Crowd Surf Off A Cliff (8/13)
Title: Crowd Surf Off A Cliff (8/?)
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.
The semester continues to crawl by. After Santana’s little display of dominance in Glee, things have mellowed out a bit at meetings. Schuester stops looking at her with unbridled joy and starts watching his step. The rest of the kids mostly tune her out, save for Puck, who doesn’t give a shit how she handles herself, and Quinn, who seemed kind of pissed at first but got over it the way she always does. It helps that Rachel splits her time evenly now between flailing over Quinn’s voice (and her instrumental talent; the minute Berry realized she had a personal guitarist at her disposal, everything got that much more annoying for the rest of them) and scowling at the side of Santana’s head. The more attention she gets, the less Quinn seems to worry about Santana single-handedly obstructing Glee’s path.
Brittany is still creeping cautiously around her, and Santana can sense that little problem is far from over, but the girl has stopped trying to stick various body parts in the Latina’s lap. She guesses that’s a good thing, but every once in a while, Brittany will brush just a hair too close and Santana’s skin will vibrate like the shoddy motor in Quinn’s piece of shit car.
She still hasn’t opened her mouth to sing, but she dances when they do group numbers, mainly because dancing is a great way to keep in shape and keep near her Cheerio stalker without letting the girl know she’s doing so on purpose. It’s a dangerous little game she’s playing, verbally pushing the blonde away while physically tucking her near, but she’s got a handle on it. She’s Santana motherfucking Lopez. Of course she’s got this.
Mostly.
“You’re playing with fire,” Quinn reminds her after the fourth consecutive “accidental” trip into Brittany’s back. “You’re, like, throwing the fire around with a pair of flame-retardant gloves. Eventually, the no-flamey characteristics are going to wear off.”
“It’s fine,” Santana snaps, relishing the memory of Brittany’s body molded to her front. “She’s not too bright; I doubt she gets it.”
“She joined Glee for you,” Quinn retorts disbelievingly. “And she’s gone almost a month without Sylvester and her bitches catching on and giving her a Slushee bath. She’s not an idiot, Lopez.”
Okay, so maybe there’s a point there.
“Whatever,” she says anyway, because she’s not really up for giving Quinn anything to gloat about right now. The girl’s unbearable enough lately, what with all the attention she’s been getting from their resident midget. Santana’s happy for her, in her own way, but if she has to hear one more time about the exact angle at which Rachel’s hand dusted across Quinn’s bicep during practice, she’s going to bury her fist in some material not meant to be struck.
Like concrete.
Or Quinn’s ovaries.
That could be kind of fun.
“Why are you screwing around like this anyway?” the blonde demands, rifling through her locker in search of one long-lost study guide or another. “She’s been leaving you alone. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Santana shrugs. The truth is, ever since Brittany stopped mooning around after her, it’s gotten harder and harder to feign disinterest around the girl. It’s one of those stupid things that Santana does sometimes, where she wants what she can’t have, what she knows she can’t handle, and she’s pretty sure she only wants it because it is the exact thing that will turn her into a cowering mess on the sidewalk. Brittany is so very obviously that thing, because even with all the energy she’s put into pushing her away, Santana still can’t breathe correctly unless the blonde is within eyeshot.
She doesn’t know when that started, but she suspects it had something to do with that night in Puck’s kitchen.
It’s stupid, and it’s making her feel crazier than usual, but she can’t do anything about it. Not if she wants the girl to remain safe-although, whether she’s protecting her from the other Cheerios or from her own issues, Santana’s long past saying. She prefers to imagine it’s all about Sylvester’s bitches, because the second they get wind of Brittany’s (rather obvious) obsession with making Santana a better person (or a happier one; she’s not sure there’s a distinction), they’ll go off on her like a school of tiny scowling grenades.
The fact that they’ve been collectively silent about the Glee thing makes Santana even more certain that something big is coming. They’ve never been this quiet for this long, not where she’s concerned; by this time last year, they’d slashed Quinn’s tires for parking in a designated Cheerio spot, shoved Santana down a short flight of stairs (and then threatened an all-too-real lawsuit when she caught up with the perpetrator and held her head dangerously near a shop class saw blade), and introduced Puck’s system to a whole host of STDs.
That part, she reflects with some amusement, was entirely his own fault.
The thing is, this hatred she feels for those swishing red skirts? It’s not exactly what one would call unfounded. She’s sorry that it makes Brittany’s nose crinkle unhappily, and that it’s an emotion with the power to send her own self into a crippling state of self-doubt, but overall? They’re bitches. Bitches get what’s coming to them. Even if it’s entirely karmic and entirely due to the force of Santana’s loathing.
(It won’t be, if she has anything to say about it. The moment one of them crosses her for real this year-or, worse, crosses Brittany because of her-she’s determined to crush them utterly. For good.)
She’s keeping her head down for the sake of all of this, for the sake of some girl she doesn’t even have a reason to be interested in (aside from the obvious, but honestly, she’s got some standards; it takes more than a pretty smile and a spectacular ass to rope in this particular Lopez), and it’s making her crazy. With each day that slips into history, she forgets a little more why she’s really doing this to begin with.
And then Puck does something to piss her off, or she catches herself with a freshman’s throat under her clenching fingertips, and she remembers. The thing about being a Lopez-about being this Lopez, in particular-is, she’s a fucking mess. Dangerous. Forget the commitment issues (a parade all on their own), and forget the gasping black hole that is the fear she will never leave this town, never rise about the fuming aggression and bullying tendencies, never amount to anything better than a grocery store clerk with a few cats. Forget all of that. She’s a Lopez, and if there’s one thing she’s learned about that unlucky biological condition over the years, it’s that Lopezes kind of suck at protecting the people they love. Specifically from themselves.
She’s seen the way her older brother’s teeth and fists grit when he’s near his girlfriend on a bad day. She’s seen the bruises left on her aunt, the product of fury uncontrolled. And of course, she’s heard the splitting sound of tears late at night, when her mother thinks the house is comatose. The sounds of prayers left unanswered, of ‘why me’ and ‘why us’ floating directionlessly on chilled night air. The sounds of a woman battered and abandoned.
Santana is not a good person. It’s not in her genetics to be good. She’s not sure she could be if she tried, and so she never has. People like Quinn and Puck accept her this way because, frankly, they’re pretty fucked up too. Puck’s got all those immeasurable hours waiting up for a father who never came home-not sober, at least-and Quinn’s tribulations with her overbearing God stretch on for miles in every direction. They all kind of suck at this growing up thing, and it’s made for a surprisingly hefty bond.
Brittany, she’s not like them. Not even a little bit, and Santana knows that’s why she’s so drawn to the blonde in the first place. She can see it in her eyes, in her skin, in the way she carries herself when she walks: Brittany isn’t damaged. She’s whole, and she’s beautiful, and she shines in a way Santana can’t recall seeing in anyone before. It isn’t that she’s unlikely to accept Santana and all her broken, torn baggage-it’s that she’s likely to get sucked in. Maybe more likely than anyone Santana has ever met, including the likes of Will Schuester, with his desperate need to mentor every wayward student who crosses his path, and Emma Pillsbury, who has probably read Santana’s file no fewer than fifty times over the years. Brittany, with her stubborn attitude and endless optimism, likes her, and that is more dangerous than anything, because people who like Santana don’t stay happy for long. Not if they started out that way.
Quinn and Puck, they’ve never been happy. Brittany is. Santana doesn’t even have to know her to see it, to smell it on the air when the girl walks into the room.
She can’t break that. She won’t.
She would say this all aloud, would arrange the words on a platter and present them to Quinn-or, even, to Brittany herself-if she thought it would make a difference. But it won’t. They’ll only look at her the way she grimly regards herself in the mirror each morning: curious, pitying, frustrated. Wishing she could just punch free of her family’s mistakes and join the ranks of the normal and well-adjusted.
Her mother already looks at her that way every day. Santana can’t take disappointing anyone else.
But holy God, is it hard to remember all of this when Brittany is dancing three feet away, all hips and hair and searing little-girl grins. It’s for the best, this distance she’s created from day one, but Brittany just looks so pretty, so sexy, so confident in her every move, and it’s beginning to bolster an ache Santana was unprepared for.
She’d explain it to Quinn now, if she could, why it is she’s sticking her hand in bear traps and rooting around in flaming coals, but Quinn wouldn’t understand. How could she, when even Santana doesn’t? Her brain isn’t matching up with her body anymore, hasn’t been since that night at Puck’s, and it just makes this all very, very confusing. Her body wants to give in, wants to believe the haunted look in her mother’s eyes, the one that suggests there’s just a little too much Lopez running through her daughter’s veins, is entirely wrong. Her body wants Brittany close all the time, wants to feel soft hair and softer skin, wants to taste salt and smell sanctuary and coax screams of pleasure and giggles of delight into the world. Her body wants, pure and simple. Her mind, on the other hand, would do well to shove Brittany on a plane to Alberquerque, or maybe Africa, forgetting the girl even exists. Her mind wants nothing better than to save them both from the inevitable misery Santana is bound to invent out of nowhere at all.
Very. Very. Confusing.
She’d love to explain it all, but she can’t, so instead she shrugs again and says, “Whatever, Fabray. Like your pea brain is capable of understanding anything other than the desire to shove Berry against that piano and fuck the future fame right out of her.”
Quinn’s eyes glaze over instantly, which, ew. Santana smirks a little regretfully. When the girl comes to, she’ll be a little indignant and a lot annoyed, but for now, her impeccable logic is out of the Latina’s hair.
It really is about the little things in life.
Taking advantage of the blonde’s dirty little daydream, Santana trots off in the direction of the gym, mulling over how nice it will be to work off some of this pent-up energy in the weight room. She can’t remember the last time she was this fucking worked up, this unbelievably horny, to the point where even random acts of violence don’t make a dent in the abject desire to do awful, awful things to her newest Cheerio not-friend.
A year ago, she’d be screwing her way through the volleyball team, every member hating herself-and Santana-for how easily the Latina has always been able to manipulate women into her bed. A year ago, she’d be fucking women who think she’s about on par with dirt, grime, and serial killers, just to clear her head a bit.
Now, she can’t even do that, because the second she so much as glances at another girl, alarm bells screech in her head, accompanied with maddeningly-attractive images of blonde cheerleaders wearing nothing more than a pair of fire-engine red spanks.
It’s a little hard to compete with that.
She’s frazzled, and it sucks, but she’s trying to look on the bright side here. Schuester has stopped trying to manhandle her into vocalizing, Quinn has mostly stopped her moping (although Santana’s not sure she can take much more of the gushing that has replaced said moping in recent weeks; Rachel has taken to being a bit more handsy, all excited hugs and hand grabs, and Fabray’s losing her shit over it something fierce and obnoxious), and Puck still makes the best faces when she junk-punches him. Plus, although Mallory and two of her mannequin-inspired pals attempted to corner her using football-courtesy pee balloons yesterday, most of the school has been re-frightened into leaving her be. The Brittany thing is shitty and impossible, but otherwise? Santana likes to think she’s doing pretty well.
This week, at least.
She clatters down the steps to the locker room, humming softly (damn Schuester and his penchant for only picking the most addictive melodies for his kids to perform; AC DC’s “Shook Me All Night Long” may not be the most appropriate song to belt at one’s students, but it is seriously impressive at sticking in her head). A quick change and she can be pumping her sexual frustration away in no time-in the least naughty (and therefore helpful) way possible.
All things considered, it somehow isn’t as surprising as it should be to find Brittany waiting for her, legs crossed primly at the ankles. Santana’s sneakers slide on over-smooth concrete, seeking purchase when she slams to a too-quick halt.
So much for the bright side.
Brittany’s still wearing her uniform, biting her lip, looking suspiciously like she never planned on attending gym today at all. Santana can’t imagine this means anything good.
“We’re about to do that thing we do again, aren’t we?” she says almost conversationally, nudging as much nonchalance as she can manage into her tone. Brittany’s head tilts to the side, even teeth worrying her lip steadily.
“What thing would that be?”
Santana turns away, clenching her thighs as she walks in an effort to keep cool. She pries open her locker, shucks off her jeans, ambles into her faded sweatpants; just because the girl she’s so desperate be around is here, waiting for her for the first time in almost a month, doesn’t mean she can’t get ready for class. There is iron to pump and arousal to flush away in a burst of sweat and adrenaline. Damn anyone who thinks they’re going to get in the way of that.
“You know,” she calls back over her shoulder, tugging her t-shirt over her head and rummaging for its holey black replacement in the locker. Blue eyes bore into the space between her shoulder blades, plainly trying to burn her bra strap away; she smirks, because totally unhelpful though it may be, she’s allowed to feel smug about Brittany’s obvious interest.
“I don’t,” Brittany replies calmly, and Santana actually hears the girl lick her lips. She shakes her head, leaning one arm against the locker above her own, smiling wryly
“The one where you try to tell me you want to be friends, and I tell you to fuck off because I’ll only wind up making you miserable. The one where you’re all cute and fuzzy, and I crush you under the heel of my high-top. And then you’ll try to touch my shoulder or grab my arm, and I’ll leap away like some kind of jumpy-ass jungle cat, and you’ll do the big hurt puppy eyes.”
She half turns, peering under her arm with that same smirk. “You know. That one.”
Brittany’s head gives a slow, scrupulous shake. “We’re not doing that today.”
Santana lifts an eyebrow, picking up the gym shirt and tossing it between her hands. “We’re not?”
“Nope,” Brittany says, smiling a little. She stands, the movement singular and leisurely, more of a liquid flow from the bench to the floor than anything human.
“Huh,” Santana muses, eyes on the pipe-laden ceiling. “Funny. I was sure that was our thing.”
“Not anymore,” Brittany states with certainty. Santana gets the sudden feeling she’s being circled, which is basically impossible, given her position against the lockers. Still, it’s unsettling.
“Why’s that?” she asks, doing her best impression of blank indifference. It must need work, because the blonde chuckles huskily.
“Because. I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”
The sentiment hits her like a bucket of ice water. Santana raises her chin, stretching the t-shirt between her hands and poking her head through the hole.
“Is that so?”
“Mm hm,” Brittany hums, pacing a little too saucily for Santana’s comfort. This is going somewhere, she can feel it, and she’s willing to bet her little brother it’s somewhere bad.
“Well,” she replies coolly, dragging the shirt down her body and sliding her arms in, “I guess it’s about fucking time. Finally got all those brightly colored memos I was sending, huh?”
“Something like that,” Brittany drawls, pausing directly behind Santana with one hand clasped to her hip. Her fingers tangle in the waistband of her skirt, fiddling the material this way and that with no apparent sense of anxiety.
Santana rotates on her heel, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the locker. “About fucking time,” she repeats, looking the taller girl straight in the eye. The bench between them suddenly seems far too small and insignificant to use as protection, terrifyingly enough. If Brittany’s playing at something, Santana’s not sure she’ll have the time and restraint to flee before she succeeds.
Although she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious.
She watches Brittany saunter closer, hips swaying almost obscenely, bangs obscuring eyes tinted dark by secrecy. The urge to lunge forward (or back) is overwhelming, but Santana holds her ground because she will be fucked if she lets some pretty-ass girl get the best of her.
Even if that pretty-ass girl happens to be portraying all the subtlety of a lion at dinner time.
“So if you don’t want to be friends,” Santana says slowly, eyes dragging up the Cheerio’s undeniably fit frame, “what exactly are you looking for? Because right now, it’s mostly just looking like a failing grade for gym today.”
“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit whether or not I show up,” Brittany retorts, smirk mirroring Santana’s own. She reaches the bench, bumping it lightly with her calves, and twists the skirt a little higher. It would be prudent of Santana to control her eyes, but the pale skin is too damn tempting for its own good.
“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit about much of anything,” Santana says, hating herself for how breathy the words come out. “He’s a putz.”
She doesn’t like the way Brittany’s smiling. More precisely, she likes it too damn much. If this doesn’t go somewhere now, Santana thinks she might have to break something as a diversion and tack the only class she actually enjoys onto the list of “places too dangerous to venture.”
Her question is still out there, hovering between them nastily like a mocking ten-year-old with a water gun. She watches Brittany’s hand trail down the side of her skirt, flicking the pleats absently, and raises an eyebrow.
“If you’re just going to stand there gaping at me, I’m out of here. I’ve got a date with some fifties and a medicine ball, neither of which has ever managed to stalk and corner me like some kind of goddamn creepy lioness-”
“Shut up,” Brittany says, still smiling in that maddening, beautiful way. It’s the first time anyone outside of her brothers or Quinn has had the balls to give her that particular order in years; Santana’s surprised enough to allow her teeth to click shut on what was quickly and mortifyingly transforming into a mother of a ramble.
“Good girl,” Brittany adds, which should sound less sexy and more rage-inducing, but all Santana can see is the seductive crawl the Cheerio’s fingers are performing up the front of her uniform. She sucks in a breath, arms clenching harder across her t-shirt.
“What the fuck do you want, Brittany?” she hears herself ask softly, from some great distance she can’t remember traveling.
The girl leans across the bench, planting her hands against the lockers on either side of Santana’s shoulders. Her lips pull back. Santana suddenly feels like dinner.
“We’re not going to be friends,” Brittany breathes, still too many inches away to kiss, but close enough that her raspberry-scented lip gloss is making Santana’s head feel heavy. “So how about we try being something else?”
It’s cheesy.
It’s clichéd.
It’s wrong.
Santana closes her eyes, leans forward, and nods.
[Part 9]
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.
The semester continues to crawl by. After Santana’s little display of dominance in Glee, things have mellowed out a bit at meetings. Schuester stops looking at her with unbridled joy and starts watching his step. The rest of the kids mostly tune her out, save for Puck, who doesn’t give a shit how she handles herself, and Quinn, who seemed kind of pissed at first but got over it the way she always does. It helps that Rachel splits her time evenly now between flailing over Quinn’s voice (and her instrumental talent; the minute Berry realized she had a personal guitarist at her disposal, everything got that much more annoying for the rest of them) and scowling at the side of Santana’s head. The more attention she gets, the less Quinn seems to worry about Santana single-handedly obstructing Glee’s path.
Brittany is still creeping cautiously around her, and Santana can sense that little problem is far from over, but the girl has stopped trying to stick various body parts in the Latina’s lap. She guesses that’s a good thing, but every once in a while, Brittany will brush just a hair too close and Santana’s skin will vibrate like the shoddy motor in Quinn’s piece of shit car.
She still hasn’t opened her mouth to sing, but she dances when they do group numbers, mainly because dancing is a great way to keep in shape and keep near her Cheerio stalker without letting the girl know she’s doing so on purpose. It’s a dangerous little game she’s playing, verbally pushing the blonde away while physically tucking her near, but she’s got a handle on it. She’s Santana motherfucking Lopez. Of course she’s got this.
Mostly.
“You’re playing with fire,” Quinn reminds her after the fourth consecutive “accidental” trip into Brittany’s back. “You’re, like, throwing the fire around with a pair of flame-retardant gloves. Eventually, the no-flamey characteristics are going to wear off.”
“It’s fine,” Santana snaps, relishing the memory of Brittany’s body molded to her front. “She’s not too bright; I doubt she gets it.”
“She joined Glee for you,” Quinn retorts disbelievingly. “And she’s gone almost a month without Sylvester and her bitches catching on and giving her a Slushee bath. She’s not an idiot, Lopez.”
Okay, so maybe there’s a point there.
“Whatever,” she says anyway, because she’s not really up for giving Quinn anything to gloat about right now. The girl’s unbearable enough lately, what with all the attention she’s been getting from their resident midget. Santana’s happy for her, in her own way, but if she has to hear one more time about the exact angle at which Rachel’s hand dusted across Quinn’s bicep during practice, she’s going to bury her fist in some material not meant to be struck.
Like concrete.
Or Quinn’s ovaries.
That could be kind of fun.
“Why are you screwing around like this anyway?” the blonde demands, rifling through her locker in search of one long-lost study guide or another. “She’s been leaving you alone. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Santana shrugs. The truth is, ever since Brittany stopped mooning around after her, it’s gotten harder and harder to feign disinterest around the girl. It’s one of those stupid things that Santana does sometimes, where she wants what she can’t have, what she knows she can’t handle, and she’s pretty sure she only wants it because it is the exact thing that will turn her into a cowering mess on the sidewalk. Brittany is so very obviously that thing, because even with all the energy she’s put into pushing her away, Santana still can’t breathe correctly unless the blonde is within eyeshot.
She doesn’t know when that started, but she suspects it had something to do with that night in Puck’s kitchen.
It’s stupid, and it’s making her feel crazier than usual, but she can’t do anything about it. Not if she wants the girl to remain safe-although, whether she’s protecting her from the other Cheerios or from her own issues, Santana’s long past saying. She prefers to imagine it’s all about Sylvester’s bitches, because the second they get wind of Brittany’s (rather obvious) obsession with making Santana a better person (or a happier one; she’s not sure there’s a distinction), they’ll go off on her like a school of tiny scowling grenades.
The fact that they’ve been collectively silent about the Glee thing makes Santana even more certain that something big is coming. They’ve never been this quiet for this long, not where she’s concerned; by this time last year, they’d slashed Quinn’s tires for parking in a designated Cheerio spot, shoved Santana down a short flight of stairs (and then threatened an all-too-real lawsuit when she caught up with the perpetrator and held her head dangerously near a shop class saw blade), and introduced Puck’s system to a whole host of STDs.
That part, she reflects with some amusement, was entirely his own fault.
The thing is, this hatred she feels for those swishing red skirts? It’s not exactly what one would call unfounded. She’s sorry that it makes Brittany’s nose crinkle unhappily, and that it’s an emotion with the power to send her own self into a crippling state of self-doubt, but overall? They’re bitches. Bitches get what’s coming to them. Even if it’s entirely karmic and entirely due to the force of Santana’s loathing.
(It won’t be, if she has anything to say about it. The moment one of them crosses her for real this year-or, worse, crosses Brittany because of her-she’s determined to crush them utterly. For good.)
She’s keeping her head down for the sake of all of this, for the sake of some girl she doesn’t even have a reason to be interested in (aside from the obvious, but honestly, she’s got some standards; it takes more than a pretty smile and a spectacular ass to rope in this particular Lopez), and it’s making her crazy. With each day that slips into history, she forgets a little more why she’s really doing this to begin with.
And then Puck does something to piss her off, or she catches herself with a freshman’s throat under her clenching fingertips, and she remembers. The thing about being a Lopez-about being this Lopez, in particular-is, she’s a fucking mess. Dangerous. Forget the commitment issues (a parade all on their own), and forget the gasping black hole that is the fear she will never leave this town, never rise about the fuming aggression and bullying tendencies, never amount to anything better than a grocery store clerk with a few cats. Forget all of that. She’s a Lopez, and if there’s one thing she’s learned about that unlucky biological condition over the years, it’s that Lopezes kind of suck at protecting the people they love. Specifically from themselves.
She’s seen the way her older brother’s teeth and fists grit when he’s near his girlfriend on a bad day. She’s seen the bruises left on her aunt, the product of fury uncontrolled. And of course, she’s heard the splitting sound of tears late at night, when her mother thinks the house is comatose. The sounds of prayers left unanswered, of ‘why me’ and ‘why us’ floating directionlessly on chilled night air. The sounds of a woman battered and abandoned.
Santana is not a good person. It’s not in her genetics to be good. She’s not sure she could be if she tried, and so she never has. People like Quinn and Puck accept her this way because, frankly, they’re pretty fucked up too. Puck’s got all those immeasurable hours waiting up for a father who never came home-not sober, at least-and Quinn’s tribulations with her overbearing God stretch on for miles in every direction. They all kind of suck at this growing up thing, and it’s made for a surprisingly hefty bond.
Brittany, she’s not like them. Not even a little bit, and Santana knows that’s why she’s so drawn to the blonde in the first place. She can see it in her eyes, in her skin, in the way she carries herself when she walks: Brittany isn’t damaged. She’s whole, and she’s beautiful, and she shines in a way Santana can’t recall seeing in anyone before. It isn’t that she’s unlikely to accept Santana and all her broken, torn baggage-it’s that she’s likely to get sucked in. Maybe more likely than anyone Santana has ever met, including the likes of Will Schuester, with his desperate need to mentor every wayward student who crosses his path, and Emma Pillsbury, who has probably read Santana’s file no fewer than fifty times over the years. Brittany, with her stubborn attitude and endless optimism, likes her, and that is more dangerous than anything, because people who like Santana don’t stay happy for long. Not if they started out that way.
Quinn and Puck, they’ve never been happy. Brittany is. Santana doesn’t even have to know her to see it, to smell it on the air when the girl walks into the room.
She can’t break that. She won’t.
She would say this all aloud, would arrange the words on a platter and present them to Quinn-or, even, to Brittany herself-if she thought it would make a difference. But it won’t. They’ll only look at her the way she grimly regards herself in the mirror each morning: curious, pitying, frustrated. Wishing she could just punch free of her family’s mistakes and join the ranks of the normal and well-adjusted.
Her mother already looks at her that way every day. Santana can’t take disappointing anyone else.
But holy God, is it hard to remember all of this when Brittany is dancing three feet away, all hips and hair and searing little-girl grins. It’s for the best, this distance she’s created from day one, but Brittany just looks so pretty, so sexy, so confident in her every move, and it’s beginning to bolster an ache Santana was unprepared for.
She’d explain it to Quinn now, if she could, why it is she’s sticking her hand in bear traps and rooting around in flaming coals, but Quinn wouldn’t understand. How could she, when even Santana doesn’t? Her brain isn’t matching up with her body anymore, hasn’t been since that night at Puck’s, and it just makes this all very, very confusing. Her body wants to give in, wants to believe the haunted look in her mother’s eyes, the one that suggests there’s just a little too much Lopez running through her daughter’s veins, is entirely wrong. Her body wants Brittany close all the time, wants to feel soft hair and softer skin, wants to taste salt and smell sanctuary and coax screams of pleasure and giggles of delight into the world. Her body wants, pure and simple. Her mind, on the other hand, would do well to shove Brittany on a plane to Alberquerque, or maybe Africa, forgetting the girl even exists. Her mind wants nothing better than to save them both from the inevitable misery Santana is bound to invent out of nowhere at all.
Very. Very. Confusing.
She’d love to explain it all, but she can’t, so instead she shrugs again and says, “Whatever, Fabray. Like your pea brain is capable of understanding anything other than the desire to shove Berry against that piano and fuck the future fame right out of her.”
Quinn’s eyes glaze over instantly, which, ew. Santana smirks a little regretfully. When the girl comes to, she’ll be a little indignant and a lot annoyed, but for now, her impeccable logic is out of the Latina’s hair.
It really is about the little things in life.
Taking advantage of the blonde’s dirty little daydream, Santana trots off in the direction of the gym, mulling over how nice it will be to work off some of this pent-up energy in the weight room. She can’t remember the last time she was this fucking worked up, this unbelievably horny, to the point where even random acts of violence don’t make a dent in the abject desire to do awful, awful things to her newest Cheerio not-friend.
A year ago, she’d be screwing her way through the volleyball team, every member hating herself-and Santana-for how easily the Latina has always been able to manipulate women into her bed. A year ago, she’d be fucking women who think she’s about on par with dirt, grime, and serial killers, just to clear her head a bit.
Now, she can’t even do that, because the second she so much as glances at another girl, alarm bells screech in her head, accompanied with maddeningly-attractive images of blonde cheerleaders wearing nothing more than a pair of fire-engine red spanks.
It’s a little hard to compete with that.
She’s frazzled, and it sucks, but she’s trying to look on the bright side here. Schuester has stopped trying to manhandle her into vocalizing, Quinn has mostly stopped her moping (although Santana’s not sure she can take much more of the gushing that has replaced said moping in recent weeks; Rachel has taken to being a bit more handsy, all excited hugs and hand grabs, and Fabray’s losing her shit over it something fierce and obnoxious), and Puck still makes the best faces when she junk-punches him. Plus, although Mallory and two of her mannequin-inspired pals attempted to corner her using football-courtesy pee balloons yesterday, most of the school has been re-frightened into leaving her be. The Brittany thing is shitty and impossible, but otherwise? Santana likes to think she’s doing pretty well.
This week, at least.
She clatters down the steps to the locker room, humming softly (damn Schuester and his penchant for only picking the most addictive melodies for his kids to perform; AC DC’s “Shook Me All Night Long” may not be the most appropriate song to belt at one’s students, but it is seriously impressive at sticking in her head). A quick change and she can be pumping her sexual frustration away in no time-in the least naughty (and therefore helpful) way possible.
All things considered, it somehow isn’t as surprising as it should be to find Brittany waiting for her, legs crossed primly at the ankles. Santana’s sneakers slide on over-smooth concrete, seeking purchase when she slams to a too-quick halt.
So much for the bright side.
Brittany’s still wearing her uniform, biting her lip, looking suspiciously like she never planned on attending gym today at all. Santana can’t imagine this means anything good.
“We’re about to do that thing we do again, aren’t we?” she says almost conversationally, nudging as much nonchalance as she can manage into her tone. Brittany’s head tilts to the side, even teeth worrying her lip steadily.
“What thing would that be?”
Santana turns away, clenching her thighs as she walks in an effort to keep cool. She pries open her locker, shucks off her jeans, ambles into her faded sweatpants; just because the girl she’s so desperate be around is here, waiting for her for the first time in almost a month, doesn’t mean she can’t get ready for class. There is iron to pump and arousal to flush away in a burst of sweat and adrenaline. Damn anyone who thinks they’re going to get in the way of that.
“You know,” she calls back over her shoulder, tugging her t-shirt over her head and rummaging for its holey black replacement in the locker. Blue eyes bore into the space between her shoulder blades, plainly trying to burn her bra strap away; she smirks, because totally unhelpful though it may be, she’s allowed to feel smug about Brittany’s obvious interest.
“I don’t,” Brittany replies calmly, and Santana actually hears the girl lick her lips. She shakes her head, leaning one arm against the locker above her own, smiling wryly
“The one where you try to tell me you want to be friends, and I tell you to fuck off because I’ll only wind up making you miserable. The one where you’re all cute and fuzzy, and I crush you under the heel of my high-top. And then you’ll try to touch my shoulder or grab my arm, and I’ll leap away like some kind of jumpy-ass jungle cat, and you’ll do the big hurt puppy eyes.”
She half turns, peering under her arm with that same smirk. “You know. That one.”
Brittany’s head gives a slow, scrupulous shake. “We’re not doing that today.”
Santana lifts an eyebrow, picking up the gym shirt and tossing it between her hands. “We’re not?”
“Nope,” Brittany says, smiling a little. She stands, the movement singular and leisurely, more of a liquid flow from the bench to the floor than anything human.
“Huh,” Santana muses, eyes on the pipe-laden ceiling. “Funny. I was sure that was our thing.”
“Not anymore,” Brittany states with certainty. Santana gets the sudden feeling she’s being circled, which is basically impossible, given her position against the lockers. Still, it’s unsettling.
“Why’s that?” she asks, doing her best impression of blank indifference. It must need work, because the blonde chuckles huskily.
“Because. I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”
The sentiment hits her like a bucket of ice water. Santana raises her chin, stretching the t-shirt between her hands and poking her head through the hole.
“Is that so?”
“Mm hm,” Brittany hums, pacing a little too saucily for Santana’s comfort. This is going somewhere, she can feel it, and she’s willing to bet her little brother it’s somewhere bad.
“Well,” she replies coolly, dragging the shirt down her body and sliding her arms in, “I guess it’s about fucking time. Finally got all those brightly colored memos I was sending, huh?”
“Something like that,” Brittany drawls, pausing directly behind Santana with one hand clasped to her hip. Her fingers tangle in the waistband of her skirt, fiddling the material this way and that with no apparent sense of anxiety.
Santana rotates on her heel, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the locker. “About fucking time,” she repeats, looking the taller girl straight in the eye. The bench between them suddenly seems far too small and insignificant to use as protection, terrifyingly enough. If Brittany’s playing at something, Santana’s not sure she’ll have the time and restraint to flee before she succeeds.
Although she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious.
She watches Brittany saunter closer, hips swaying almost obscenely, bangs obscuring eyes tinted dark by secrecy. The urge to lunge forward (or back) is overwhelming, but Santana holds her ground because she will be fucked if she lets some pretty-ass girl get the best of her.
Even if that pretty-ass girl happens to be portraying all the subtlety of a lion at dinner time.
“So if you don’t want to be friends,” Santana says slowly, eyes dragging up the Cheerio’s undeniably fit frame, “what exactly are you looking for? Because right now, it’s mostly just looking like a failing grade for gym today.”
“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit whether or not I show up,” Brittany retorts, smirk mirroring Santana’s own. She reaches the bench, bumping it lightly with her calves, and twists the skirt a little higher. It would be prudent of Santana to control her eyes, but the pale skin is too damn tempting for its own good.
“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit about much of anything,” Santana says, hating herself for how breathy the words come out. “He’s a putz.”
She doesn’t like the way Brittany’s smiling. More precisely, she likes it too damn much. If this doesn’t go somewhere now, Santana thinks she might have to break something as a diversion and tack the only class she actually enjoys onto the list of “places too dangerous to venture.”
Her question is still out there, hovering between them nastily like a mocking ten-year-old with a water gun. She watches Brittany’s hand trail down the side of her skirt, flicking the pleats absently, and raises an eyebrow.
“If you’re just going to stand there gaping at me, I’m out of here. I’ve got a date with some fifties and a medicine ball, neither of which has ever managed to stalk and corner me like some kind of goddamn creepy lioness-”
“Shut up,” Brittany says, still smiling in that maddening, beautiful way. It’s the first time anyone outside of her brothers or Quinn has had the balls to give her that particular order in years; Santana’s surprised enough to allow her teeth to click shut on what was quickly and mortifyingly transforming into a mother of a ramble.
“Good girl,” Brittany adds, which should sound less sexy and more rage-inducing, but all Santana can see is the seductive crawl the Cheerio’s fingers are performing up the front of her uniform. She sucks in a breath, arms clenching harder across her t-shirt.
“What the fuck do you want, Brittany?” she hears herself ask softly, from some great distance she can’t remember traveling.
The girl leans across the bench, planting her hands against the lockers on either side of Santana’s shoulders. Her lips pull back. Santana suddenly feels like dinner.
“We’re not going to be friends,” Brittany breathes, still too many inches away to kiss, but close enough that her raspberry-scented lip gloss is making Santana’s head feel heavy. “So how about we try being something else?”
It’s cheesy.
It’s clichéd.
It’s wrong.
Santana closes her eyes, leans forward, and nods.
[Part 9]