Santana Lopez is capable of many things.
Santana Lopez is capable of many things.
‘I hear she does car commercials... in Japan.’
‘I hear her hair's insured for $10,000’
‘I heard she ate a live duck once - everything except the beak and feet!’
‘She sold her liver on the black market for a new set of speakers.’
‘I heard she slept with a Spice Girl’
‘I heard she was a porn star’
‘I heard she lit a State Trooper on fire’
Ok, eating a live duck is just ridiculous. If she had done that Brittany would so not be giving her the time of day. And sleeping with a Spice Girl? Completely absurd, she was like 5 when they were around. Nope.
No one really knows what Santana Lopez is capable of, except Brittany.
And Brittany knows Santana Lopez is capable of so many things. Oh god, so capable. She can do this thing with her tongue which completely undoes the blonde, let alone the things she is capable of with her fingers…
But yeah, Santana Lopez is capable of many things; and this became apparent the day Brittany first met the girl. It was preschool. Mid-year. Brittany had just moved from Amsterdam, it was her first day. She couldn’t speak much English but she understood well enough when that Noah boy and a group of trouble makers pushed her over and stole her lunch. She was teary eyed but she could see the short girl with the dark eyes and pretty hair across the playground, quickly jump off the climbing frame and follow the boys. The next thing she knew the girl had returned and sat next to Brittany, handing over her lunch box, along with 5 other lunches, one of which had the initials ‘N.P.’ on it.
‘I thought we could have a feast,’ the darker girl mumbled, smiling a little, only to have her smile reflected back at her tenfold by Brittany.
Then there was the time when they were seven and Brittany had lost her snail in the backyard.
‘Santana, he’s gone! Slimey! I was just playing with him outside before you came over and he’s gone!’ Brittany cried through broken sobs.
‘I’ll find him.’ Santana resolved as she squeezed Brittany’s hand.
Santana found twelve snails in an hour and a half, and none of them were Slimey. ‘He had special patterns on his shell.’ One snail looks exactly the same as any another, Santana had thought to herself. It’s a snail, how far could it have gone?! After a couple more imposter Slimeys and after another hour’s search Santana finally found Slimey, right in the rose bush, so needless to say she was removing thorns as she handed him over to Brittany.
‘Oh, you found him! Thank you so much San, you’re the best ever.’ Brittany said as she pulled her friend into her for a hug. ‘But, you know, he looks really sad. I think he might have enjoyed it better being free outside.’
‘I’ll put him back then,’ Santana said despondently. She wouldn’t put him back in the rose bush though; no way was she getting all pricked again. She’d just set him down by the door frame.
‘Will you make sure it’s right where you found him, in the rose bush?’ Brittany asked hopefully, her deep blue eyes locking on Santana’s.
‘Of course.’
By the time Santana went home she was covered in band aids.
Then there was that time they were twelve and Brittany had wanted to paint her bedroom every colour of the rainbow (and all the colours under the sun) but her mum hadn’t let her. Santana turned up with two of those tester pots, one blue and one yellow.
‘I couldn’t buy the big pots with the money I had, so I thought maybe we could do it in little squares with these. And I’ll get two new colours every week and we’ll cover your back wall.’
Brittany squealed with delight. ‘That’s a really good idea, thank you so much San. And you got yellow first as that’s my favourite colour, right? Is blue yours?’
‘Yeah,’ Santana replied shyly, her gaze lingering on Brittany’s orbs for a while before she looked away.
It took them quite a few weeks, well more like months, but Brittany’s back wall was finally done. It looked a lot like Elma, the patchwork elephant, although not as perfect - it’s pretty hard painting straight squares onto a wall. It looked good though, and Brittany’s parents never questioned the sudden appearance of two new squares of colour every week.
Brittany had squealed again when they had completed the wall, jumped up and down, and engulfed Santana in a hug before kissing her on the cheek. Santana beamed and blushed.
Then there was the time they were 16, just after the event which Brittany and Santana don’t mention any more, well after a number of events really, namely Puck and Finn, which led to a break-up of sorts. But then they weren’t really dating, except they kind of were. Just because the students of McKinley High didn’t know it, didn’t mean Santana could sleep around with every guy going, and neither did it mean Brittany could flirt shamelessly with half the male members of Glee, Mike anyone?!
But yeah Brittany had ended things, changed her mobile number, told her parents not to let Santana in and didn’t go into school for eight days. Santana cried. A lot. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk. Spent all school hours wandering the corridors and staring at Brittany’s locker like a zombie. Spent all out of school hours trying to talk (well mumble/sob) her way into Brittany’s house and then sitting in her car staring at Brittany’s bedroom window like a zombie. This could not go on.
Brittany was attempting to catch up on the work she was missing from her absences when her concentration was broken by loud music starting up. And then the voice of Santana Lopez singing.
Something to do with bringing you flowers in the pouring rain and living without you is driving her insane and some other stuff like that. Santana had odd taste in music, English garage tunes, what’s with that?! She’d played that song to Brittany quite a few times before now, but this time she was singing it and it made sense. Glee had gotten to Santana. Brittany snuck a glance out of the window, Santana was standing in the middle her front lawn, flowers in hand and it was raining. Had she been waiting for it to rain to sing this?! Brittany could have easily ran down the stairs, flung open the front door and jumped the girl but she’d wait it out and see if Santana had anything else up her sleeve.
Santana always has something up her sleeve.
Santana struck up a slower paced song about her making up her mind and that this ain’t lust, it’s love and then about chasing pavements, which Brittany didn’t really understand. She was pretty sure it was another British song though (seriously San, where do you get these songs?).
Brittany was pretty sure Santana would be winding up her set list soon, but still she wanted to see how far the girl was willing to go. The neighbours were all watching from their windows, if it wasn’t raining so hard they’d have probably been outside watching the scene, but Santana didn’t seem care that she had an audience. She was singing unwaveringly at Brittany’s window and nothing was going to stop her. Unsurprisingly another British song came on, this one Brittany knew because Santana played it on repeat for weeks and she’s kind of come to think of it as their song, because it pretty much described their days at school: ‘now every day ain't gon' be no picnic, love ain't a walk in the park, all you can do is make the best of it now, can't be afraid of the dark’... so after being told to fight for this love, like a billion times (she gets the message already), Brittany figured that must be it right? Wrong.
Santana was still going, damn that girl has stamina. She sang a bit of Michael Jackson’s ‘I Want You Back’ one of Brittany’s favourites, the man was legend; she learned the moon walk because of him. Then another of Britt’s favourites The Temptations - My Girl, before a rendition of Nelly Furtado’s ‘Try’. Tears were beginning to fall from Santana’s eyes, not that anyone would notice because she was soaked through from the rain. Brittany opened the front door just as the song ended, to see Santana smile a little before beginning The Wannadies: ‘Always when we fight, I kiss you once or twice, And everything's forgotten, I know you hate that’ - Santana kissed Brittany before joining the song for the chorus - ‘And it's always, You and me always, and forever.’
So yeah, Santana had Pneumonia for a couple of weeks after and Brittany worked out her guilt for leaving the other girl outside for so long by looking after her. Santana maintained that Pneumonia was a back up plan to get Brittany back if she hadn’t have fallen for the songs and come out to see her, as Brittany would definitely have left her house to visit a sick Santana.
Then there was that other time when they were 16 and studying for mid terms and Brittany really wanted to go to the beach.
‘It’d take way too long Britt, we’d have to drive and then we’d only get like 5 minutes there before we’d have to come right back. Our exam is on Tuesday, we can’t go.’
Brittany’s face fell, she wasn’t really used to Santana saying no.
‘But S, can’t we still just go, for the 5 minutes?’
‘No. We need to revise, I’m sorry B but after exams are finished we can take off.’
Brittany was a little disappointed, it was Santana Lopez, you know? She was capable of anything. She could get Brittany to the beach and back, hell she drives like a crazy lady; they’d be there way before any normal paced driver would. But she resigned herself and continued flicking through her text book on the sofa as Santana got up and wandered into the kitchen.
‘B? B. B! Wake up, god I leave for like 10 minutes and you’re already asleep! Let’s go out back, we can revise outside, it’s kind of stuffy in here.’
The two girls headed into Santana’s yard, Santana motioning for Brittany to go before her.
‘Oh my God, S! You did this?’
The lawn was covered in a mound of sand, two towels set down under a sun shading umbrella, and a bucket and spade at the ready.
‘Well if you can’t go the beach, then the beach can go to you…plus I really couldn’t shift the image of you in a bikini and me with a bottle of sun lotion ready for use.’
Then there are the little everyday things Santana is capable of. Like whenever she has Skittles she’ll save the red and purple ones (and the yellow, goes without saying) for Brittany as they’re her favourites. Whenever she has a bag of potato chips, Santana will save the curled over ones for Brittany too, because she’d once said they tasted better.
She’ll always buy Brittany an ice cream from the truck when it’s down either of their blocks, even when they just miss it, and Santana ends up running several blocks after it and then running back at twice the speed to Brittany before the ice cream melts. Santana will buy Brittany hot drinks on a cold day and cold drinks on a hot day.
She’ll let Brittany sit at the window when they ride the school bus. Brittany will always ride shotgun when Santana’s driving and Santana will always let her decide what radio station they’ll listen too.
Santana will leave things in Brittany’s locker for her to find, just little things, like notes that only they’d understand, full of inside jokes and innuendo. And sometimes she’d draw pictures, nothing artistic, just funny stick people to make Brittany laugh (mainly things that involved members of Glee, like Rachel falling off the auditorium stage or Rachel getting run over by Artie, or Rachel getting stamped on by Finn the Giant, or Rachel getting smacked out of the way during a dance routine by Quinn’s baby bump, or Rachel - ok, so they were mainly about Rachel getting physically hurt. Santana also had a bit of a series going on about Coach entitled ‘You think this is hard?’ It was kind of pornographic, and she kind of hints that Sue has penis and challenges every male in the school to a ‘hard off’. But yeah it made them laugh.) Santana will make Brittany origami animals, mainly birds, and fill her locker up with them. And during Brittany’s phase of keeping that bird in her locker, Santana would fill up the bird seed holder and water pot, and put those little toys for birds in there, like those hanging things with bells and mirrors.
Santana makes sure Brittany never gets a slushie facial, never gets made fun of for the cute things she’ll come out with, and never gets disappointed by her other friends. Sure Santana’s methods were a little off, like what she did to that stuck up loser who said Brittany sounded ‘mentally inept’ and her voice was ‘excruciating’ to listen to when she was speaking Spanish; well, he hasn’t really sounded the same since, even if his testicle retrieval operation did go well. And like whacking that guy over the head with a frying pan when he’d said Brittany always looks like she’s been whacked over the head with a frying pan. So yeah, Santana Lopez is capable of many things. And no one really knows what Santana Lopez is capable of.
Except Brittany.