Crowd Surf Off A Cliff (5/13)
Title: Crowd Surf Off A Cliff (5/13)
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany, side Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: R/NC-17ish
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: Santana Lopez hates school, Lima, and those damn Cheerios--for the most part.
A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.
“This is the worst song I have ever heard,” Santana mumbles into the forest-green blanket. She’s on her belly on Quinn’s bed, trying her hardest not to fall asleep while the blonde girl positively inundates her with boring indie music. It is not the way she’d prefer to spend her Saturday.
“Fuck off,” Quinn snaps from the desk chair she’s straddling. “Animal Collective is fucking awesome.”
“They’re whiny bitches,” Santana corrects, thumping her crossed ankles against her friend’s pillow. “Anyway, I don’t think it counts if you’re doing three different versions of obscure rock music. Isn’t the point to, y’know, mix it up a little?”
“Death Cab and Animal Collective are nothing like Metric,” Quinn whines. Santana rolls her eyes.
“Fine, yes, you’re the master of combining whiny bitches. Are we really doing this right now? It’s the goddamn weekend. I’m not down with this homework bullshit.”
“You’re never down with homework,” Quinn notes absently, scrolling through her iTunes and clicking another song. “How about this one? Andrew Bird is classic.”
Santana listens for all of four seconds before burrowing deeper into the mattress. “Is he seriously whistling? People still do that?”
She hears Quinn huff noisily and click the spacebar. The music dies instantly, and Santana sits up.
“We done? We leaving? Come on, Fabray, I’m getting caged here.”
The blonde crosses the room and flops down beside her, hugging a pillow to her chest. “I don’t suppose you’ve got an idea of fun that doesn’t involve beating up a freshman or spray-painting runes into the side of Figgins’ house.”
“You have to admit, that one was good,” Santana recalls wistfully. “I heard him tell Tanaka last week about the coven plotting to turn him into a ferret. Totally brilliant.”
“Yeah, well.” Quinn prods the dark-haired girl in the forehead. “Summer’s over, Lopez. Time to start focusing your energy on non-crime-related concepts.”
“It wasn’t crime,” Santana counters defensively. “Just…a prank. Well, okay, the beating kids up thing might be decidedly crime-like. What with the money swiping part. But the rest of it is harmless delight taken from creativity and…uh…art.”
Quinn snorts. “Whatever, Picasso. I’m not indulging in any art with you tonight.”
“How about some rowdy tequila shots?” Santana suggests, teasingly grasping the blonde by the hips and pulling her in close. “We could get wasted, play a little tonsil hockey, give Puckerman a sweet case of blue balls.”
“Oh my God, that was one time,” Quinn wails, pounding her over the head with the pillow. “You have to let it go someday, bitch.”
“I’m just saying, you want to make Berry jealous, I’m so very here for you.” Santana laughs. “You’re a tight-ass, Fabray, but you also have a tight ass. Sure, I need to be drunk off my gourd to be interested, but who likes the sober life anyway?”
“Fucking. Bitch,” Quinn repeats primly, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. “Just because you’ve got a thing for hot blondes…”
“Off-limits, Fabray,” Santana reminds her coolly, adjusting her belt restlessly. “We’re not going there tonight.”
“But we are going over to Puck’s?” Quinn asks, looking wary. “Even though the last time that boy threw a party, it ended in shattered windows and police lights?”
“Man knows how to jam,” Santana shrugs. She bounces off the bed and rummages under the skirt for her sneakers. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears, but I have to warn you: if it’s anything less wicked than starting a fight club, I’m going to ditch you anyway for booze and beating Puck’s ass at Quarters.”
“You’ve never won Quarters in your life,” Quinn retaliates, locating the missing shoe and chucking it at Santana’s head. “He better have something other than beer and wine coolers. I don’t know who told him I like that shit, but it’s all he ever fucking hands me, and I wind up with the most pitiful little buzz to go off of.”
“I’ve got your back.” Santana reaches into the blonde’s closet, fumbling until she produces a brown leather jacket. “Fucker, I knew you still had this.”
Quinn doesn’t even pretend to look abashed. “You’ll get it back for good when you return my Dark Knight DVD. Tit for tat and all that.”
“I’ll tat your tit,” Santana quips, shrugging into the jacket and adjusting the lapels. “You ready?”
Quinn drives, because it is classier to show up in a four-door than on the handles of Santana’s brother’s bicycle (not by much, given the battered nature of Betty, but it’s extra difficult to balance with a hundred-and-fifteen pound blonde on the handlebars). In less than ten minutes, they are in Puck’s living room, staring with unsurprised wonder at the mohawked young man standing on his coffee table with two large bottle of rum clamped in his broad hands.
“Gentlemen!” he roars. “Sexy babes! Tonight, we drink in Hell! This! Is! Sparta!”
“I fucking hate 300,” Santana remarks casually. Quinn shrugs.
“The queen was hot.”
True enough, but so not the point. “Puckerman! Off the fucking furniture, you animal!”
He grins and leaps back onto the carpet, swaying a little. “Babes! You came, you’re here, you’re in. Want some tequila?”
Quinn lowers her head like she’s going to ram it straight into his chest; Santana’s hands close over the girl’s arms. She raises an eyebrow.
“You’re misquoting shitty action flicks, Puckerone. You really didn’t wait for us before getting toasted beyond reason?”
“Not very gentlemanly,” Quinn adds, breathing deep around her obvious urge to bodyslam their host. He shrugs, unbalancing himself and tipping sideways onto the couch.
“It’s been three hours, bitches. Not my fault you can’t be on time for shit.” He nuzzles sideways into the unlucky girl beside him. “I’m too comfy to move, so you can serve yourselves. If you see any jerkoffs heading into my room, stab ‘em for me, will you?”
“Always,” Santana promises, patting him patronizingly on the head. She spends plenty of time ripping Puck’s manhood a new one (mostly proverbially, although she can’t imagine all the kicks to the junk have done wonders for his sperm count), but when the chips are down and he’s too tanked to move, she’s got his back. Quinn’s on the same page, although the girl’s Christian background still acts as a manacle around her ankle when it comes to the really fun violence. She’s a hundred times more likely to insult one of the aforementioned jerkoff types rather than hit him, but Santana figures that’s okay; it makes for a healthy balance.
They head for the kitchen, Santana happily belting some rocker kid in the stomach when he gets a little too close, and before long, there’s a bottle sweating in her hand. Quinn’s downing some fruity-ass drink (not a wine cooler, Santana notes with a a smirk, but pretty amusingly near), bobbing her head to the truly appalling song blaring from Puck’s iHome. It’s not paradise, but it’s as good as a Saturday night in Lima ever gets. She’s content.
Half an hour later, she’s sitting cross-legged on Puck’s kitchen table, watching Quinn bound her drunk ass around with two rocker chicks and Puck himself, all four of them whooping like children. Amused, Santana watches Puck give an exaggerated bounce and plow his head directly into an open cupboard.
It’s kind of a wonder he’s never been concussed.
She shakes her head, watching Puck clap a hand over the injury as Quinn points and laughs, and thinks that this is just about the only thing she likes about high school. There won’t be many years of her life dedicated to drinking, partying, and having a mindless good time-not unless she’s willing to be branded an alcoholic and start carrying around little plastic chips on her keychain.
“Lopez!” Puck roars, already over his insta-migraine. “More ale, wench!”
“You’re not a fucking pirate,” she reminds him, lips brushing the mouth of her bottle. “And I’m not your goddamn bartender. Figure it out yourself, or start in on the water.”
He deflates for a second, then brightens back up, pointing a wooden spoon like a sword. “If I were a pirate, I’d have you walkin’ the scurvy plank, you scrap of whorish mutton!”
It’s actually a pretty good insult, for him being so far gone. Impressed, Santana good-naturedly flips him the bird and swings her head back with the bottle, practically pouring beer down her throat.
When she looks again, Quinn has picked up a spatula and is dueling with Puck in the center of the small kitchen, her back up against the refrigerator. He spins on black-and-white tile, swiping the air with his sad little weapon and laughing when her socks slip and she nearly goes down.
“You fuckers are going to kill yourselves one day,” Santana comments blithely, thunking the bottle down between her legs and grinning. “And I’m not gonna do a thing to stop it.”
“Well, that’s not very nice,” a husky voice drawls behind her. The grin dying on full lips, Santana’s entire body goes rigid.
Fuck, who invited her?
Reading her mind, Quinn ducks under Puck’s arm and scampers over. “Hey! New Hottie!”
Brittany arches a quizzical eyebrow, and Santana thinks this must look very strange to her: Quinn Fabray, drunk off her ass and wielding a faded blue spatula, Noah Puckerman and the bump under his mohawk shouting in a poorly-rendered pirate accent, and Santana Lopez, half-sober and mocking them both. This is the crock team of misfits responsible for terrorizing McKinley High; it must look pretty damn sad.
“Her name is Brittany,” she mumbles in Quinn’s ear. Her best friend grins.
“Right, yeah, I knew it was a pop star name. How do you know Puck, Brittany?”
The blonde Cheerio shrugs. “I don’t. Mallory wanted to come, so…”
“Mallory’s here?” Puck cuts in, stumbling over and grabbing Brittany by the shoulders. “Mallory Wills? Did she say anything about me?”
Frowning, Brittany glances first at one hand, then the other, clearly uncomfortable. “You’re touching me.”
He doesn’t move. Santana reaches over and belts him across the back with the butt of her bottle.
“Hands off, Puckerman, or I’ll aim lower.”
Releasing the blonde, but stepping closer, he bounces on the balls of his feet. “What did she say? Did she tell you anything? What does she want?”
“Something about riding you until you black out and orgasm your way into an early grave?” No voice has ever been so uncertain. Puck’s eyes about bug out of his head.
“I knew it! I knew she wanted me! Hot fuckin’ damn, Lopez, I’m getting’ laid tonight!”
He rushes from the room, smoothing his mohawk as he goes. Leaning forward on the table, Santana shouts after him, “You pick up any diseases, they are your goddamn problem, Puckzilla. Fuck a dog, deal with the consequences!”
Brittany peers at her with wounded eyes, and something twitches in Santana’s stomach. “Sorry,” she adds in a mumble. Quinn, completely oblivious, rests an arm on her shoulder and continues to stare at the Cheerio.
“You really are pretty hot,” she says conversationally, like this is something she points out to arbitrary girls every night. “I mean, you’re not my type. Not really. Blonde chicks, tall chicks, I don’t really…I mean, even if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because I have someone. Well, sort of. Not in the official, technical, ‘she knows about it’ kind of way, but still. She’s there. And she is smokin’. Like a bomb. That has gone off already. A sexbomb. Although, truthfully, I don’t think she’s ever had sex.” Hazel eyes widen. “God, I hope she hasn’t had sex. Who would she have sex with? Finn? Fuck, I’m gonna kill that overgrown manchild. I’m gonna scalp the spike right out of his hair.” She turns to Santana, mouth set in a grim line. “Is he here?”
“Fabray,” Santana cuts in gently. “Go sit. Somewhere. Somewhere not here.”
The blonde brightens. “Can I think about Rachel?”
“To your disgusting little heart’s content,” Santana drawls. “But if I hear you’ve got your hand down your pants out there, I am cutting it off, got me?”
Ever the over-cheerful drunk, Quinn prances away, leaving Santana with the one girl she just cannot handle. The Latina fidgets, plunking her feet down on the nearest chair and leaning back.
“So. You’re here.”
“Seems that way,” Brittany agrees. Santana is surprised-and a little aroused-to see the girl in something other than cheerleading-speckled attire. Her jeans are dark and her halter is purple under a nice jacket. It’s nothing Santana hasn’t seen on a million other girls, but it’s making her head feel fuzzy all the same. She swallows another mouthful of beer.
“Why are you here?” she asks when her throat clears again. Brittany steps closer, resting her hip against the table, and runs a hand through her hair. This is the first time, Santana realizes, she’s seen that hair loose, flowing around the girl’s shoulders in thick waves. She’s never comprehended the sheer travesty of the ponytail before this moment; another reason to destroy the soulless automaton that is Sue Sylvester.
“Why?” she presses again, because Brittany still hasn’t replied, choosing instead to meet Santana’s gaze defiantly.
“You hang out with Puck,” the blonde comments at last, neither a question nor an explanation-not really. Because there is just no sense in believing this girl came to a party just because Santana is known to kick the guy throwing it in the gnads from time to time.
Right?
“Yeah, I hang out with Puck,” she says, calm as she can manage with her nails digging into the soft skin of her forearm. “What’s your point?”
Brittany shrugs, inching even closer and shifting until each hand is pressed against the table, brushing Santana’s upper thighs in the process. She leans forward, smiling.
“He’s your friend. Him and the drunk girl, the one who called me hot. They’re your friends.” Santana’s beginning to wonder if this girl is truly as sober as she seems, because she’s going in the same crazy circles Quinn was rambling over a few minutes ago. Plus, if she keeps leaning forward like this, Santana’s not going to be able to keep her hands where they need to be short of actually sitting on them.
“You are beginning to sincerely damage my calm,” she opts to remark instead of grabbing the blonde by the back of the neck and hauling her in. “Get to the fucking point.”
“You have friends,” the girl whispers, like it's a secret, nudging Santana’s ear with her nose, lips grazing skin. The Latina is simultaneously struck with the urge to laugh and scream.
“Like I said the other day,” she grinds out, teeth gritted around the desire to clamp down on the blonde’s pouting bottom lip. “The friends I’ve got are kind of bitches. Or did you miss the way Puck bolted out of here to shove his dick into your Satan-squadmate? Believe me, he won’t be calling her bruised ass in the morning.”
Brittany arches her head back, baring her neck dangerously close to Santana’s lips, and smiles triumphantly. “Doesn’t matter. You have friends, and you hang out with them in school, and get drunk with them on Saturday nights. You’re not so special, you know that? You’re not so different.”
Something cold drops into Santana’s stomach, something strangely akin to nausea. She shakes her head. “Fine, I hang out, I get drunk, I laugh at those nearest and dearest to me when they make massively poor life choices. I also punched a kid until he spat two bloody teeth out from the roots on Wednesday. I also keyed the shit out of my Biology teacher’s car in retaliation for looking down my shirt in class. I also tagged ‘Die Cheerio slutbags’ across the cafeteria window. You can pick and choose the things I do with my time all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I do them all. And I’m still not interested in wasting your time.”
Brittany watches her almost sadly, unmoving. “Who says it’s time wasted?”
“Ask your little friends,” Santana snipes, too bitterly. She can’t figure out when she started caring this much-or why-but that isn’t the part that bothers her. It’s more the fact that she can’t stop showing this girl exactly how easily she’s gotten under the Latina’s skin that makes irrational rage well up in pulsing waves. People don’t do this, not to Santana, not since she learned to shut off impulsive interests like this in the sixth grade. Feeling it all again now, on top of all the people telling her exactly what she (apparently) needs to get by, is just too fucking much. She can’t take it. Sooner or later, she’s going to explode.
But for now, she is just drunk enough to be mouthy, not enough to be sloppy, and she knows the explosion can wait.
“They aren’t my friends,” Brittany reminds her, thumbs skimming the seams of her jeans. “You are.”
“I’m not your fucking friend!” Santana growls. “How many goddamn times do we have to go through this? Watching me in gym class like a stalker does not make you my friend. Keeping tabs on who I talk to instead of beat the crap out of does not make you my friend. Following me to my friend’s party just to egg me on into something I cannot handle doing does not make you-“
“What can’t you handle doing?” Brittany interrupts curiously, tilting her head like an errant puppy seeking absolution for a chewed slipper. Santana’s teeth clutch her tongue in a sudden death grip.
Okay, maybe a little drunker than I thought.
“Nothing,” she mumbles. “Forget it.”
She moves to slide off the table, which turns out to be just about the worst move in the history of life’s giant chessboard, because her feet aren’t even on the ground by the time she realizes she is completely within Brittany’s personal bubble. Or Brittany is in hers. Either way, they are eye to eye (or, as Brittany’s pretty tall, eye to chin), an inch from touching, Brittany’s arms pinning her against the soft wood. The blonde lowers her chin, sets her mouth.
If Santana doesn’t move now, she will kiss her.
Check-fucking-mate.
Clutching the last remaining vestige of reason she’s got left, she bumps one arm out of the way and slips under, reversing their positions.
“Stop following me,” she snaps, sucking in a heavy breath. “Stop doing whatever the hell you think you’re doing. It’s not worth it, I swear to you, and I do not have the energy for it.”
“I don’t take that much energy,” Brittany tries, doing her best to step back into Santana’s bubble. The Latina backs off, hands raised.
“Whatever you take, I don’t have to give,” she says softly. “I don’t know what the hell you want from me, girly, but there are far better people to ask. I’m really not up for breaking you, not now, not ever.”
“You care,” Brittany observes softly, moving forward carefully, as if zeroing in on a wounded bird.
“I don’t,” Santana denies, all too aware of the miniature size of the Puckerman kitchen. Three more steps, and Brittany will have backed her into yet another corner.
“You wouldn’t tell me to keep away if you didn’t,” the blonde observes in a murmur. Santana aches to reach out, to grasp her by the lapels of that jacket and shake her until whatever this thing is between them shudders and burns out.
“It’s my good fuckin’ deed for the year,” she snaps, pivoting towards the door. “You’re sweet, Brittany. You’re different. It didn't take me ten seconds to see it. You are the opposite of everything I hate in Sylvester’s minions, and that instills a sort of…obligation to keep you safe. I don’t know why, I don’t really care what the reason is. I just know that you need to back the hell off. For real. For good. I’m serious.”
“It’s not your job to protect me,” Brittany says resolutely.
“It’s not your job to save me,” Santana counters. “But here you fucking are.”
“You want me here,” Brittany claims, lifting her chin regally. “You do. No one pushes this hard unless they want to pull instead.”
She can’t see the logic behind it-suspects, in fact, that there is no logic-and shakes her head.
“I have to go,” she mutters helplessly. “I’m drunk, and you’re pretty, and I…”
Blue eyes light up for the first time in long, stunning minutes. “You think I’m pretty?” Brittany asks, wonder painting her voice. Santana feels like smacking herself.
“I have to go,” she says again, turning on her heel and fairly running for the door.
She’s three blocks away before she realizes she has forgotten Quinn.
The bitch will have to deal.
[Part 6]
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany, side Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: R/NC-17ish
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: Santana Lopez hates school, Lima, and those damn Cheerios--for the most part.
A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton song of the same name.
“This is the worst song I have ever heard,” Santana mumbles into the forest-green blanket. She’s on her belly on Quinn’s bed, trying her hardest not to fall asleep while the blonde girl positively inundates her with boring indie music. It is not the way she’d prefer to spend her Saturday.
“Fuck off,” Quinn snaps from the desk chair she’s straddling. “Animal Collective is fucking awesome.”
“They’re whiny bitches,” Santana corrects, thumping her crossed ankles against her friend’s pillow. “Anyway, I don’t think it counts if you’re doing three different versions of obscure rock music. Isn’t the point to, y’know, mix it up a little?”
“Death Cab and Animal Collective are nothing like Metric,” Quinn whines. Santana rolls her eyes.
“Fine, yes, you’re the master of combining whiny bitches. Are we really doing this right now? It’s the goddamn weekend. I’m not down with this homework bullshit.”
“You’re never down with homework,” Quinn notes absently, scrolling through her iTunes and clicking another song. “How about this one? Andrew Bird is classic.”
Santana listens for all of four seconds before burrowing deeper into the mattress. “Is he seriously whistling? People still do that?”
She hears Quinn huff noisily and click the spacebar. The music dies instantly, and Santana sits up.
“We done? We leaving? Come on, Fabray, I’m getting caged here.”
The blonde crosses the room and flops down beside her, hugging a pillow to her chest. “I don’t suppose you’ve got an idea of fun that doesn’t involve beating up a freshman or spray-painting runes into the side of Figgins’ house.”
“You have to admit, that one was good,” Santana recalls wistfully. “I heard him tell Tanaka last week about the coven plotting to turn him into a ferret. Totally brilliant.”
“Yeah, well.” Quinn prods the dark-haired girl in the forehead. “Summer’s over, Lopez. Time to start focusing your energy on non-crime-related concepts.”
“It wasn’t crime,” Santana counters defensively. “Just…a prank. Well, okay, the beating kids up thing might be decidedly crime-like. What with the money swiping part. But the rest of it is harmless delight taken from creativity and…uh…art.”
Quinn snorts. “Whatever, Picasso. I’m not indulging in any art with you tonight.”
“How about some rowdy tequila shots?” Santana suggests, teasingly grasping the blonde by the hips and pulling her in close. “We could get wasted, play a little tonsil hockey, give Puckerman a sweet case of blue balls.”
“Oh my God, that was one time,” Quinn wails, pounding her over the head with the pillow. “You have to let it go someday, bitch.”
“I’m just saying, you want to make Berry jealous, I’m so very here for you.” Santana laughs. “You’re a tight-ass, Fabray, but you also have a tight ass. Sure, I need to be drunk off my gourd to be interested, but who likes the sober life anyway?”
“Fucking. Bitch,” Quinn repeats primly, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. “Just because you’ve got a thing for hot blondes…”
“Off-limits, Fabray,” Santana reminds her coolly, adjusting her belt restlessly. “We’re not going there tonight.”
“But we are going over to Puck’s?” Quinn asks, looking wary. “Even though the last time that boy threw a party, it ended in shattered windows and police lights?”
“Man knows how to jam,” Santana shrugs. She bounces off the bed and rummages under the skirt for her sneakers. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears, but I have to warn you: if it’s anything less wicked than starting a fight club, I’m going to ditch you anyway for booze and beating Puck’s ass at Quarters.”
“You’ve never won Quarters in your life,” Quinn retaliates, locating the missing shoe and chucking it at Santana’s head. “He better have something other than beer and wine coolers. I don’t know who told him I like that shit, but it’s all he ever fucking hands me, and I wind up with the most pitiful little buzz to go off of.”
“I’ve got your back.” Santana reaches into the blonde’s closet, fumbling until she produces a brown leather jacket. “Fucker, I knew you still had this.”
Quinn doesn’t even pretend to look abashed. “You’ll get it back for good when you return my Dark Knight DVD. Tit for tat and all that.”
“I’ll tat your tit,” Santana quips, shrugging into the jacket and adjusting the lapels. “You ready?”
Quinn drives, because it is classier to show up in a four-door than on the handles of Santana’s brother’s bicycle (not by much, given the battered nature of Betty, but it’s extra difficult to balance with a hundred-and-fifteen pound blonde on the handlebars). In less than ten minutes, they are in Puck’s living room, staring with unsurprised wonder at the mohawked young man standing on his coffee table with two large bottle of rum clamped in his broad hands.
“Gentlemen!” he roars. “Sexy babes! Tonight, we drink in Hell! This! Is! Sparta!”
“I fucking hate 300,” Santana remarks casually. Quinn shrugs.
“The queen was hot.”
True enough, but so not the point. “Puckerman! Off the fucking furniture, you animal!”
He grins and leaps back onto the carpet, swaying a little. “Babes! You came, you’re here, you’re in. Want some tequila?”
Quinn lowers her head like she’s going to ram it straight into his chest; Santana’s hands close over the girl’s arms. She raises an eyebrow.
“You’re misquoting shitty action flicks, Puckerone. You really didn’t wait for us before getting toasted beyond reason?”
“Not very gentlemanly,” Quinn adds, breathing deep around her obvious urge to bodyslam their host. He shrugs, unbalancing himself and tipping sideways onto the couch.
“It’s been three hours, bitches. Not my fault you can’t be on time for shit.” He nuzzles sideways into the unlucky girl beside him. “I’m too comfy to move, so you can serve yourselves. If you see any jerkoffs heading into my room, stab ‘em for me, will you?”
“Always,” Santana promises, patting him patronizingly on the head. She spends plenty of time ripping Puck’s manhood a new one (mostly proverbially, although she can’t imagine all the kicks to the junk have done wonders for his sperm count), but when the chips are down and he’s too tanked to move, she’s got his back. Quinn’s on the same page, although the girl’s Christian background still acts as a manacle around her ankle when it comes to the really fun violence. She’s a hundred times more likely to insult one of the aforementioned jerkoff types rather than hit him, but Santana figures that’s okay; it makes for a healthy balance.
They head for the kitchen, Santana happily belting some rocker kid in the stomach when he gets a little too close, and before long, there’s a bottle sweating in her hand. Quinn’s downing some fruity-ass drink (not a wine cooler, Santana notes with a a smirk, but pretty amusingly near), bobbing her head to the truly appalling song blaring from Puck’s iHome. It’s not paradise, but it’s as good as a Saturday night in Lima ever gets. She’s content.
Half an hour later, she’s sitting cross-legged on Puck’s kitchen table, watching Quinn bound her drunk ass around with two rocker chicks and Puck himself, all four of them whooping like children. Amused, Santana watches Puck give an exaggerated bounce and plow his head directly into an open cupboard.
It’s kind of a wonder he’s never been concussed.
She shakes her head, watching Puck clap a hand over the injury as Quinn points and laughs, and thinks that this is just about the only thing she likes about high school. There won’t be many years of her life dedicated to drinking, partying, and having a mindless good time-not unless she’s willing to be branded an alcoholic and start carrying around little plastic chips on her keychain.
“Lopez!” Puck roars, already over his insta-migraine. “More ale, wench!”
“You’re not a fucking pirate,” she reminds him, lips brushing the mouth of her bottle. “And I’m not your goddamn bartender. Figure it out yourself, or start in on the water.”
He deflates for a second, then brightens back up, pointing a wooden spoon like a sword. “If I were a pirate, I’d have you walkin’ the scurvy plank, you scrap of whorish mutton!”
It’s actually a pretty good insult, for him being so far gone. Impressed, Santana good-naturedly flips him the bird and swings her head back with the bottle, practically pouring beer down her throat.
When she looks again, Quinn has picked up a spatula and is dueling with Puck in the center of the small kitchen, her back up against the refrigerator. He spins on black-and-white tile, swiping the air with his sad little weapon and laughing when her socks slip and she nearly goes down.
“You fuckers are going to kill yourselves one day,” Santana comments blithely, thunking the bottle down between her legs and grinning. “And I’m not gonna do a thing to stop it.”
“Well, that’s not very nice,” a husky voice drawls behind her. The grin dying on full lips, Santana’s entire body goes rigid.
Fuck, who invited her?
Reading her mind, Quinn ducks under Puck’s arm and scampers over. “Hey! New Hottie!”
Brittany arches a quizzical eyebrow, and Santana thinks this must look very strange to her: Quinn Fabray, drunk off her ass and wielding a faded blue spatula, Noah Puckerman and the bump under his mohawk shouting in a poorly-rendered pirate accent, and Santana Lopez, half-sober and mocking them both. This is the crock team of misfits responsible for terrorizing McKinley High; it must look pretty damn sad.
“Her name is Brittany,” she mumbles in Quinn’s ear. Her best friend grins.
“Right, yeah, I knew it was a pop star name. How do you know Puck, Brittany?”
The blonde Cheerio shrugs. “I don’t. Mallory wanted to come, so…”
“Mallory’s here?” Puck cuts in, stumbling over and grabbing Brittany by the shoulders. “Mallory Wills? Did she say anything about me?”
Frowning, Brittany glances first at one hand, then the other, clearly uncomfortable. “You’re touching me.”
He doesn’t move. Santana reaches over and belts him across the back with the butt of her bottle.
“Hands off, Puckerman, or I’ll aim lower.”
Releasing the blonde, but stepping closer, he bounces on the balls of his feet. “What did she say? Did she tell you anything? What does she want?”
“Something about riding you until you black out and orgasm your way into an early grave?” No voice has ever been so uncertain. Puck’s eyes about bug out of his head.
“I knew it! I knew she wanted me! Hot fuckin’ damn, Lopez, I’m getting’ laid tonight!”
He rushes from the room, smoothing his mohawk as he goes. Leaning forward on the table, Santana shouts after him, “You pick up any diseases, they are your goddamn problem, Puckzilla. Fuck a dog, deal with the consequences!”
Brittany peers at her with wounded eyes, and something twitches in Santana’s stomach. “Sorry,” she adds in a mumble. Quinn, completely oblivious, rests an arm on her shoulder and continues to stare at the Cheerio.
“You really are pretty hot,” she says conversationally, like this is something she points out to arbitrary girls every night. “I mean, you’re not my type. Not really. Blonde chicks, tall chicks, I don’t really…I mean, even if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because I have someone. Well, sort of. Not in the official, technical, ‘she knows about it’ kind of way, but still. She’s there. And she is smokin’. Like a bomb. That has gone off already. A sexbomb. Although, truthfully, I don’t think she’s ever had sex.” Hazel eyes widen. “God, I hope she hasn’t had sex. Who would she have sex with? Finn? Fuck, I’m gonna kill that overgrown manchild. I’m gonna scalp the spike right out of his hair.” She turns to Santana, mouth set in a grim line. “Is he here?”
“Fabray,” Santana cuts in gently. “Go sit. Somewhere. Somewhere not here.”
The blonde brightens. “Can I think about Rachel?”
“To your disgusting little heart’s content,” Santana drawls. “But if I hear you’ve got your hand down your pants out there, I am cutting it off, got me?”
Ever the over-cheerful drunk, Quinn prances away, leaving Santana with the one girl she just cannot handle. The Latina fidgets, plunking her feet down on the nearest chair and leaning back.
“So. You’re here.”
“Seems that way,” Brittany agrees. Santana is surprised-and a little aroused-to see the girl in something other than cheerleading-speckled attire. Her jeans are dark and her halter is purple under a nice jacket. It’s nothing Santana hasn’t seen on a million other girls, but it’s making her head feel fuzzy all the same. She swallows another mouthful of beer.
“Why are you here?” she asks when her throat clears again. Brittany steps closer, resting her hip against the table, and runs a hand through her hair. This is the first time, Santana realizes, she’s seen that hair loose, flowing around the girl’s shoulders in thick waves. She’s never comprehended the sheer travesty of the ponytail before this moment; another reason to destroy the soulless automaton that is Sue Sylvester.
“Why?” she presses again, because Brittany still hasn’t replied, choosing instead to meet Santana’s gaze defiantly.
“You hang out with Puck,” the blonde comments at last, neither a question nor an explanation-not really. Because there is just no sense in believing this girl came to a party just because Santana is known to kick the guy throwing it in the gnads from time to time.
Right?
“Yeah, I hang out with Puck,” she says, calm as she can manage with her nails digging into the soft skin of her forearm. “What’s your point?”
Brittany shrugs, inching even closer and shifting until each hand is pressed against the table, brushing Santana’s upper thighs in the process. She leans forward, smiling.
“He’s your friend. Him and the drunk girl, the one who called me hot. They’re your friends.” Santana’s beginning to wonder if this girl is truly as sober as she seems, because she’s going in the same crazy circles Quinn was rambling over a few minutes ago. Plus, if she keeps leaning forward like this, Santana’s not going to be able to keep her hands where they need to be short of actually sitting on them.
“You are beginning to sincerely damage my calm,” she opts to remark instead of grabbing the blonde by the back of the neck and hauling her in. “Get to the fucking point.”
“You have friends,” the girl whispers, like it's a secret, nudging Santana’s ear with her nose, lips grazing skin. The Latina is simultaneously struck with the urge to laugh and scream.
“Like I said the other day,” she grinds out, teeth gritted around the desire to clamp down on the blonde’s pouting bottom lip. “The friends I’ve got are kind of bitches. Or did you miss the way Puck bolted out of here to shove his dick into your Satan-squadmate? Believe me, he won’t be calling her bruised ass in the morning.”
Brittany arches her head back, baring her neck dangerously close to Santana’s lips, and smiles triumphantly. “Doesn’t matter. You have friends, and you hang out with them in school, and get drunk with them on Saturday nights. You’re not so special, you know that? You’re not so different.”
Something cold drops into Santana’s stomach, something strangely akin to nausea. She shakes her head. “Fine, I hang out, I get drunk, I laugh at those nearest and dearest to me when they make massively poor life choices. I also punched a kid until he spat two bloody teeth out from the roots on Wednesday. I also keyed the shit out of my Biology teacher’s car in retaliation for looking down my shirt in class. I also tagged ‘Die Cheerio slutbags’ across the cafeteria window. You can pick and choose the things I do with my time all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I do them all. And I’m still not interested in wasting your time.”
Brittany watches her almost sadly, unmoving. “Who says it’s time wasted?”
“Ask your little friends,” Santana snipes, too bitterly. She can’t figure out when she started caring this much-or why-but that isn’t the part that bothers her. It’s more the fact that she can’t stop showing this girl exactly how easily she’s gotten under the Latina’s skin that makes irrational rage well up in pulsing waves. People don’t do this, not to Santana, not since she learned to shut off impulsive interests like this in the sixth grade. Feeling it all again now, on top of all the people telling her exactly what she (apparently) needs to get by, is just too fucking much. She can’t take it. Sooner or later, she’s going to explode.
But for now, she is just drunk enough to be mouthy, not enough to be sloppy, and she knows the explosion can wait.
“They aren’t my friends,” Brittany reminds her, thumbs skimming the seams of her jeans. “You are.”
“I’m not your fucking friend!” Santana growls. “How many goddamn times do we have to go through this? Watching me in gym class like a stalker does not make you my friend. Keeping tabs on who I talk to instead of beat the crap out of does not make you my friend. Following me to my friend’s party just to egg me on into something I cannot handle doing does not make you-“
“What can’t you handle doing?” Brittany interrupts curiously, tilting her head like an errant puppy seeking absolution for a chewed slipper. Santana’s teeth clutch her tongue in a sudden death grip.
Okay, maybe a little drunker than I thought.
“Nothing,” she mumbles. “Forget it.”
She moves to slide off the table, which turns out to be just about the worst move in the history of life’s giant chessboard, because her feet aren’t even on the ground by the time she realizes she is completely within Brittany’s personal bubble. Or Brittany is in hers. Either way, they are eye to eye (or, as Brittany’s pretty tall, eye to chin), an inch from touching, Brittany’s arms pinning her against the soft wood. The blonde lowers her chin, sets her mouth.
If Santana doesn’t move now, she will kiss her.
Check-fucking-mate.
Clutching the last remaining vestige of reason she’s got left, she bumps one arm out of the way and slips under, reversing their positions.
“Stop following me,” she snaps, sucking in a heavy breath. “Stop doing whatever the hell you think you’re doing. It’s not worth it, I swear to you, and I do not have the energy for it.”
“I don’t take that much energy,” Brittany tries, doing her best to step back into Santana’s bubble. The Latina backs off, hands raised.
“Whatever you take, I don’t have to give,” she says softly. “I don’t know what the hell you want from me, girly, but there are far better people to ask. I’m really not up for breaking you, not now, not ever.”
“You care,” Brittany observes softly, moving forward carefully, as if zeroing in on a wounded bird.
“I don’t,” Santana denies, all too aware of the miniature size of the Puckerman kitchen. Three more steps, and Brittany will have backed her into yet another corner.
“You wouldn’t tell me to keep away if you didn’t,” the blonde observes in a murmur. Santana aches to reach out, to grasp her by the lapels of that jacket and shake her until whatever this thing is between them shudders and burns out.
“It’s my good fuckin’ deed for the year,” she snaps, pivoting towards the door. “You’re sweet, Brittany. You’re different. It didn't take me ten seconds to see it. You are the opposite of everything I hate in Sylvester’s minions, and that instills a sort of…obligation to keep you safe. I don’t know why, I don’t really care what the reason is. I just know that you need to back the hell off. For real. For good. I’m serious.”
“It’s not your job to protect me,” Brittany says resolutely.
“It’s not your job to save me,” Santana counters. “But here you fucking are.”
“You want me here,” Brittany claims, lifting her chin regally. “You do. No one pushes this hard unless they want to pull instead.”
She can’t see the logic behind it-suspects, in fact, that there is no logic-and shakes her head.
“I have to go,” she mutters helplessly. “I’m drunk, and you’re pretty, and I…”
Blue eyes light up for the first time in long, stunning minutes. “You think I’m pretty?” Brittany asks, wonder painting her voice. Santana feels like smacking herself.
“I have to go,” she says again, turning on her heel and fairly running for the door.
She’s three blocks away before she realizes she has forgotten Quinn.
The bitch will have to deal.
[Part 6]