decided fuck this silence thing and is bending to claim her lips again. Santana brushes their mouths together firmly anyway, fingers nudging the fastidiously-tucked tails of Brittany’s shirt out from her waistband.
“Love you too,” she breathes, and slips a palm up to rest square against the small of Brittany’s back. “What’d you say we take this party outside?”
It’s weird, that Sam married Tina, and it’s weird, that all of these people she’s barely seen in years have stumbled into the same place as though they never left-Mike relentlessly combing his hair back with one hand as he sweeps Rachel into awkward conversation, Mercedes laughingly swinging an arm around a tipsy Quinn’s shoulders, Sugar and Kurt bouncing up and down like idiots while Puck roars with laughter. It’s weird, that she’s pretty sure she spotted Will Schuester dabbing at his eyes during the ceremony, and it’s weird, that they were color-coded to match the fucking Avengers, and it’s just-weird, that any of them are even old enough for this in the first place. For being married. For being adults.
It’s weird, but it’s somehow nice at the same time, and when Santana stumbles out into the chilly September air and pins Brittany against the brick of the reception hall, she thinks the nice kind of outweighs the weird. Especially with Brittany’s vest gaping open over her shirt, and Brittany yanking her by the tie, and Brittany’s hips tilting down to meet her thigh in crisp black pants. Especially with Brittany’s fingers popping the buttons on her shirt, Brittany’s palm rubbing at her breast roughly, Brittany moaning thick words like wife right into Santana’s ear.
It’s weird, that they’ve reached this place when she wasn’t looking, and yeah-Sam and Tina getting hitched came as kind of a shock to the system. But this, the fact that the rest of them probably aren’t all that far behind, is electrifying. It’s insane. She half expects to blink her eyes and wake up back in McKinley’s choir room, still too scared to hold Brittany’s hand for the world to see.
But Brittany is kissing her under the bright, plump moon, her hand working into Santana’s fly, and they’re going to get married soon. She huffs into Brittany's mouth, rocking down on Brittany's hand, and knows that this is only the beginning. Soon, it's going to be them playing this grown-up game. They’re going to be the next Sam and Tina-but better, and hotter, and with infinitely more backstory. They’re going to rock this adult thing like it’s their personal bitch, and when they do, Santana knows who she wants in her wedding party.
Every single one of those fucking idiots had better mark their calendars for her turn at a trainwreck.
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, Sam Evans/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None in particular.
Summary: When Sam and Tina finally get all hitched and shit, it is quite probably the weirdest thing Santana has ever been best man to in her life.
The fact that Sam and Tina hook up remains surprising for about fifteen seconds-until they realize that everyone in Glee has had a crack at each other somewhere down the line, and though most of the relationships last about as long as a good hearty piss, a few have been known to stick. Puck and Rachel make it a whole three years before collapsing into good-natured violence and occasional drunken sexcapades; Quinn and Artie push through until she graduates college and his job moves him across the world to friggin’ Sweden. Sam and Tina were expected to live up to those expectations, and those expectations only.
So when the announcement comes out three years after they’ve all graduated college, or are busy roaming the New York streets searching for steady food sources, or whatever it is they’re doing, it’s sort of a shock. Temporarily, at least.
“They’re going to have,” Santana informs Brittany dumbly, turning the invitation over in her hands to check for a April Fools stamp, “the strangest looking children.”
Brittany grins, looping her arms around her shoulders and kissing her cheek. “We’re going to be in the wedding,” she predicts cheerfully, and swipes the embossed card from between Santana’s fingers. “I bet you anything.”
Santana would like to dispute this possibility, because the last time she agreed to stand up in one of her friends’ weddings, another friend got very, very smashed up by a truck. Besides, it's pretty damn unlikely that even Tina-who is still the shyest of them all, from what she can tell, but doesn’t completely lack social skills-doesn't have enough new friends to fill a bridal party. At best, they’re probably going to wind up playing usher to the most elderly and gratingly-Southern of Sam’s great-aunts.
Except her phone beeps the next day, playing the Mission Impossible theme in Sam’s distinctive drawl, and just like that, she and Brittany have signed on to be-not bridesmaids-Sam’s friggin’ groomsmen.
It’s the two of them, and Puck, and Finn, and she’s pretty sure this is going to turn into a trainwreck of hilarious proportions. Balancing out the other side, Tina has drafted Quinn, and Rachel, and Mercedes, and just like that, the gang is bundling back together again. After years of trickling emails and obnoxious Facebook “likes,” they will all be in the same place-twenty-five, carrying God knows how much baggage, and ridiculous as ever.
Trainwreck. For sure.
And so fucking weird.
***
They runs into Kurt first, which is fitting, because he’s solely responsible for dressing each member of the party. He’s taller than Santana remembers, but slim as ever, draped in a scarf that makes him look like a forty-five-year-old art enthusiast. Still bitchy, still elegant, and when he hugs her, it’s with a tiny sneer of disapproval.
“Santana Lopez, you cut your hair.”
She has, although it’s grown just past her shoulders now, and it’s not like she ever chose to just shear the whole mop off in the first place. Her lip twists, fist thunking against his bicep.
“Please. I’m still prettier than you.”
He snorts, reaching around her to pull Brittany into his arms. She’s considerably more genial, smacking a kiss off his lips and cradling his face in both hands. Santana watches with arms folded across her chest, amused when Hummel’s ice-bitch demeanor gives way to a broad smile.
“You two are going to look fantastic when I’m through with you. True ladykillers.”
“Just as long as I’m hotter than Puckerman,” Santana snips off. He arches an eyebrow, blue eyes bright and utterly lacking that twitchy uncertainty she remembers from high school.
“If you were aiming to offer me a challenge, I assure you-that wasn’t it.”
***
Mike plows headlong into her a half hour before the rehearsal dinner is set to begin, spilling an armful of clothing and his cell phone onto the sidewalk with a muffled grunt. Santana is already laughing, bending to pick up a wayward belt before she even recognizes him.
His hair is shaggier now, and he’s wearing his shirts tighter, but he’s still Mike-still bright-eyed and sporting a charming smile when she slaps an open palm against his chest and blurts, “Changster, they invited you?”
“’Course,” he insists, sounding very barely affronted. “I was the one who hooked ‘em up. Sam never would’ve gotten past date three without my help.”
That’s pretty creepy to think about, Mike playing Asian Yenta to his ex and a former teammate, but that’s Mike for you: cool, easy, stress-free. Mike, whose arms are long when he twirls her around in a bear hug, and whose chest is broad and strong beneath his jacket, who roars with laughter when Brittany bursts through the front doors of the church and all but tackles him in excitement.
“How come you aren’t in the wedding party, then, Mr. Matchmaker?” Santana accuses, reeling her woman back from ripped abs and even white teeth. Brittany leans on her shoulder, head tilted. Mike shrugs.
“It’s Tina’s day,” he says easily, and she’s amazed to see not a shadow of discomfort flickering in brown eyes. “I didn’t want to add to her jitters. And there are still a few of her family members who aren’t, uh-totally on board with our break-up.”
Santana doesn’t bother asking what he means, but an hour later, when they’re seated at the dinner table, she overhears Tina’s Aunt Josephine murmur something about “that perfect boy” and “still time to elope.”
Never a shortage of drama, she thinks as Brittany’s fingers squeeze her knee. Not with the fuckin’ New Directions.
***
The preparations the next morning come in a jumbled flurry that can only be described as crazytown, and Santana finds herself getting bounced from the elaborate makeup table (at which Sugar Motta, of all people, applies mascara and lipstick to her face in record time) to the bathroom where hair is being wrenched and twisted with absolutely no regard for the well-being of her scalp. Brittany stumbles along behind her, shouting life updates across the room to Quinn-who is still rolling her eyes at them, even though it’s been a year and a half since they’ve met in person, and, honestly, that bitch should feel lucky to have them around-and turning up her nose when Rachel hurtles her excitable midget self against Santana’s body.
“She’s still mine,” she announces loudly, gesticulating at Santana’s face even as her arm winds protectively around her hip. “She doesn't have sex with anybody but me now.”
Rachel makes a sputtering noise like she’s forgotten how to block that particular fact out and windmills backwards, nearly smacking Mercedes across the nose in her hurry. She recieves a very pointed glare for her troubles.
“Remember, I’ve got me a Grammy now,” Mercedes informs her, tone half an inch from teasing. “You mess up my face, I can have Bruno, or Kanye, or Jason here like that.”
“Mraz?” Quinn wonders carelessly, sweeping by with her fingers struggling to hold her hair in an elaborate twist. Mercedes gives a low chuckle.
“Honey, do you think I would ever waste my time on Jason Mraz?”
“I like him,” Brittany announces, still possessively nuzzling against Santana’s neck. Mercedes bestows upon her a cheekily patronizing smile.
“Of course you do. You are incredibly white.”
They’ve all changed, in little ways, Santana thinks as she watches Rachel zip up Quinn’s Morticia Adams black dress, and Mercedes swipe a tube of lipstick from Sugar’s hands, and Tina bustle out of the bathroom with her skirt hiked to her thighs. Little, painfully noticable things, like how Quinn wears her glasses more often than not these days, and those weird blonde highlights that glint up from the underside of Rachel’s hair, and the way Tina smiles with her eyes now, her whole mouth stretching with boundless glee. Tiny things that probably don’t matter in the grand scheme of things-not when Fabray is still rolling those hazel eyes and snorting at everything Santana says, and when Rachel still hasn’t learned to shut up, and when Sugar opens her mouth and lets loose a string of insults that end in a not-so-apologetic shrug-but she notices them anyway. They were idiots in high school, drama queens and jackasses with big dreams, and they’re probably still idiots now-but, like it or not, these are her friends. Friends she maybe hasn’t seen since sophomore year of college, but all the same-
Quinn slaps a hand down on her shoulder, smirking. “Nice suit.”
“Nice shoes,” Santana snips back, tapping her toe against the heel that seems to stretch on forever, giving Quinn a totally unnecessary couple of inches over her. “Good thing Wheels couldn’t make it, you’d make him look like a damn toddler in that chair.”
Her old best friend shakes her head, tipping silver frames down her nose. “Still a bitch, Lopez.”
“Always, Fabray,” she answers pleasantly, and adjusts her tie. “How do I look?”
“Sexy,” Brittany breathes, as if Santana couldn’t say the very same thing about her, with her matching black pants and plum-and-emerald vest, the crisp sleeves of her white collared shirt folded up above her elbows. Quinn shrugs.
“Marginally attractive and very, very gay. What’s with the webs?”
“It’s a secret,” Santana says, because she can’t bring herself to explain that she’s got this red vest with black webbing etched up and down its front to resemble Spider-Man-because this is fucking Sam Evans’ wedding, and Sam Evans thought it would be an awesome idea to color-coordinate each groomsman’s vest and tie to a different Avenger.
Sam Evans is an idiot, but he’s her idiot, so she makes do. Besides, she looks damn hot in a suit, and Brittany is just as smokin’, jacket slung over one shoulder, dangling from her fingertips.
“Well,” Santana says with a clap of her hands, because no one else seems to be saying it, “I think it’s time to get this show on the road, kids.”
Tina’s cheeks go bright pink under her veil, and Santana wonders if vomit-dodging is about become the next activity in this very long, very strange day. She hopes not. Puke is so not her color.
***
Luckily, the making sure Tina doesn’t pass out, or run away, or get revoltingly sick all over her nice clean dress thing mostly falls into bridesmaid territory. Now that they’re all dressed and sexified, Santana is pretty sure she and Brittany don’t have to keep hanging out in the Panic Attacks and Catty Remarks room. Leave it to Quinn and Big-Mouth Berry to pull the Weeping Asian from her flaming carwreck of last-minute cold feet; she’s going to stand between Sam-in his Captain America-spangled vest-and Brittany up at the altar. She’s got the much better end of this ridiculous wedding deal, from what she can tell.
Puck rocks up on his heels, fingers plucking at his red-and-yellow Iron Man vest. His head is sporting little more than dark stubble these days, and his skin is weathered from working construction over in California, but the stretch of his mouth is as lewd and as confident as ever. Santana rolls her eyes before he can even speak, sensing what’s coming.
But, shockingly, what slips forth isn’t an underhanded commentary on the merits of threesome; all he says is, “You look good, Lopez.” And sounds like he actually means it, from a place somewhere significantly north of his dick.
This really is a weekend for lunacy.
“You too,” she responds, squeezing Brittany’s hand. “You’re all grown up and shit.”
“I hear that happens,” he drawls, wiggling his eyebrows at the space between Brittany and herself. “And you two? Am I gonna be your number one lesbro at the sassy lady nuptials, or what?”
“Hey,” Sam remarks mildly, fingers rap-tapping spastically against his hipbone. “I called it first.”
“When?” Santana snorts. His eyes go wide, lips pursing with no small amount of indignance.
“I made you, like, my best chick-man!”
“I thought I was your best man,” Finn protests, towering high above them in his red-and-gray Thor-inspired vest. Sam twitchily regards him with a tilt of the head, shrugging.
“Yeah, but you’re not getting married next.”
He puffs out his lower lip, scraping bitten-down nails through close-cropped brown hair. “M’ workin’ on it.”
Brittany giggles, swinging Santana’s hand forward and back like an overexcited child. “Tell you what, Finn. You can be my best man, and Sam can be Santana’s-“
“Hey!” Santana and Puck yelp in unison. Brittany shrugs.
“What? It's my wedding, too.”
“We are not letting the galumphing idiot who outed me to the whole damn state stand up in our wedding,” Santana snarls, even as Puck cries, “I’ve known you guys since we were seven.”
Brittany shrugs again, fingers tightening between Santana’s. “Good point.”
“I thought we were letting that go,” Finn mumbles, looking somewhat sheepish when Santana fires a sharp glare at the side of his monstrously sized head.
“Fat chance, Lardo.”
“Dude!” Sam interrupts. “Can we maybe focus on getting-married guy for, like, twelve seconds?”
Santana opens her mouth to tell him to mind his own weird conversation about upcoming wedding ceremonies, but the band is striking up in the corner-and, freaky, that bass kid looks disturbingly like the dude who followed them around all through high school-and the procession is starting to wind its way down the aisle. Looking almost green in the face, Sam straightens his shoulders and tips his head back, struggling for air.
“Your woman is bangin’,” Santana whispers in his ear when Tina appears at the other end of the church.
“Yeah,” Brittany adds, blue eyes twinkling. “You’re lucky we didn’t get to her first.”
“Could’ve had a real hot ethnic blend thing going, if you know what I mean,” Santana finishes, swelling with pride when the petrified expression on his face shatters into helpless giggles. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Tina cock her head left, curious and amused and still looking pretty damn close to heaving her guts all over the bouquet.
It’s the weirdest wedding ever, with Mike sitting in the front row, and Rachel glancing hesitantly between Puck and Finn like she sort of wants to jump them both, and Sam and Tina getting fucking married-but, somehow, Santana thinks it suits. Even if they are all kind of insane with their superhero-themed formal wear, and those goofy punk-style bridesmaid dresses, and the way Sam’s huge fish lips engulf Tina’s thin ones whole.
Insane, but cute, in its own way. Not that she’s ever going to admit that. Not ever.
Sam is her boy and everything, but she kind of makes a point of refusing to inflate any man’s head for any reason at all. Even on his special day.
***
The reception is somehow even more surreal than the rest of the weekend. They aren't there long at all before dinner gives way to drinks and dancing; Kurt gets totally plastered and winds up grinding all over Puck, who grips his hips and sticks his tongue perversely out at Rachel as payback for-Santana figures-the dance Finn asked for at the first sign of a slow song. She spots Quinn slumped over the bar, sweet-talking the barely-legal-looking kid behind it, and Mercedes rocking out the karaoke machine in the corner while Sugar plays back-up vocals, and she’s pretty sure Mike has been trapped between a pair of ancient Asian great-aunt types for the better part of the hour. Which she should probably help him out with, but honestly, the dude should have known better than to try for cheese cubes while Tina’s near-and-dear were lurking around the refreshments.
Besides, Brittany has ditched her suit coat and is currently doing a damn good job of keeping up with Kurt’s display-except she’s sober, and has actual rhythm, and, y’know, boobs, so Santana is just slightly more invested. Especially when Brittany drops to a squat and works her way back up Santana’s body, ass pressed firmly to her groin, and, yeah-wedding receptions are much more awesome than the church part could ever hope to be.
She spots Sam in the middle of the floor, doing a few of his signature still-mortifying body rolls while Tina giggles hysterically, and flashes him the thumbs up. He winks back, one hand reaching around his new bride’s neck and sliding her into about the zillionth kiss of the evening; Santana flicks her gaze away, miming a gag that he manages to miss completely.
It’s probably going to be weird, she thinks hazily, even as Brittany turns in her arms and grasps her by the tie. Hanging out with Sam now is going to mean hanging out with Tina, and even though that’s been the case for a couple of years now, she’s not totally sure how she feels about it. Not that Tina isn’t great and everything, but if there’s one New Directions chick Santana has never quite figured out, Tina would be it. And now she’s married to Santana’s best guy friend, and is probably going to start popping out his melon-lipped children any day now, and it’s just really fucking weird.
“Hey,” Brittany whispers in that husky little voice she uses when she means, pay attention to me, I’m horny. Santana snaps back to the present, head spinning under the pleasant buzz of a few drinks, and slips her hands into Brittany’s back pockets.
Brittany’s mouth is warm and lazy against her own, opening pleasantly when her tongue nudges against the hum on her lips. Her arms loop around Santana’s neck, hips still rutting to the beat of some old Nicki Minaj bit, and between kisses, she murmurs, “We’re going to be next, right?”
Santana grins, clenching adventurous fingers around a firm ass until Brittany’s hips jerk against her out of time. “Of course. Not like there’s a whole lot of competition, right?”
Brittany’s nails scrape along the nape of her neck, tugging at the fine hairs that have come loose from her elegant Kurt-styled hairdo. “We should’ve been first,” she grumps, as well as a sunny blonde can grump while riding slowly against her hot girlfriend’s thigh in the middle of a dance floor. She isn’t really cranky, but something in her eyes flash all the same, and Santana’s expression fades to faint adoration.
“The laws will change soon,” she promises, as if she’s got any control over it. Brittany cradles the back of her skull, tilting her head into a rougher-than-anticipated kiss. She whines into Brittany’s mouth, tongue skidding over teeth, and temporarily forgets they’re at a very public, very much someone else’s party.
“I don’t care about the laws,” Brittany mumbles against her skin, running her lips restlessly along Santana’s jaw and biting at her lightly. “Wanna marry you. Like, now.”
“Sammy would get all miffed if we ruined his special day,” Santana teases. Brittany makes that face she used to reserve for Finn’s Heroic Leader Speeches, or Blaine’s hair care products.
“All right,” she decides at last, smoothing two fingers down Santana’s webslinger tie. “Tomorrow, then. And we can have our honeymoons together.”
“No way,” Santana protests, spinning them both around and beginning to walk Brittany back toward the table where their jackets and purses wait. “I am not spending my honeymoon listening to Evans rave about Star Wars and Sean Connery.” She pauses, momentarily distracted when Brittany delivers a long lick just above her collar. “And I’m not listening to him have wild newlywed monkey sex with Lucy Liu. My honeymoon is going to be all about you, and me, and twelve different positions before lunchtime.”
Brittany leans back, hands fitting neatly against Santana’s shoulders and bunching her shirt carelessly. Her eyes search Santana’s, her lips crooking up at the corners.
“I love you,” she says simply, just when Santana has decided fuck this silence thing and is bending to claim her lips again. Santana brushes their mouths together firmly anyway, fingers nudging the fastidiously-tucked tails of Brittany’s shirt out from her waistband.
“Love you too,” she breathes, and slips a palm up to rest square against the small of Brittany’s back. “What’d you say we take this party outside?”
It’s weird, that Sam married Tina, and it’s weird, that all of these people she’s barely seen in years have stumbled into the same place as though they never left-Mike relentlessly combing his hair back with one hand as he sweeps Rachel into awkward conversation, Mercedes laughingly swinging an arm around a tipsy Quinn’s shoulders, Sugar and Kurt bouncing up and down like idiots while Puck roars with laughter. It’s weird, that she’s pretty sure she spotted Will Schuester dabbing at his eyes during the ceremony, and it’s weird, that they were color-coded to match the fucking Avengers, and it’s just-weird, that any of them are even old enough for this in the first place. For being married. For being adults.
It’s weird, but it’s somehow nice at the same time, and when Santana stumbles out into the chilly September air and pins Brittany against the brick of the reception hall, she thinks the nice kind of outweighs the weird. Especially with Brittany’s vest gaping open over her shirt, and Brittany yanking her by the tie, and Brittany’s hips tilting down to meet her thigh in crisp black pants. Especially with Brittany’s fingers popping the buttons on her shirt, Brittany’s palm rubbing at her breast roughly, Brittany moaning thick words like wife right into Santana’s ear.
It’s weird, that they’ve reached this place when she wasn’t looking, and yeah-Sam and Tina getting hitched came as kind of a shock to the system. But this, the fact that the rest of them probably aren’t all that far behind, is electrifying. It’s insane. She half expects to blink her eyes and wake up back in McKinley’s choir room, still too scared to hold Brittany’s hand for the world to see.
But Brittany is kissing her under the bright, plump moon, her hand working into Santana’s fly, and they’re going to get married soon. She huffs into Brittany's mouth, rocking down on Brittany's hand, and knows that this is only the beginning. Soon, it's going to be them playing this grown-up game. They’re going to be the next Sam and Tina-but better, and hotter, and with infinitely more backstory. They’re going to rock this adult thing like it’s their personal bitch, and when they do, Santana knows who she wants in her wedding party.
Every single one of those fucking idiots had better mark their calendars for her turn at a trainwreck.