Title: For You Are The Sun (Part 8)
Pairing: Santana/Brittany
Rating: PG-13 (for this chapter)
Summary: AU. Mild themes from Romeo and Juliet. For Santana, all she wants to do is get back at the popular kids for making her life hell ever since she fell out of the popular crowd. But when Brittany enters stage right, it turns out revenge isn't so sweet or easy.
Spoilers: None
Previous Chapters:
Part 1;
Part 2;
Part 3;
Part 4;
Part 5;
Part 6;
Part 7 Tina Cohen-Chang wasn't usually an absent minded person. She kept things in her binder organized, everything in her backpack sectioned off. It borderlined obsessive but being raised by two fresh off the boat Asian parents explained a lot of her behavior. However, given that the gym teacher had just made them run sprints for the past hour, it made her a little light headed. So when she left the gym room, she forgot a notebook in there that she kept all of her original song ideas, poetry, and other random thoughts. She noticed that it was missing when she looked to pull it out during math class to write in when she had a particularly good idea while staring at all of the coefficients written on the board. When she noticed it missing, her mind raced to figure out where it was. When she remembered that it was sitting on the bench in the locker room, she breathed a sigh of relief.
It was a sigh that she took back the minute she entered the locker room. She could hear the giggling from outside. At first she wondered if the Cheerios were talking about boys again, a thought she found ultimately disgusting. But when they came into sight, had she not already been ghostly pale from her makeup, she surely would've turned that color. Tiffany and her two minions were sitting on the bench, reading from her very private notebook.
"Oh! Listen to this one...'your form graces over the field like a blur of red and white, for every time you smile at me my imagination takes flight.' What a loser!" The asian cheerio laughed. Tina lowered her eyes and she approached them.
"E-e-excuse me." She stuttered. The three looked up, their eyes filled with mocking mirth.
"Well, well, if it isn't Edgar Allen herself." Tiffany cackled. Tina glanced at her notebook. "Thanks for the read. We've had so much fun. And we think that the whole school should hear your ramblings! Oh, especially Mike Chang. I'm sure he'd be flattered beyond words to hear this entry." She snatched the book from her fellow teammate and flipped through a few pages. Tina's eyes widened.
"G-g-ive th-that back." She tried to sound demanding but Tiffany looked at her and ignored her.
"How about this? 'He takes off his shirt during gym and I can see the god Adonis himself etched into every one of his muscles.' Yeah, I'm sure Mike would jump for joy when he's compared to a shoe."
"That's A-Adidas." Tina corrected.
"Do I look like I care?" Tiffany sneered. Tina stuck out her hand.
"G-g-give it back." Tiffany stood up. She was the same height as Tina but it felt like she was much taller. Her presence was overwhelming.
"No. I think I'm going straight to the Cheerios copy machine to make a few copies of this notebook and spread it around the school."
"Please don't." Tina pleaded. Tiffany flashed her a wicked smile.
"Here's what we're going to do, mmk? Early in the year, when we had our newbie party, some idiots threw stink bombs at us. My clothes are still at the dry cleaners from that. Now, we know it was one of you bottom feeders and we know that you're going to keep quiet about who it is unless we start...'prodding' you." She pushed Tina back with one hand. "So you tell us who did it and we'll give you your diary back, ok? Simple as that." Tina bit her lip. If she told, there was no way that Santana and Quinn would survive to the end of the year. There would be no mercy for what they did to the Cheerios. But if she didn't tell, she'd have to transfer out of McKinley High out of embarrassment. It was either sacrifice herself or give the two up.
"Time's ticking." Tiffany said slowly, waving the notebook out in front of her. Tina fumbled for what to do.
~****************~
Santana stormed into the choir room, her rage overpowering most of the other emotions in the room.
"What the hell is this?!" She yelled, waving pieces of paper at the others. "Who the hell did this?!" The other members of the Glee club looked down at her feet. "Where is she? Where is she?"
"Tina went home early. The nurse thought it was the best thing to do." Finn said quietly.
"I'm going to kill every single one of them!" Santana growled. After class, the hallway was strewn with pages from Tina's notebook. In a matter of minutes, Tina became the laughing stock of the high school and Mike Chang couldn't even look anyone in the eye after reading someone of the pages that were scattered about.
"I'm with you there." Quinn said, standing up.
"But what can we do?" Rachel asked.
"We beat the crap out of them, that's what!" Finn said, joining Santana and Quinn by the door.
"We can't take on all of them." Mercedes interjected. "That's suicide. We've got, what, twelve members? Can't we round up any more?"
"AV kids won't help us and the stupid theater kids are afraid of breaking their noses." Artie replied. "We're outnumbered and outclassed."
"Then what? We do nothing? Tina is traumatized and we're just going to stand here and let them get away with it?" Santana demanded.
"Hey guys." Mr. Schuester ran into the room. "I just heard. What's going on?"
"We're going to kick some Cheerios ass, that's what's going on." Santana replied.
"We're not going to resolve this with violence." Mr. Schuester said. I just had a talk with Figgins and he..."
"Figgins isn't going to do anything." Quinn snapped. "He never does. We all know that he's under Sylvester's finger. He probably give them stern warnings and let them go." Santana made a move and tried to push past Mr. Schuester. He grabbed her and held her back.
"You can't do this, Santana."
"Watch me." Santana said. Mr. Schuester pushed her back again, firmly but gently.
"No. We're not going to resort to violence. Let me have another chat with Figgins before this gets out of hand, ok?" The whole room nodded reluctantly and he left out the door as quickly as possible.
~****************~
Brittany ran around trying to locate Santana. The whole school was in an uproar over the exposition of Tina's journal. Some people felt sorry, some were indifferent but most of them were laughing. Brittany knew Santana was going to be pissed off as hell and she needed to find Santana before she did anything stupid. When she did find Santana, she was storming down the hallway to her next class.
"San!" She called out, not caring who heard her. Santana turned around, furious but surprised that she was calling for her in broad daylight. She looked around to see if anyone had heard. Brittany tried again. "San!" Santana quickly pushed her into an abandoned classroom, turning her lip up in disgust when she found Rachel and Finn playing tonsil hockey on one of the desks.
"OUT!" She commanded. Finn and Rachel looked at her, then to Brittany, eyes wide. "Do I need to repeat myself? OUT!" The two scrambled out of the classroom and Santana closed the door behind her.
"San...I'm so sorry..."
"Did you know about this?" She asked. Brittany shook her head.
"No...I..."
"Tiffany didn't tell you anything? You didn't see her take the notebook, or make the copies..."
"I was in class all day!" Brittany defended. Santana sighed and ran her hand over her face.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to snap. It's been a stressful day for everyone involved." She sighed. Brittany embraced her and kissed her on the head.
"If I had known, I would've tried to stop them, I swear." She promised.
"God...I don't know why Tiffany would do this. It's low, even for her. I just don't know what's her deal is. I mean, it was bad before but she used to ignore us. Or slushie us at the worst. She never went out of her way to publicly humiliate us." Brittany kept kissing her and Santana placed her hand on her arm, squeezing it for comfort. They stayed like that for a while, with Santana stressed out over what Tiffany's endgame was and Brittany doing her best to comfort her. Santana felt safe in Brittany's arms and it both brought her a sense of tranquility and a building sense of fear. She began to realize how much she relied on Brittany to keep her sane. Over the past few weeks it became less and less about sex and more and more about just being with the dancer. Brittany didn't seem to mind but this thing, this strange word called "love" kept floating around in Santana's mind and it wouldn't leave. It was a strong word, one that frightened Santana a little but it felt right at the same time. She was sure that Brittany felt the same, but she was even more sure that Brittany was going to wait for Santana to say something.
"Hey Brit?" She whispered.
"Mm?"
"Nothing." The words refused to come out of her mouth. She merely tightened her grip on Brittany's arm. "Don't leave me."
"I won't." Brittany swore. "But I do need to get to practice." She let go of Santana. The two of them kissed softly and intimately. "You coming over later tonight?"
"Yeah, probably." Santana replied, shrugging. Brittany picked up her backpack from the ground and kissed Santana one more time.
"See you then, ok?" Brittany confirmed. Santana nodded and the blond went out the door. Outside, Finn and Rachel were standing with their ears against the door. They gaped at Brittany as she walked out. A moment later, Santana followed, looking over at the couple who were on their knees, eyes wide in surprise.
"When were you going to tell us?" Rachel asked. Santana scoffed, rolled her eyes and walked away.
At Cheerios practice, the topic of conversation was the shaming of Tina Cohen-Chang. Brittany tried to stay away from it as much as possible, electing to throw herself into practice. But Tiffany wasn't about to let her go without praising the act.
"Don't you think it's funny, Brittany?" She asked. Brittany shrugged.
"I think it was mean."
"Well, duh. That's the only way to keep them in order." Tiffany said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Brittany frowned and ignored them. "Listen to me, blondie."
"You're blond too." Brittany pointed out.
"Whatever. Look, either you're with us or against us. Tina had it coming. They all do after what they did to us at your initiation party." Tiffany explained. "If they think they can get away with that, they're wrong. We need to teach them who is top dog around here."
"Why does it matter? You were going to slushie us and dump trash on our heads." Brittany countered.
"Yeah." Tiffany said sarcastically. "It's called initiation for a reason. Only cool kids get to prank cool kids. Some losers thought they were hot stuff so now they're going to pay for it." Brittany tried to walk away, not wanting to hear any more of it. Tiffany grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
"Listen, newbie. You may be the best dancer around here but don't think that Sue can't find another. We know your little secret. We know what happens if you get kicked off the team and you can bet your little tutu that I will make it happen. We're a unit, got it? It's us versus them and you haven't been participating in the war." Brittany's eyes widened with shock. If Tiffany knew her secret...that was bad, bad news. Tiffany noticed her reaction and smiled.
"What...how did you find out about it?" She demanded.
"I'm head cheerleader. There's nothing I don't know." Tiffany responded. "Now, here's what we're going to do."
~****************~
It was another Friday morning. The weekend was almost there and Santana couldn't be gladder for it. The week had been hell. The glee club was in disarray, wondering what they were going to do with Tina out for the next week to weather the storm of gossip and humiliation. Santana never got the chance to kick the crap out of Tiffany. As predicted, Figgins called a meeting just to give the Cheerios a warning. His claim was that no one ever spotted anyone specifically spreading the papers and he couldn't very well give detention to everyone, especially not with a major competition looming over them. The thought of the bitchy little snots getting away scott free was enough to make Santana want to slam the nearest person into a locker. Unfortunately, the nearest person happened to be Rachel and Santana had already fulfilled that quota that week after Rachel made some more shocked comments about her relationship with Brittany.
Things were about to get ten times worse, however.
When she rounded the corner, all she could see was Quinn dripping in red slushie, eyes cast down in a mixture of disbelief and disappointment. Santana looked over at the assailant and her heart dropped out the bottom of her stomach.
Brittany held the plastic cup in one hand and stared at Quinn with the other. Her eyes were filled with fear and sorrow. Beside her, Tiffany and her gang laughed away as Quinn reached up and wiped some of the slushie away.
"FUCK!" Santana cursed, dropping her books and rushing over to Quinn.
"Well, well, Prince Dyke to the rescue." Tiffany smirked. "Come on, we have more important things to do." She sauntered off, leaving just Brittany, Quinn and Santana in the hallway.
"I'm so sorry." Brittany whispered.
"What the fuck, Brittany?!" Santana demanded.
"I told you, Santana." Quinn hissed. "I told you she was one of them."
"No, no I didn't...I...please Santana I didn't want to..."
"Then why did you?!" Santana shouted. Tears welled up in her eyes. She could feel her heart breaking. Brittany, sweet, innocent Brittany had just betrayed her trust. "I thought you were different."
"I am!" Brittany insisted. "You don't understand."
"You're right." Santana replied, tears filling her eyes. "I don't understand. How...how could you?"
"San...you don't know what Tiffany would've done to me. You don't know." Santana helped Quinn gather up her things and she put an arm around her, leading her to the bathroom. Quinn looked over at Santana who was doing her best to fight the tears.
"Santana..."
"Just walk." She snapped and the two entered the bathroom. Brittany stared at the empty cup in her hand. She threw it against the lockers and ran away, hand over her mouth to stifle the sobs. All she wanted was to protect the promise she made to Santana. That's all she wanted to do. It was the most selfish thing she'd ever done, wanting to be with Santana and not caring how she made it happen. But in that selfishness, she had potentially ruined the one thing she wanted to keep safe. And when Brittany ran into the locker rooms and turned on the showers, she still couldn't wash away the feeling that she might've alienated Santana for good.
Part 9