The Beautiful Game
Title: The Beautiful Game
Fandom: Glee
Pairing(s): Brittany/Santana, Rachel/Quinn (allusions to Puck/Santana, Puck/Santana/Quinn.)
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~6k
Summary: College soccer AU. There’ll probably be a sequel to this at some point, and maybe even a smutty outtake. There’s more plot that was supposed to be here, but then this got long so it didn’t fit. Basically, this is just the Glee kids playing soccer together.
Notes: This was a birthday present for lynnearlington; happy birthday! Also, many, many thanks to calloohcallay for the beta, even though it meant that I needed to do major rewrites at the eleventh hour. I hate it when you're right, but this is a million times better than it would otherwise have been, so thank you very much, dear!
**
The sky was a hot arc of blue, and Santana’s breath was as ragged as the wispy clouds above her. The men’s game in the rain yesterday had made the penalty box muddy, but today’s sun had dried the soccer field into a tough dirt that had scratched Santana’s knees to hell. It was a mad scramble for the ball; there were way too many people in her box and Santana flung up a hand to protest the tackle that dropped their goalie to the grass with an outrage only half feigned, midway through a slew of curses at her own team mates to spread the fuck out. Someone - Santana couldn’t see who but damn it she’d kiss them later for that little gem of a save - managed to get a foot on the ball and send it careening past the sideline and into the other team’s substitutes. She was still barking orders - spread out and mark up and someone take fourteen - when she noticed that the usual voice backing up her orders was missing. She turned, only to feel her stomach plummet past her stinging, grazed knees.
Quinn was still on the grass.
She flung up an arm - this time with completely unfeigned urgency - not waiting for the whistle before running back over and dropping down beside Quinn’s body. Santana had known it was bad from the very first second she’d seen her on the grass, because Quinn had morals about things like staying down when she was able to stand. Still, she hadn’t been expecting the low keen of pain, or the tears squeezed through tight lashes, or the way her skin was a lighter shade of green than the grass her cheek was pressed against.
“Quinn…” Santana said, choking on her name, distantly hearing both teams come to a stop around them.
“My… arm. Oh god, S, my arm. It hurts, it…” she stopped, taking a breath and forgetting to release it.
“Q, I need you to breathe, okay,” Santana told her, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
“I can’t move it. Oh god, is it broken? I can’t look, I can’t.” The end of her sentence was little more than a whimper. The referee started calling for an ambulance, and Santana looked over at Quinn’s arm, coughing against the fire in her chest and the ice in her throat. Quinn’s glove was twisted in a way that wasn’t possible without several important things breaking. “Saaaan.”
“Yeah, yeah, Q, hold on, hold on. Breathe, damn it.” Santana wasn’t quite sure which one of them she was telling, but Quinn’s chest started moving again and Santana took in a shaky breath.
“I can’t move it. I can’t…”
“Yep, looks like you’ve broken it pretty good.”
“Oh God, oh God, please God,” Quinn whimpered, “Rachel. I need…”
“I’ll call her, Q, I’ll get her here.” Santana put a hand in Quinn’s hair, stroking gently, using the other to type in Rachel’s number from memory. She refused to have her number in her phone, declaring that it was consorting with the enemy, but Quinn and Rachel had a queer Romeo and Juliet thing going on that, frankly, was sickening on a good day. It disgusted her that she was supposed to hang out with the prize midfielder of their school’s main rival. It was even more disgusting that said midfielder was scrappy, annoying as all hell, and wore ridiculous pink ribbons in her hair on game day. Worst of all, her best friend was head over heels in love with her. If Rachel scored a goal against her, Quinn would actually congratulate the bitch, and if Santana tackled her hard enough to leave a mark, she’d get such a firm dressing down from her own team mate that it wasn’t even worth it.
It was torture. Pure. Unadulterated. Torture.
Rachel’s game had already been and gone - Santana had been forced to watch it, which had been kind of hilarious because she’d spent the entire game booing her and ducking Quinn’s punches - but Rachel hadn’t had enough water to drink and had gone home with mild dehydration. Hadn’t stopped Santana from calling her a moron, but there were few things in the world serious enough to do that.
“Rachel Berry’s phone. How may I help you?”
“Rach,” Santana said, her throat closing over the rest of the words. She didn’t know how she was supposed to talk to Rachel when she couldn’t look away from Quinn’s hand, twisted perpendicular to her arm.
“Rach? Really Santana? Whilst I don’t mind being called by something other than… what is it this week? Frank-N-Furter?”
Santana’s lips tightened into a smile automatically.
“I do have to inquire what you could possibly want badly enough to call me by, not only my first name, but a nickname?”
“Rach,” Santana said again, her voice uncharacteristically gentle, as if the mere fact that she’d actually waited until Rachel had finished her sentence to start talking wasn’t strange enough. “Quinn’s hurt. It’s pretty bad. You should get down here.”
The other line was silent except for the screeching of chair against floorboards and the rattle of keys. “How bad?” Rachel asked. Santana’s eyes closed, listening to Quinn voice that soft, grating, low pitched moan. “What happened? Santana? What happened?”
“She’s. Uhm. Her arm’s pretty broke. There’s an ambulance on the way,” Santana said, hearing the quiver in her own voice and hoping it didn’t travel down the line.
“Shit. I’m coming. I’m coming. Just… hold her hand or something until I get there. Tell her I love her.”
“Yeah.”
“Santana I mean it, please, tell her I love her and I’ll be right with her and--”
“Rach…” Santana coughed. “Berry. I will. I will, okay? Here. I’ll even do it while I’m on the phone so you believe me. Quinn, your yappy dwarf of a girlfriend wants you to know that she loves you and she’s coming as soon as she can.”
“Bitch,” Quinn wheezed out.
“She called you a bitch, Berry,” Santana said to the phone, forcing a laugh.
“I’m quite certain that was not intended for… this is ridiculous, I’m hanging up on you now. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Rachel told her. Santana flipped her phone closed before she could.
“Q, the breathing thing, okay? Remember the breathing thing. Berry’s gonna try to kick my ass if she gets here and I’ve let you stop breathing. And we all know that if she tried to kick my ass, I’d have to hurt her, and your girlfriend is totally not worth breaking a nail over.” Santana tried to keep her voice light, running a hand over Quinn’s hair like it would actually help take away the pain.
“It hurts, it hurts it hurts so bad, I can’t, it hurts…” She was repeating it like a mantra, and Santana tugged at the Velcro of one of Quinn’s keeper’s gloves, pulling it off and wrapping her good hand up. Quinn was digging blunt nails in between the thin bones in the back of Santana’s hand, but it was stopping her hand from shaking so Santana just held tight.
“What the fuck even happened?” Their coach was too busy stopping the rest of the team from crowding to answer, and Santana’s eyes went back to Quinn’s face. Her lips were pressed together so hard they were turning white.
“I just fell over myself, S.” Quinn’s words were hoarse, and Santana felt her stomach roil at the way she hissed her name.
“Breathe, Quinn,” Santana told her, hearing someone behind her ask if they were going to have to forfeit and growling, gripping Quinn’s hand tighter to resist the urge to kick the words back behind the girl’s teeth.
“Ah, the game, get me off the pitch so you guys won’t forfeit.”
“We don’t have another goalie.”
“You can keep well enough to…” Her breath hitched in a cry of pain. “We’re two one. Get me off the damn pitch, Lopez.”
“Shut up and just remember to keep breathing, Fabray,” Santana told her forcefully. “I’m not fucking leaving you. Hell with the game.”
“Blasphemy,” Quinn told her, and Santana was pretty sure it was just an automatic reflex to disagree with her after a decade of friendship, because she didn’t look like she was even paying attention to what she was saying.
“Breathe, Q, in, out, it’s really not that hard.” Santana kept up what she hoped was a reassuring stream of words, wondering if Rachel had had an accident because surely it didn’t take five hours to do a ten minute drive. She hated herself for not being able to do more to stop her whimpers, and hated Rachel for not being there when Quinn kept asking for her.
“Quinn?” In the year of knowing her (oh god, had it only been a year?) Santana had never been so relieved to hear Rachel Berry’s voice. Rachel squatted down beside them. She was panting, but her face was almost as white as Quinn’s as she glanced down at Quinn’s arm and back up to her face. “Oh, god, Quinn,” she scooted forward, trying to take Santana’s place at Quinn’s hand.
“Rach. Hi. Hi. Hurts.”
“I know it does,” Rachel said, gripping Quinn’s good wrist in a not so subtle attempt to take her hand from Santana. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart, just hold on until the ambulance gets here. Santana,” Rachel said, after the third blatant attempt to take Quinn’s hand from her. Santana looked away from Quinn’s face to see Rachel’s expression morph from irritation into something softer. She brought a hand up to swipe it across her eyes, holding Rachel’s gaze and daring her to say anything for only a few moments before she looked back down to Quinn. Rachel’s hand started to trail up Quinn’s arm, and Santana told her about all the good drugs she’d be getting soon as Rachel managed to keep Quinn focussed on breathing and the patterns in the clouds above her.
“Is that the ambulance?” Quinn asked. Her eyes were bright red against the white of her face, and Santana squeezed her hand reassuringly, hearing the sirens come closer.
“Sure is, Q. You’ll be totally drug fucked in a second or two.” Santana didn’t let go of Quinn’s hand until the ambulance arrived, and she held her hand out to Rachel as the paramedics helped Quinn. Rachel just looked at her outstretched hand with a blank suspicion that made Santana roll her eyes. “Keys, Berry. You go with Quinn, I’ll take your car there for you.”
“You just want to drive my car,” Rachel said, but she took her keys out and dropped them into Santana’s waiting palm. Santana widened her eyes in fake innocence, putting them in her pocket before Rachel could see how badly her hands were shaking.
Santana watched Quinn use the piece of blue plastic that she should have been inhaling drugs from as something to bite down on, and dipped her head to kiss the top of her hair. “I’ll see you there, Q.”
“By-ye, Sa-an,” Quinn sang, and Santana managed a laugh, standing up reluctantly and taking a step back. Rachel was hunched over, holding Quinn’s good hand in both of hers and pressing her cheek against Quinn’s forearm. Santana clenched her jaw and turned to leave, pausing only to grab up her purse and entrust the rest of her stuff to her coach.
**
Even though she’d left before them, Rachel and Quinn got there before she did. Santana didn’t even get to properly enjoy Rachel’s beauty of a car, because right when she’d slid into the front seat and tried to press the accelerator she’d remembered why she usually drove in a spare pair of shoes. She’d had to struggle to take her cleats off, and her socks were so slippery with sweat and grass that she’d ended up driving barefoot. Traffic was a bitch and parking was hell, and by the time she got to the hospital she was about ready to throw a tantrum. Rachel had texted her with very specific instructions on how to find her, and she half jogged down the hallways, feet bare and cleats in hand.
When she saw Rachel at the end of a hallway, sitting on a plastic chair with her fingers threaded through her hair and the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes, Santana’s whole body tightened. She ran the last few steps and sank down into the chair next to Rachel, panting. Before she could ask, Rachel looked up, drawing her hands down her cheeks to press both her palms together underneath her chin in a way that made it look like she was trying to pray. The relief in her eyes was unsettling; Santana wasn’t sure she wanted to live in a world where she and Rachel were actually happy to see each other.
“Is my car okay?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Santana said, feeling her world tilt towards normality as she groaned.
“No - well, a little, I suppose.” Rachel’s fingers were shaking where they were pressing into her chin, and Santana’s knee started to bounce.
“What’d they say?”
“I don’t know. Not very much, to me. They said it was a severe break and they weren’t sure if her bone had been shattered.”
“It’s just a broken bone. They can always fix bones. It’s nothing. She’ll be back on her feet in no time.”
“What if it isn’t?” Rachel asked in a whisper. “What if her muscle has been affected, or it clots and she loses the arm-“
“It’s just a bone, Berry,” Santana said forcefully, putting both palms flat on her chair and pushing down on them as though she was about to raise herself out of it. “God, stop being such a drama queen.”
Rachel took that with only a steady inhalation of breath, closing her eyes. Santana looked past her to the desk of receptionists and nurses and uniformed people who looked busy and important, her ears perked for Quinn’s name.
“I broke my arm when I was eight.” Rachel broke the silence, her dark eyes looking at Santana like she was supposed to find great significance in that.
“Well you’re both a pair of clumsy idiots then, aren’t you? If you broke the same arm you’re clearly soul mates.”
“My dads took me to hospital. It hurt, but I walked to the car. Quinn couldn’t. She was…” Rachel’s words faltered. She looked up to the ceiling, her eyes welling with tears and the corners of her lips pinched. It took Santana a good minute to realise that she wasn’t going to continue, and she looked back to the reception desk, digging her fingernails into the bottom of her chair and waiting in silence.
**
When Rachel came out of Quinn’s hospital room her shoulders had dropped and the ease of her smile released the tightness in Santana’s chest.
“She’s okay. You can go in if you like,” Rachel said, glancing down at her watch. “We’re allowed in for another five minutes and seven seconds.”
Santana stood, nodding her relief, her hand alighting on Rachel’s shoulder for the briefest of moments as she passed her. Quinn was sitting up in the bed, her arm in a cast almost up to her shoulder and held up by some complicated contraption, a drip at her other side. “Hey, you,” she said quietly. “How you feeling?”
“Loopy,” Quinn said, with a laugh. “But I don’t hurt.”
“Drugs are awesome,” Santana said, sitting beside her. She was still pale and her eyes were unfocussed, but the lines of pain that had been etched into her forehead had been smoothed out, and Santana let the warmth of Quinn’s skin steady her.
Quinn felt the shakiness of her hand and sighed. “It’s just a broken arm, gosh. You and Rachel, you’re so melodramatic.”
“Q, you…” Santana cleared her throat. “What did the doctor say?”
“Broke it in three places, but I’m ‘lucky’. They didn’t look like they believed me when I told them I could feel my fingers. Look, I can even move ‘em a little bit.” Quinn’s fingers were swollen, but they twitched at the end of her cast. “I think they thought there’d be some lasting nerve damage or something. But there isn’t. I’m fine,” she said, her voice reassuring.
“How long you going to be out for?”
“Six weeks in the cast. Longer ‘til I can play sport again. Rachel says she has a friend who goes to our uni who’s a really good goalie, so she’ll get her to try out for the team and stuff.”
Santana winced, trying not to think about having to meet any of Rachel’s friends and taking a pen out of her purse. “Totally went to buy a Sharpie so I could sign you first.”
Quinn shifted so that the other side of the cast was covered by the fabric of the sling, her hum uncommitted. Santana was too busy trying to get the plastic from the pen to notice, and she signed the top of the cast with a ‘you’re a total klutz, get better soon so I can kick your ass for being an idiot’ and an incongruent heart before her name. Quinn’s eyes had closed, and Santana put her pen back in her bag, watching her for a few seconds before abruptly kissing her forehead. “Scared the crap out of me, Q.”
“Aww, you love me,” Quinn murmured, her eyes fluttering and her lips crooking upwards.
“Shut up. Don’t do it again,” Santana said, flicking her cheek with a nail and lifting her purse from the bottom of Quinn’s bed, soft laughter following her out the door.
Rachel was sitting with her head bowed heavily, nursing a cup of hospital coffee in her hands. The smell alone made Santana wince, and she dropped Rachel’s keys in her lap. “Do you know how long they’re keeping her here for?”
“Just overnight, I believe,” Rachel said, looking to the keys then back up to Santana’s face. Santana didn’t bother to ask if she was staying - it was Rachel, and despite her many and varied flaws, if she could respect anything about her it was that she would sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair outside her girlfriend’s hospital room drinking coffee for as long as it took. “Are you going home?”
“Yeah,” Santana said. “As much as I love hanging out with you, Berry, I’ve got work in four hours.” Her eyes held an apology that belied her words, and Rachel smiled at her in acknowledgement.
“How are you going to get home?”
“I’ll grab a taxi.”
“My car is okay, right, Santana?”
Santana rolled her eyes. “Your car's fine. Save your worry for your clumsy ass of a girlfriend.” She started off down the hallway, then turned. “Totally took her cast-signing virginity as well.”
Rachel’s finger raised and she opened her mouth, but she shook her head and snapped it closed, looking back down to her coffee with a slight smile. “Goodbye, Santana.”
Santana waved mockingly, grinning and swinging her boots by the laces as she walked outside to try and find a taxi.
**
Her coach asked only for the forwards to be at the keeper try-outs, which gave Santana the day off. She made use of the free time to catch up on course readings, sitting at Quinn’s kitchen table, and making crude jokes about what Quinn wasn’t able to do with her fingers that would have been much more fun if Rachel had been there to hear them. Quinn had, unfortunately, known her for too long to rise to obvious bait, but Rachel couldn’t seem to help herself and it was always entertaining to see the way she thrust back her shoulders as though that would make her taller, and to see how high she could make Rachel’s voice go before Quinn kicked her. Santana looked up from her textbook to find Quinn awkwardly trying to handle the knife in her wrong hand. “Can you do that yourself, or do you want me to butter your muffin for you?” Still, that didn’t mean antagonising Quinn wasn’t almost as fun.
Quinn scoffed at her, and Santana grinned, looking back down at her textbook only to stand up a second later with a muffled squeak. “I’ll butter you,” Quinn said with a smirk.
“Did you just - this is my favourite sweater you massive bitch!” Santana picked the cube of butter from her shirt and dropped it on the kitchen floor, wiping at the remnants with a disgusted look on her face.
“Oh, you’d better clean that up,” Quinn told her.
“Why, or your little wife will be mad? You’re so whipped, Q.”
“No, because I have a broken arm and can’t.”
Santana looked at her suspiciously for a moment, but sighed and went to get a cloth. “That excuse totally has a limited shelf life,” Santana told her, throwing the cloth at the sink and groaning when it fell to the floor.
“Gosh, I hope our new keeper’s aim is as good as yours,” Quinn said dryly, ducking as Santana half heartedly went to smack the back of her head on the way to pick up the cloth.
Santana slumped back down into her seat, looking down at her textbook and tapping her pen against the pages. “You’ll still come to all the games, right?” Santana asked nonchalantly, twiddling her pen and looking up at Quinn through her lashes.
“'Course I will,” Quinn said, smiling and kicking lightly at the side of Santana’s shoe. “Got to scope out my competition for when I come back.”
“There won’t be any competition, yo,” Santana said, eyes flashing her relief at the mention of Quinn’s return. “Best sweeper and keeper team ever.” She held her fist out and Quinn laughed and pressed their knuckles together.
“We are awesome.”
“Super awesome.” There was a silence as they grinned at each other, then Santana scratched at the side of her face and looked down, highlighting an entire paragraph industriously. Quinn got up and started to do her dishes, and Santana lifted her head, watching her to make sure she could do the washing up one handed and smiling at her back.
**
Quinn was still on heavy pain medication and couldn’t drive, or else Santana was pretty sure she would’ve come to their first training session just to make sure she didn’t kill the impostor. Rachel had phoned to tell her that it was her friend who had made the team, and acted like Santana was supposed to be happy for her or some shit. She was just hoping that even if the chick was as annoying as Berry, she’d at least be good at what she did. Losing Quinn was bad enough, but having to cover for an incompetent keeper would be hell. She was in a bad mood by the time she got to the pitch, and her coach’s wink and subtle butt-grab as he ‘helped’ her get her bag from her car did little to alleviate it.
“So not even in the mood.”
“Aw, babe, still all mad over Quinn?”
“Don’t even, douche, you know you were as worried as I was,” Santana said, back handing him in the stomach. Puck - their team’s coach since Quinn and Santana had made it on the team in their freshman year - was on again and off again, both as friends and friends with benefits. He’d been the same to Quinn until last year, when Quinn had suddenly turned gay for Rachel Berry. Santana didn’t really understand the whole Quinn deciding she was a lesbo thing. Partially because she’d had threesomes with Puck and Quinn before and Quinn had seemed way more into Puck than she had been into Santana (which was totally insulting) but whatever. She was claiming credit for Quinn’s gay anyway. Rubbing that in Rachel’s face was one of her favourite pastimes.
“You’ll love the replacement chick.”
“She better be damn good, Puck,” Santana said, finishing tying the laces of her soccer boots and shouldering her bag when it became obvious that Puck wasn’t going to offer his help.
“She’s good,” Puck assured her, blowing a kiss to one of her other team mates. Honestly, Santana wasn’t even sure how Puck kept his job. Then again, it wouldn’t really surprise her if he was sleeping with the dean of the university. “Damn good looking, too,” he mused thoughtfully.
“You’re disgusting.”
“You love me.”
“Whatever. Where’s the impostor?”
“Okay, hand it over.”
“Hand what over?” Santana asked, casting her gaze around as she dumped her bag on the ground near the others and took her water bottle out for easy access. She didn’t see any new faces amongst the crowd of girls sitting in groups and chatting.
“The axe. Q told me to take it from you before you tried to kill the new kid.”
The team mates close enough to hear started snickering quietly. Santana kicked a foot out, nudging the arm of the loudest and spilling some of her water. “Bitch,” the girl said, trying to wipe the water off on Santana’s shirt.
“Whatever. I’m not…” Santana trailed off, her arm stopping its flight half way through an attempt to slap her team mate’s hand away. Walking towards them was what could only be described as a teenage boy’s wet dream.
“Meet the new girl,” Puck told the team, smirking. New girl was six feet of blonde toned body, in keeper’s shorts and a (fortunately, oh so fortunately) white shirt that was completely soaked through.
“Sorry, I got a bit lost. There was a river… but there weren’t any boats…” Some of the girls tittered, and Puck was obviously appreciative, but Santana just stared at her blankly. God help them all if this was Quinn’s replacement. She might not have expected a friend of Rachel’s to have a great personality, but she’d at least expected an IQ of over eighty. The girl came up to them, stopping right behind Santana. She might not exactly be intelligent (exactly how she’d managed to get to the other side of that river in the first place was completely baffling), but Santana had a totally awesome view of the underside of her breasts right now.
“Hi guys. I’m Brittany.”
“Santana,” Santana told Brittany’s breasts, leaning back against long legs and hearing a soft giggle as the rest of her team mates introduced themselves.
“I’m totally never going to remember all of those,” Brittany said with a little shrug.
“That’s okay,” Puck said. “Just know that I’m Puck and I’m your coach.” He clapped a hand on Santana’s shoulder, jarring her eyes away from where they’d been resting for the last few moments. “This here is your sweeper.” Santana stood, stepping away from her and looking her over critically. She had the height and the muscle of a good goalie, at least. “Those two are your defenders, and that one there is your right mid, who comes back to defend when we’re playing three-four-four.”
Brittany’s eyes were wide and vacant, and Santana was pretty sure she didn’t understand a word Puck was talking about, but Santana’s scowl softened despite herself. Brittany’s hair was up in a messy bun, and the streak of dirt marring the freckles on her nose was kind of the cutest thing Santana had ever seen.
“Now,” Puck said, hopping up from his squat. “Follow me, ladies!” He took off, and the team scrambled up to follow him, groaning and shucking their sweaters. Puck was actually a damn good coach, which unfortunately meant that fitness was one of his prime targets and everyone on the team hated him for it. They were expected to do a lot of it on their own time, but he pushed them hard, particularly at the beginning of the season to use the advantage against their opponents. They started off on a gentle jog, and Santana spied an opening to grill Brittany and went for it, pulling alongside her.
“Hey,” she said casually.
“Hi!” Brittany furrowed her brows at her. “Santana?” she asked slowly.
“That’s me.”
“Oh, wow.” Brittany skipped the next few steps of her run and punched the air, and Santana’s eyebrows hiked up. Brittany saw her staring and went back to a more sedate jog with an adorable blush and a crinkle of her nose. “I’m so bad at names,” she explained.
“Names are hard,” Santana agreed, getting such a blinding grin in return that her stride nearly faltered. “So, how long have you been playing for?”
“Oh, ages. Always, basically. Mom wanted me to do ballet classes but I thought that if I put on a tutu I’d turn into a hippo, and though hippos are super adorable I was kind of scared of what my friends would think so I took up soccer instead.”
It took Santana a few seconds to scramble from ballet to hippo. “Like in Fantasia?”
“Yeah! Oh, I like you,” Brittany said, doing that half skip half run step again. Santana couldn’t help her smile. “I was really happy when I heard that the keeper spot was open, ‘cause I’ve been stuck coaching kids since I got to college, but then I heard that Rach’s girlfriend broke her arm and that’s why I got to be here and then I was sad. That really hurts. I broke my wrist when I was like, twelve in the shower and-”
“HAUL SOME ASS,” Puck bellowed, and the swarm of girls started to sprint. Santana’s lungs were aching for air within the first few seconds and her muscles burned, but Brittany kept on talking like she wasn’t finding the sprint taxing at all.
“-and I was like, dancing, and I got excited and slipped and it really hurt and the cast thingie was really ugly, even when my little sister put glitter on it, so I felt bad for feeling good about getting in, so like, I’m not going to take over or whatever and I’ll fully step back down when Rachie’s girlfriend gets better and stuff, so don’t worry or anything. Rach said you guys were close and-“
Fucking hell Santana hoped she never had to listen to Rachel and Brittany have a conversation, she’d probably die from word overdose.
“-and I like Rach, she’s the cutest, and she said you’d probably be mean to me, but I’d like it if you liked me.” She finished with a batting of her eyelashes and a hopeful turn to the corner of her lips that was too damned adorable for Santana to shut her down completely.
“You’ve been playing for a while, though?" Santana checked.
“Yep. I’m really good! I mean, I’m awful at a lot of things, but I’m good at dancing, and soccer, and sex…” she paused, thinking, and Santana was glad that Puck called a halt to the run because she very nearly tripped over. “That’s about it,” Brittany said, shrugging again and giving her a blinding smile. Jesus Christ, it was hard to hate someone this adorable, despite the loyalty to Quinn telling her she had to.
“We warm, girls?” Puck asked brightly. Groans answered him as they stretched out. “Excellent. Go grab your gloves after you’ve stretched, Brittany, and we’ll run through some basics.”
They drilled corners, free kicks and goal kicks for an hour, and Brittany was much quicker at picking up tactics than she was at names. She was all over the ball like a rash, and Santana had to admit that the girl was damn good. She had a bit of height on Quinn, which gave her an edge, but Santana thought that Quinn was more aggressive about calling for the ball. Brittany had a real knack for judging when to come out of her box and when to stay back, but they were about the same level when it came to taking penalty shots and it was hard to tell which one of them was the more competent keeper. Santana felt herself relax; she’d been intending to make Brittany’s life hell so that she wouldn’t want to stay when Quinn came back, but Brittany had said that she was willing to step down when Quinn was healthy again. Since Brittany was friends with Rachel it was hard to believe that between the two of them, she and Rachel couldn’t force her to keep her word on that. She bounced around the field like an energizer bunny, with an endless enthusiasm and optimism that Santana knew would be a great asset on the field. Plus, when Santana was tripped close to her, she spent a good few moments looking at her ass before helping her up with a cheerful, “You’re super hot.” Santana wasn’t above ego stroking. Especially from someone as pretty as Brittany.
At the end of their practice they had a scrimmage - three of the defenders and Brittany against the rest of the team. Brittany pulled off some really excellent saves, covering the goal more often than not when Santana and the others couldn’t stop the ball. Santana had successfully managed to work out a way to balance checking Brittany out with paying attention to the game, so when Brittany lunged for the corner of the net and punched the ball away, Santana only kept her eyes on Brittany’s riding shirt, the smooth skin of her abs, and the muscles of her arms for a brief second before she was running headlong into a tackle. Brittany was on the wrong side of the goal so Santana sprinted towards the ball without any intention of stopping. Her team mate dribbled the ball in a zigzag, turning her back to Santana so she couldn’t do her signature slide-tackle-cleats-to-thigh move without being pulled up for it, and tried to dribble it around her.
There was a brief scuffle for the ball, and though they were deadly serious about winning, they were both laughing. Finally Santana managed to get in past the fancy footwork and claw back possession, kicking the ball out of the sidelines. It wasn’t at all pretty, but it was effective, and Puck called the game to a close. Santana turned, still laughing, holding her fist out for Quinn. Brittany’s eyes sparkled back at her; her hair had come loose and her smile was a brilliant white against her flushed cheeks. Santana stared dumbly, her fist still out, but Brittany bypassed it, flinging herself on Santana in a hug.
“Yay! You totally just saved my butt.” Brittany didn’t hug like a normal person - for one thing, Santana couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been hugged by someone, much less someone she’d just met, but when she had they usually hugged with just their torso and left space in between their hips. Brittany hugged with everything she had, pressing Santana against her so that their bodies were flush against each other. It was possibly the first time in her life that Santana had ever wished she was just a little bit shorter.
“Want to go get a celebration-of-how-awesome-we-are drink with me?” It wasn’t the smoothest moment of her life, but Brittany’s smile widened, squeezing her tighter before allowing Santana to step back.
“Awesome, sure. Whereabouts? Can you drive? They took away my licence after I lost the road and started driving on the sidewalk that one time.”
Santana laughed, but Brittany didn’t laugh with her and she stopped, her eyes widening. “Uhm. Really?”
“It was dark,” Brittany shrugged.
“Right. Uhm. Then sure, I’ll drive,” she said, her eyes going past Brittany’s face to see Puck thrusting his hips at her. Douchebag.
Brittany fiddled with the radio on the way to the bar, a habit that usually made Santana threaten Quinn with imminent death because she liked hearing her songs play out in full, but Brittany was humming along and Santana was finding it hard enough just to concentrate on the road instead of the way Brittany’s shoulders were dancing.
Santana led Brittany through the crowd of people watching a baseball game over to the bar, leaning on the edge with her wallet out and waiting for someone to notice her. Her motto in life was that to get served in a busy bar you had to have something out: your tits or your wallet. She usually supplied both, just to cover all her bases.
“So, how do you know Rachel?” Santana asked, biting down on the inside of her cheek to suppress her automatic smirk as Brittany’s eyes dropped to her chest.
“Oh, we’ve been friends since high school! She’s awesome.” Brittany’s nose crinkled up as she smiled, and Santana leant over to rub the dried mud from where it was obscuring her freckles. Brittany’s eyes darkened, her skin flushing under Santana’s thumb. Santana’s knuckles brushed against Brittany’s cheek, her eyes steady on Brittany’s.
“What would you like?” Santana’s fingers started away from Brittany’s face, and she turned back to the bartender, almost dropping her wallet. “Uhm, sorry, gin and tonic for me, and…?” she turned to Brittany, who was smiling warmly at her, her head propped up on her elbow.
“Coke for me.”
“Just a coke?” Santana asked.
“Why would I want anything alcoholic?” Brittany asked. “I like to be sober when I have sex.”
Warmth skittered straight up Santana’s spine, and she leant back from the bar, her eyes on Brittany as she said, “Just… two cokes, please.” She paid for the drinks and she and Brittany sat down at a table. She was pretty sure she contributed something half intelligent to the conversation, but later Santana wouldn’t have been able to tell you a single word of what they’d talked about. She laughed more in that hour than she had in the last week, and talking with Brittany left her with a giddy feeling of warmth in her chest. Brittany tangled their fingers together, tugging lightly.
“So… are we going to have sex tonight, or later?”
Santana had never driven home so fast in her life.
It was only when Santana was looking at the satisfied, sleepy smile on Brittany’s lips as she curled up around her that she realised that she was cuddling. After sex. In her own bed. It was a really bizarre feeling, because this was something she’d always vehemently tried to avoid. She’d never thought that she was the kind of person to enjoy this, and she’d always been fine with that. She’d never felt this weird hope before, like this might develop into something that would mean that she could have this for longer than a night. She gave a small hum of contentment as Brittany’s fingers sifted through her hair, closing her eyes and deciding that maybe the whole Quinn breaking her arm thing wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened, letting the warmth from Brittany’s body seep underneath her skin.
Fandom: Glee
Pairing(s): Brittany/Santana, Rachel/Quinn (allusions to Puck/Santana, Puck/Santana/Quinn.)
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~6k
Summary: College soccer AU. There’ll probably be a sequel to this at some point, and maybe even a smutty outtake. There’s more plot that was supposed to be here, but then this got long so it didn’t fit. Basically, this is just the Glee kids playing soccer together.
Notes: This was a birthday present for lynnearlington; happy birthday! Also, many, many thanks to calloohcallay for the beta, even though it meant that I needed to do major rewrites at the eleventh hour. I hate it when you're right, but this is a million times better than it would otherwise have been, so thank you very much, dear!
**
The sky was a hot arc of blue, and Santana’s breath was as ragged as the wispy clouds above her. The men’s game in the rain yesterday had made the penalty box muddy, but today’s sun had dried the soccer field into a tough dirt that had scratched Santana’s knees to hell. It was a mad scramble for the ball; there were way too many people in her box and Santana flung up a hand to protest the tackle that dropped their goalie to the grass with an outrage only half feigned, midway through a slew of curses at her own team mates to spread the fuck out. Someone - Santana couldn’t see who but damn it she’d kiss them later for that little gem of a save - managed to get a foot on the ball and send it careening past the sideline and into the other team’s substitutes. She was still barking orders - spread out and mark up and someone take fourteen - when she noticed that the usual voice backing up her orders was missing. She turned, only to feel her stomach plummet past her stinging, grazed knees.
Quinn was still on the grass.
She flung up an arm - this time with completely unfeigned urgency - not waiting for the whistle before running back over and dropping down beside Quinn’s body. Santana had known it was bad from the very first second she’d seen her on the grass, because Quinn had morals about things like staying down when she was able to stand. Still, she hadn’t been expecting the low keen of pain, or the tears squeezed through tight lashes, or the way her skin was a lighter shade of green than the grass her cheek was pressed against.
“Quinn…” Santana said, choking on her name, distantly hearing both teams come to a stop around them.
“My… arm. Oh god, S, my arm. It hurts, it…” she stopped, taking a breath and forgetting to release it.
“Q, I need you to breathe, okay,” Santana told her, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
“I can’t move it. Oh god, is it broken? I can’t look, I can’t.” The end of her sentence was little more than a whimper. The referee started calling for an ambulance, and Santana looked over at Quinn’s arm, coughing against the fire in her chest and the ice in her throat. Quinn’s glove was twisted in a way that wasn’t possible without several important things breaking. “Saaaan.”
“Yeah, yeah, Q, hold on, hold on. Breathe, damn it.” Santana wasn’t quite sure which one of them she was telling, but Quinn’s chest started moving again and Santana took in a shaky breath.
“I can’t move it. I can’t…”
“Yep, looks like you’ve broken it pretty good.”
“Oh God, oh God, please God,” Quinn whimpered, “Rachel. I need…”
“I’ll call her, Q, I’ll get her here.” Santana put a hand in Quinn’s hair, stroking gently, using the other to type in Rachel’s number from memory. She refused to have her number in her phone, declaring that it was consorting with the enemy, but Quinn and Rachel had a queer Romeo and Juliet thing going on that, frankly, was sickening on a good day. It disgusted her that she was supposed to hang out with the prize midfielder of their school’s main rival. It was even more disgusting that said midfielder was scrappy, annoying as all hell, and wore ridiculous pink ribbons in her hair on game day. Worst of all, her best friend was head over heels in love with her. If Rachel scored a goal against her, Quinn would actually congratulate the bitch, and if Santana tackled her hard enough to leave a mark, she’d get such a firm dressing down from her own team mate that it wasn’t even worth it.
It was torture. Pure. Unadulterated. Torture.
Rachel’s game had already been and gone - Santana had been forced to watch it, which had been kind of hilarious because she’d spent the entire game booing her and ducking Quinn’s punches - but Rachel hadn’t had enough water to drink and had gone home with mild dehydration. Hadn’t stopped Santana from calling her a moron, but there were few things in the world serious enough to do that.
“Rachel Berry’s phone. How may I help you?”
“Rach,” Santana said, her throat closing over the rest of the words. She didn’t know how she was supposed to talk to Rachel when she couldn’t look away from Quinn’s hand, twisted perpendicular to her arm.
“Rach? Really Santana? Whilst I don’t mind being called by something other than… what is it this week? Frank-N-Furter?”
Santana’s lips tightened into a smile automatically.
“I do have to inquire what you could possibly want badly enough to call me by, not only my first name, but a nickname?”
“Rach,” Santana said again, her voice uncharacteristically gentle, as if the mere fact that she’d actually waited until Rachel had finished her sentence to start talking wasn’t strange enough. “Quinn’s hurt. It’s pretty bad. You should get down here.”
The other line was silent except for the screeching of chair against floorboards and the rattle of keys. “How bad?” Rachel asked. Santana’s eyes closed, listening to Quinn voice that soft, grating, low pitched moan. “What happened? Santana? What happened?”
“She’s. Uhm. Her arm’s pretty broke. There’s an ambulance on the way,” Santana said, hearing the quiver in her own voice and hoping it didn’t travel down the line.
“Shit. I’m coming. I’m coming. Just… hold her hand or something until I get there. Tell her I love her.”
“Yeah.”
“Santana I mean it, please, tell her I love her and I’ll be right with her and--”
“Rach…” Santana coughed. “Berry. I will. I will, okay? Here. I’ll even do it while I’m on the phone so you believe me. Quinn, your yappy dwarf of a girlfriend wants you to know that she loves you and she’s coming as soon as she can.”
“Bitch,” Quinn wheezed out.
“She called you a bitch, Berry,” Santana said to the phone, forcing a laugh.
“I’m quite certain that was not intended for… this is ridiculous, I’m hanging up on you now. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Rachel told her. Santana flipped her phone closed before she could.
“Q, the breathing thing, okay? Remember the breathing thing. Berry’s gonna try to kick my ass if she gets here and I’ve let you stop breathing. And we all know that if she tried to kick my ass, I’d have to hurt her, and your girlfriend is totally not worth breaking a nail over.” Santana tried to keep her voice light, running a hand over Quinn’s hair like it would actually help take away the pain.
“It hurts, it hurts it hurts so bad, I can’t, it hurts…” She was repeating it like a mantra, and Santana tugged at the Velcro of one of Quinn’s keeper’s gloves, pulling it off and wrapping her good hand up. Quinn was digging blunt nails in between the thin bones in the back of Santana’s hand, but it was stopping her hand from shaking so Santana just held tight.
“What the fuck even happened?” Their coach was too busy stopping the rest of the team from crowding to answer, and Santana’s eyes went back to Quinn’s face. Her lips were pressed together so hard they were turning white.
“I just fell over myself, S.” Quinn’s words were hoarse, and Santana felt her stomach roil at the way she hissed her name.
“Breathe, Quinn,” Santana told her, hearing someone behind her ask if they were going to have to forfeit and growling, gripping Quinn’s hand tighter to resist the urge to kick the words back behind the girl’s teeth.
“Ah, the game, get me off the pitch so you guys won’t forfeit.”
“We don’t have another goalie.”
“You can keep well enough to…” Her breath hitched in a cry of pain. “We’re two one. Get me off the damn pitch, Lopez.”
“Shut up and just remember to keep breathing, Fabray,” Santana told her forcefully. “I’m not fucking leaving you. Hell with the game.”
“Blasphemy,” Quinn told her, and Santana was pretty sure it was just an automatic reflex to disagree with her after a decade of friendship, because she didn’t look like she was even paying attention to what she was saying.
“Breathe, Q, in, out, it’s really not that hard.” Santana kept up what she hoped was a reassuring stream of words, wondering if Rachel had had an accident because surely it didn’t take five hours to do a ten minute drive. She hated herself for not being able to do more to stop her whimpers, and hated Rachel for not being there when Quinn kept asking for her.
“Quinn?” In the year of knowing her (oh god, had it only been a year?) Santana had never been so relieved to hear Rachel Berry’s voice. Rachel squatted down beside them. She was panting, but her face was almost as white as Quinn’s as she glanced down at Quinn’s arm and back up to her face. “Oh, god, Quinn,” she scooted forward, trying to take Santana’s place at Quinn’s hand.
“Rach. Hi. Hi. Hurts.”
“I know it does,” Rachel said, gripping Quinn’s good wrist in a not so subtle attempt to take her hand from Santana. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart, just hold on until the ambulance gets here. Santana,” Rachel said, after the third blatant attempt to take Quinn’s hand from her. Santana looked away from Quinn’s face to see Rachel’s expression morph from irritation into something softer. She brought a hand up to swipe it across her eyes, holding Rachel’s gaze and daring her to say anything for only a few moments before she looked back down to Quinn. Rachel’s hand started to trail up Quinn’s arm, and Santana told her about all the good drugs she’d be getting soon as Rachel managed to keep Quinn focussed on breathing and the patterns in the clouds above her.
“Is that the ambulance?” Quinn asked. Her eyes were bright red against the white of her face, and Santana squeezed her hand reassuringly, hearing the sirens come closer.
“Sure is, Q. You’ll be totally drug fucked in a second or two.” Santana didn’t let go of Quinn’s hand until the ambulance arrived, and she held her hand out to Rachel as the paramedics helped Quinn. Rachel just looked at her outstretched hand with a blank suspicion that made Santana roll her eyes. “Keys, Berry. You go with Quinn, I’ll take your car there for you.”
“You just want to drive my car,” Rachel said, but she took her keys out and dropped them into Santana’s waiting palm. Santana widened her eyes in fake innocence, putting them in her pocket before Rachel could see how badly her hands were shaking.
Santana watched Quinn use the piece of blue plastic that she should have been inhaling drugs from as something to bite down on, and dipped her head to kiss the top of her hair. “I’ll see you there, Q.”
“By-ye, Sa-an,” Quinn sang, and Santana managed a laugh, standing up reluctantly and taking a step back. Rachel was hunched over, holding Quinn’s good hand in both of hers and pressing her cheek against Quinn’s forearm. Santana clenched her jaw and turned to leave, pausing only to grab up her purse and entrust the rest of her stuff to her coach.
**
Even though she’d left before them, Rachel and Quinn got there before she did. Santana didn’t even get to properly enjoy Rachel’s beauty of a car, because right when she’d slid into the front seat and tried to press the accelerator she’d remembered why she usually drove in a spare pair of shoes. She’d had to struggle to take her cleats off, and her socks were so slippery with sweat and grass that she’d ended up driving barefoot. Traffic was a bitch and parking was hell, and by the time she got to the hospital she was about ready to throw a tantrum. Rachel had texted her with very specific instructions on how to find her, and she half jogged down the hallways, feet bare and cleats in hand.
When she saw Rachel at the end of a hallway, sitting on a plastic chair with her fingers threaded through her hair and the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes, Santana’s whole body tightened. She ran the last few steps and sank down into the chair next to Rachel, panting. Before she could ask, Rachel looked up, drawing her hands down her cheeks to press both her palms together underneath her chin in a way that made it look like she was trying to pray. The relief in her eyes was unsettling; Santana wasn’t sure she wanted to live in a world where she and Rachel were actually happy to see each other.
“Is my car okay?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Santana said, feeling her world tilt towards normality as she groaned.
“No - well, a little, I suppose.” Rachel’s fingers were shaking where they were pressing into her chin, and Santana’s knee started to bounce.
“What’d they say?”
“I don’t know. Not very much, to me. They said it was a severe break and they weren’t sure if her bone had been shattered.”
“It’s just a broken bone. They can always fix bones. It’s nothing. She’ll be back on her feet in no time.”
“What if it isn’t?” Rachel asked in a whisper. “What if her muscle has been affected, or it clots and she loses the arm-“
“It’s just a bone, Berry,” Santana said forcefully, putting both palms flat on her chair and pushing down on them as though she was about to raise herself out of it. “God, stop being such a drama queen.”
Rachel took that with only a steady inhalation of breath, closing her eyes. Santana looked past her to the desk of receptionists and nurses and uniformed people who looked busy and important, her ears perked for Quinn’s name.
“I broke my arm when I was eight.” Rachel broke the silence, her dark eyes looking at Santana like she was supposed to find great significance in that.
“Well you’re both a pair of clumsy idiots then, aren’t you? If you broke the same arm you’re clearly soul mates.”
“My dads took me to hospital. It hurt, but I walked to the car. Quinn couldn’t. She was…” Rachel’s words faltered. She looked up to the ceiling, her eyes welling with tears and the corners of her lips pinched. It took Santana a good minute to realise that she wasn’t going to continue, and she looked back to the reception desk, digging her fingernails into the bottom of her chair and waiting in silence.
**
When Rachel came out of Quinn’s hospital room her shoulders had dropped and the ease of her smile released the tightness in Santana’s chest.
“She’s okay. You can go in if you like,” Rachel said, glancing down at her watch. “We’re allowed in for another five minutes and seven seconds.”
Santana stood, nodding her relief, her hand alighting on Rachel’s shoulder for the briefest of moments as she passed her. Quinn was sitting up in the bed, her arm in a cast almost up to her shoulder and held up by some complicated contraption, a drip at her other side. “Hey, you,” she said quietly. “How you feeling?”
“Loopy,” Quinn said, with a laugh. “But I don’t hurt.”
“Drugs are awesome,” Santana said, sitting beside her. She was still pale and her eyes were unfocussed, but the lines of pain that had been etched into her forehead had been smoothed out, and Santana let the warmth of Quinn’s skin steady her.
Quinn felt the shakiness of her hand and sighed. “It’s just a broken arm, gosh. You and Rachel, you’re so melodramatic.”
“Q, you…” Santana cleared her throat. “What did the doctor say?”
“Broke it in three places, but I’m ‘lucky’. They didn’t look like they believed me when I told them I could feel my fingers. Look, I can even move ‘em a little bit.” Quinn’s fingers were swollen, but they twitched at the end of her cast. “I think they thought there’d be some lasting nerve damage or something. But there isn’t. I’m fine,” she said, her voice reassuring.
“How long you going to be out for?”
“Six weeks in the cast. Longer ‘til I can play sport again. Rachel says she has a friend who goes to our uni who’s a really good goalie, so she’ll get her to try out for the team and stuff.”
Santana winced, trying not to think about having to meet any of Rachel’s friends and taking a pen out of her purse. “Totally went to buy a Sharpie so I could sign you first.”
Quinn shifted so that the other side of the cast was covered by the fabric of the sling, her hum uncommitted. Santana was too busy trying to get the plastic from the pen to notice, and she signed the top of the cast with a ‘you’re a total klutz, get better soon so I can kick your ass for being an idiot’ and an incongruent heart before her name. Quinn’s eyes had closed, and Santana put her pen back in her bag, watching her for a few seconds before abruptly kissing her forehead. “Scared the crap out of me, Q.”
“Aww, you love me,” Quinn murmured, her eyes fluttering and her lips crooking upwards.
“Shut up. Don’t do it again,” Santana said, flicking her cheek with a nail and lifting her purse from the bottom of Quinn’s bed, soft laughter following her out the door.
Rachel was sitting with her head bowed heavily, nursing a cup of hospital coffee in her hands. The smell alone made Santana wince, and she dropped Rachel’s keys in her lap. “Do you know how long they’re keeping her here for?”
“Just overnight, I believe,” Rachel said, looking to the keys then back up to Santana’s face. Santana didn’t bother to ask if she was staying - it was Rachel, and despite her many and varied flaws, if she could respect anything about her it was that she would sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair outside her girlfriend’s hospital room drinking coffee for as long as it took. “Are you going home?”
“Yeah,” Santana said. “As much as I love hanging out with you, Berry, I’ve got work in four hours.” Her eyes held an apology that belied her words, and Rachel smiled at her in acknowledgement.
“How are you going to get home?”
“I’ll grab a taxi.”
“My car is okay, right, Santana?”
Santana rolled her eyes. “Your car's fine. Save your worry for your clumsy ass of a girlfriend.” She started off down the hallway, then turned. “Totally took her cast-signing virginity as well.”
Rachel’s finger raised and she opened her mouth, but she shook her head and snapped it closed, looking back down to her coffee with a slight smile. “Goodbye, Santana.”
Santana waved mockingly, grinning and swinging her boots by the laces as she walked outside to try and find a taxi.
**
Her coach asked only for the forwards to be at the keeper try-outs, which gave Santana the day off. She made use of the free time to catch up on course readings, sitting at Quinn’s kitchen table, and making crude jokes about what Quinn wasn’t able to do with her fingers that would have been much more fun if Rachel had been there to hear them. Quinn had, unfortunately, known her for too long to rise to obvious bait, but Rachel couldn’t seem to help herself and it was always entertaining to see the way she thrust back her shoulders as though that would make her taller, and to see how high she could make Rachel’s voice go before Quinn kicked her. Santana looked up from her textbook to find Quinn awkwardly trying to handle the knife in her wrong hand. “Can you do that yourself, or do you want me to butter your muffin for you?” Still, that didn’t mean antagonising Quinn wasn’t almost as fun.
Quinn scoffed at her, and Santana grinned, looking back down at her textbook only to stand up a second later with a muffled squeak. “I’ll butter you,” Quinn said with a smirk.
“Did you just - this is my favourite sweater you massive bitch!” Santana picked the cube of butter from her shirt and dropped it on the kitchen floor, wiping at the remnants with a disgusted look on her face.
“Oh, you’d better clean that up,” Quinn told her.
“Why, or your little wife will be mad? You’re so whipped, Q.”
“No, because I have a broken arm and can’t.”
Santana looked at her suspiciously for a moment, but sighed and went to get a cloth. “That excuse totally has a limited shelf life,” Santana told her, throwing the cloth at the sink and groaning when it fell to the floor.
“Gosh, I hope our new keeper’s aim is as good as yours,” Quinn said dryly, ducking as Santana half heartedly went to smack the back of her head on the way to pick up the cloth.
Santana slumped back down into her seat, looking down at her textbook and tapping her pen against the pages. “You’ll still come to all the games, right?” Santana asked nonchalantly, twiddling her pen and looking up at Quinn through her lashes.
“'Course I will,” Quinn said, smiling and kicking lightly at the side of Santana’s shoe. “Got to scope out my competition for when I come back.”
“There won’t be any competition, yo,” Santana said, eyes flashing her relief at the mention of Quinn’s return. “Best sweeper and keeper team ever.” She held her fist out and Quinn laughed and pressed their knuckles together.
“We are awesome.”
“Super awesome.” There was a silence as they grinned at each other, then Santana scratched at the side of her face and looked down, highlighting an entire paragraph industriously. Quinn got up and started to do her dishes, and Santana lifted her head, watching her to make sure she could do the washing up one handed and smiling at her back.
**
Quinn was still on heavy pain medication and couldn’t drive, or else Santana was pretty sure she would’ve come to their first training session just to make sure she didn’t kill the impostor. Rachel had phoned to tell her that it was her friend who had made the team, and acted like Santana was supposed to be happy for her or some shit. She was just hoping that even if the chick was as annoying as Berry, she’d at least be good at what she did. Losing Quinn was bad enough, but having to cover for an incompetent keeper would be hell. She was in a bad mood by the time she got to the pitch, and her coach’s wink and subtle butt-grab as he ‘helped’ her get her bag from her car did little to alleviate it.
“So not even in the mood.”
“Aw, babe, still all mad over Quinn?”
“Don’t even, douche, you know you were as worried as I was,” Santana said, back handing him in the stomach. Puck - their team’s coach since Quinn and Santana had made it on the team in their freshman year - was on again and off again, both as friends and friends with benefits. He’d been the same to Quinn until last year, when Quinn had suddenly turned gay for Rachel Berry. Santana didn’t really understand the whole Quinn deciding she was a lesbo thing. Partially because she’d had threesomes with Puck and Quinn before and Quinn had seemed way more into Puck than she had been into Santana (which was totally insulting) but whatever. She was claiming credit for Quinn’s gay anyway. Rubbing that in Rachel’s face was one of her favourite pastimes.
“You’ll love the replacement chick.”
“She better be damn good, Puck,” Santana said, finishing tying the laces of her soccer boots and shouldering her bag when it became obvious that Puck wasn’t going to offer his help.
“She’s good,” Puck assured her, blowing a kiss to one of her other team mates. Honestly, Santana wasn’t even sure how Puck kept his job. Then again, it wouldn’t really surprise her if he was sleeping with the dean of the university. “Damn good looking, too,” he mused thoughtfully.
“You’re disgusting.”
“You love me.”
“Whatever. Where’s the impostor?”
“Okay, hand it over.”
“Hand what over?” Santana asked, casting her gaze around as she dumped her bag on the ground near the others and took her water bottle out for easy access. She didn’t see any new faces amongst the crowd of girls sitting in groups and chatting.
“The axe. Q told me to take it from you before you tried to kill the new kid.”
The team mates close enough to hear started snickering quietly. Santana kicked a foot out, nudging the arm of the loudest and spilling some of her water. “Bitch,” the girl said, trying to wipe the water off on Santana’s shirt.
“Whatever. I’m not…” Santana trailed off, her arm stopping its flight half way through an attempt to slap her team mate’s hand away. Walking towards them was what could only be described as a teenage boy’s wet dream.
“Meet the new girl,” Puck told the team, smirking. New girl was six feet of blonde toned body, in keeper’s shorts and a (fortunately, oh so fortunately) white shirt that was completely soaked through.
“Sorry, I got a bit lost. There was a river… but there weren’t any boats…” Some of the girls tittered, and Puck was obviously appreciative, but Santana just stared at her blankly. God help them all if this was Quinn’s replacement. She might not have expected a friend of Rachel’s to have a great personality, but she’d at least expected an IQ of over eighty. The girl came up to them, stopping right behind Santana. She might not exactly be intelligent (exactly how she’d managed to get to the other side of that river in the first place was completely baffling), but Santana had a totally awesome view of the underside of her breasts right now.
“Hi guys. I’m Brittany.”
“Santana,” Santana told Brittany’s breasts, leaning back against long legs and hearing a soft giggle as the rest of her team mates introduced themselves.
“I’m totally never going to remember all of those,” Brittany said with a little shrug.
“That’s okay,” Puck said. “Just know that I’m Puck and I’m your coach.” He clapped a hand on Santana’s shoulder, jarring her eyes away from where they’d been resting for the last few moments. “This here is your sweeper.” Santana stood, stepping away from her and looking her over critically. She had the height and the muscle of a good goalie, at least. “Those two are your defenders, and that one there is your right mid, who comes back to defend when we’re playing three-four-four.”
Brittany’s eyes were wide and vacant, and Santana was pretty sure she didn’t understand a word Puck was talking about, but Santana’s scowl softened despite herself. Brittany’s hair was up in a messy bun, and the streak of dirt marring the freckles on her nose was kind of the cutest thing Santana had ever seen.
“Now,” Puck said, hopping up from his squat. “Follow me, ladies!” He took off, and the team scrambled up to follow him, groaning and shucking their sweaters. Puck was actually a damn good coach, which unfortunately meant that fitness was one of his prime targets and everyone on the team hated him for it. They were expected to do a lot of it on their own time, but he pushed them hard, particularly at the beginning of the season to use the advantage against their opponents. They started off on a gentle jog, and Santana spied an opening to grill Brittany and went for it, pulling alongside her.
“Hey,” she said casually.
“Hi!” Brittany furrowed her brows at her. “Santana?” she asked slowly.
“That’s me.”
“Oh, wow.” Brittany skipped the next few steps of her run and punched the air, and Santana’s eyebrows hiked up. Brittany saw her staring and went back to a more sedate jog with an adorable blush and a crinkle of her nose. “I’m so bad at names,” she explained.
“Names are hard,” Santana agreed, getting such a blinding grin in return that her stride nearly faltered. “So, how long have you been playing for?”
“Oh, ages. Always, basically. Mom wanted me to do ballet classes but I thought that if I put on a tutu I’d turn into a hippo, and though hippos are super adorable I was kind of scared of what my friends would think so I took up soccer instead.”
It took Santana a few seconds to scramble from ballet to hippo. “Like in Fantasia?”
“Yeah! Oh, I like you,” Brittany said, doing that half skip half run step again. Santana couldn’t help her smile. “I was really happy when I heard that the keeper spot was open, ‘cause I’ve been stuck coaching kids since I got to college, but then I heard that Rach’s girlfriend broke her arm and that’s why I got to be here and then I was sad. That really hurts. I broke my wrist when I was like, twelve in the shower and-”
“HAUL SOME ASS,” Puck bellowed, and the swarm of girls started to sprint. Santana’s lungs were aching for air within the first few seconds and her muscles burned, but Brittany kept on talking like she wasn’t finding the sprint taxing at all.
“-and I was like, dancing, and I got excited and slipped and it really hurt and the cast thingie was really ugly, even when my little sister put glitter on it, so I felt bad for feeling good about getting in, so like, I’m not going to take over or whatever and I’ll fully step back down when Rachie’s girlfriend gets better and stuff, so don’t worry or anything. Rach said you guys were close and-“
Fucking hell Santana hoped she never had to listen to Rachel and Brittany have a conversation, she’d probably die from word overdose.
“-and I like Rach, she’s the cutest, and she said you’d probably be mean to me, but I’d like it if you liked me.” She finished with a batting of her eyelashes and a hopeful turn to the corner of her lips that was too damned adorable for Santana to shut her down completely.
“You’ve been playing for a while, though?" Santana checked.
“Yep. I’m really good! I mean, I’m awful at a lot of things, but I’m good at dancing, and soccer, and sex…” she paused, thinking, and Santana was glad that Puck called a halt to the run because she very nearly tripped over. “That’s about it,” Brittany said, shrugging again and giving her a blinding smile. Jesus Christ, it was hard to hate someone this adorable, despite the loyalty to Quinn telling her she had to.
“We warm, girls?” Puck asked brightly. Groans answered him as they stretched out. “Excellent. Go grab your gloves after you’ve stretched, Brittany, and we’ll run through some basics.”
They drilled corners, free kicks and goal kicks for an hour, and Brittany was much quicker at picking up tactics than she was at names. She was all over the ball like a rash, and Santana had to admit that the girl was damn good. She had a bit of height on Quinn, which gave her an edge, but Santana thought that Quinn was more aggressive about calling for the ball. Brittany had a real knack for judging when to come out of her box and when to stay back, but they were about the same level when it came to taking penalty shots and it was hard to tell which one of them was the more competent keeper. Santana felt herself relax; she’d been intending to make Brittany’s life hell so that she wouldn’t want to stay when Quinn came back, but Brittany had said that she was willing to step down when Quinn was healthy again. Since Brittany was friends with Rachel it was hard to believe that between the two of them, she and Rachel couldn’t force her to keep her word on that. She bounced around the field like an energizer bunny, with an endless enthusiasm and optimism that Santana knew would be a great asset on the field. Plus, when Santana was tripped close to her, she spent a good few moments looking at her ass before helping her up with a cheerful, “You’re super hot.” Santana wasn’t above ego stroking. Especially from someone as pretty as Brittany.
At the end of their practice they had a scrimmage - three of the defenders and Brittany against the rest of the team. Brittany pulled off some really excellent saves, covering the goal more often than not when Santana and the others couldn’t stop the ball. Santana had successfully managed to work out a way to balance checking Brittany out with paying attention to the game, so when Brittany lunged for the corner of the net and punched the ball away, Santana only kept her eyes on Brittany’s riding shirt, the smooth skin of her abs, and the muscles of her arms for a brief second before she was running headlong into a tackle. Brittany was on the wrong side of the goal so Santana sprinted towards the ball without any intention of stopping. Her team mate dribbled the ball in a zigzag, turning her back to Santana so she couldn’t do her signature slide-tackle-cleats-to-thigh move without being pulled up for it, and tried to dribble it around her.
There was a brief scuffle for the ball, and though they were deadly serious about winning, they were both laughing. Finally Santana managed to get in past the fancy footwork and claw back possession, kicking the ball out of the sidelines. It wasn’t at all pretty, but it was effective, and Puck called the game to a close. Santana turned, still laughing, holding her fist out for Quinn. Brittany’s eyes sparkled back at her; her hair had come loose and her smile was a brilliant white against her flushed cheeks. Santana stared dumbly, her fist still out, but Brittany bypassed it, flinging herself on Santana in a hug.
“Yay! You totally just saved my butt.” Brittany didn’t hug like a normal person - for one thing, Santana couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been hugged by someone, much less someone she’d just met, but when she had they usually hugged with just their torso and left space in between their hips. Brittany hugged with everything she had, pressing Santana against her so that their bodies were flush against each other. It was possibly the first time in her life that Santana had ever wished she was just a little bit shorter.
“Want to go get a celebration-of-how-awesome-we-are drink with me?” It wasn’t the smoothest moment of her life, but Brittany’s smile widened, squeezing her tighter before allowing Santana to step back.
“Awesome, sure. Whereabouts? Can you drive? They took away my licence after I lost the road and started driving on the sidewalk that one time.”
Santana laughed, but Brittany didn’t laugh with her and she stopped, her eyes widening. “Uhm. Really?”
“It was dark,” Brittany shrugged.
“Right. Uhm. Then sure, I’ll drive,” she said, her eyes going past Brittany’s face to see Puck thrusting his hips at her. Douchebag.
Brittany fiddled with the radio on the way to the bar, a habit that usually made Santana threaten Quinn with imminent death because she liked hearing her songs play out in full, but Brittany was humming along and Santana was finding it hard enough just to concentrate on the road instead of the way Brittany’s shoulders were dancing.
Santana led Brittany through the crowd of people watching a baseball game over to the bar, leaning on the edge with her wallet out and waiting for someone to notice her. Her motto in life was that to get served in a busy bar you had to have something out: your tits or your wallet. She usually supplied both, just to cover all her bases.
“So, how do you know Rachel?” Santana asked, biting down on the inside of her cheek to suppress her automatic smirk as Brittany’s eyes dropped to her chest.
“Oh, we’ve been friends since high school! She’s awesome.” Brittany’s nose crinkled up as she smiled, and Santana leant over to rub the dried mud from where it was obscuring her freckles. Brittany’s eyes darkened, her skin flushing under Santana’s thumb. Santana’s knuckles brushed against Brittany’s cheek, her eyes steady on Brittany’s.
“What would you like?” Santana’s fingers started away from Brittany’s face, and she turned back to the bartender, almost dropping her wallet. “Uhm, sorry, gin and tonic for me, and…?” she turned to Brittany, who was smiling warmly at her, her head propped up on her elbow.
“Coke for me.”
“Just a coke?” Santana asked.
“Why would I want anything alcoholic?” Brittany asked. “I like to be sober when I have sex.”
Warmth skittered straight up Santana’s spine, and she leant back from the bar, her eyes on Brittany as she said, “Just… two cokes, please.” She paid for the drinks and she and Brittany sat down at a table. She was pretty sure she contributed something half intelligent to the conversation, but later Santana wouldn’t have been able to tell you a single word of what they’d talked about. She laughed more in that hour than she had in the last week, and talking with Brittany left her with a giddy feeling of warmth in her chest. Brittany tangled their fingers together, tugging lightly.
“So… are we going to have sex tonight, or later?”
Santana had never driven home so fast in her life.
It was only when Santana was looking at the satisfied, sleepy smile on Brittany’s lips as she curled up around her that she realised that she was cuddling. After sex. In her own bed. It was a really bizarre feeling, because this was something she’d always vehemently tried to avoid. She’d never thought that she was the kind of person to enjoy this, and she’d always been fine with that. She’d never felt this weird hope before, like this might develop into something that would mean that she could have this for longer than a night. She gave a small hum of contentment as Brittany’s fingers sifted through her hair, closing her eyes and deciding that maybe the whole Quinn breaking her arm thing wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened, letting the warmth from Brittany’s body seep underneath her skin.