Influence - Chapter 18: "Once More With Feeling" [Brittana] [Glee] [fic]
Title: Influence
Pairing: Brittany/Santana, mentions of Puck/Santana
Rating: T for language and themes. M in later chapters for physical intimacy.
Spoilers: General season 1
Description: Brittany has spent most of her life being what people believe she is, and nothing more. She starts to realize that this isn’t working, and decides to do something about it. Brittana.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 (part 1) | Chapter 17 (part 2) | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 (part 1) | Chapter 19 (part 2) | Chapter 20 (part 1) | Chapter 20 (part 2) |
I stroked Santana's hair while she slept late into the morning, unmoving. Mom had needed to leave for work, and had gently lifted Santana's head from her lap so I could take her place. Before she left, she stood at the doorway, watching us together. Her bank blazer was slightly wrinkled, and she looked tired from her night on the couch with Santana and I, but she was smiling. It had been so long since I'd seen her do that.
"You're so much braver than you think you are," she commented absently, as though she were thinking aloud. "You're not my little girl anymore. When did that happen?"
She left before I had a chance to respond, but I don't know that I would have come up with an acceptable answer if she'd stayed. Brave was the last thing I thought myself to be and I felt like more of a child on that night than I ever had before. I was helpless, unable to do anything for my best friend beyond holding her while she slept, whimpering softly at a dream. I imagined that was something like what she'd felt the previous morning in the shower.
I couldn't bear to wake her, so I sat on the couch, running my fingers through her hair. The silence was peaceful to a point, and then I felt my skin crawling once more, but not enough to make me disturb the first peaceful night's rest she'd had in probably months. So I bit my lower lip, worrying it between my teeth, and tried to think of something other than the need for a pill.
I started humming indiscriminately, no particular tune in mind, and softly so as not to wake Santana. At first it was to drown out the steady rhythm of my own pulse in my ears, the reminder that I was going on twelve hours sober. It was an unconscious reaction, to shift from a hum to a song, my vocal chords finding the notes before my brain processed the decision. I was busy thinking about other things: Santana, the dinner, the Charlie Brown Christmas tree in her basement. Anything to take my mind off the vibrating of my skin. But then, as I felt Santana's sleep-whimpering quiet, I did it more to calm her than myself.
"So high tonight, and I don't feel like coming down," I said softly, the melody lost in my whisper. "I could lie to you all my days, but you're the one. You're the one."
The tight grip she had on my hand loosened for the first time all night, but she didn't move. I found the notes to the song that was now looping through my mind, another distraction from the innate distaste I had for being sober.
"And I'm a fool for waiting so long… to let you know…"
Come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
There's something in between
You and I
Come around
Come around to me
She didn't stir, and I gently leaned over her so I could see her face. I pulled strands of dark hair out of the way. Her expression was calm, the bridge of her nose no longer scrunched but slack, and her mouth hung open just so. I grinned.
You feel like breathing
Come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
I tucked the loose hair behind her ears, marveling at how small they seemed. I ran my index finger around the shell and down the curve of her chin to her lips, parted just enough for her heavy breath to slip through.
Like summer light
Won't you come
Lay a ray down
You're the one
I could run
I could run for the life of me
But where would that get me?
Where would that lead?
She shifted as I looked over her, and I stilled. The music continued in my head while I stifled my mouth. I watched her, silent, and a frown crept across her face. She was awake after all.
"Why'd you stop?" she asked, her eyes still closed. "That was a beautiful song."
I tried to sound angry, but it was difficult, watching her wriggle closer to my body. "How long have you been awake?"
"Somewhere around the time you called yourself a fool," she replied, rolling onto her back and looking up at me. The light from the front window made her eyes glint and when she smiled at me, completely at ease with her head in my lap, she seemed more at peace than I'd ever seen her. "Finish the song, B."
"Those were just lyrics," I corrected quickly, averting my gaze in embarrassment. "I didn't really mean…" The look she gave me was skeptical and I sighed. "You weren't supposed to hear that. I can't finish now."
She squeezed my palm, still held in hers from the night before. "Sure you can. Just like in glee club. Sing to me."
I ran my finger down the side of her face and nodded, picking up at the chorus, just before the bridge.
And I'm a fool for waiting so long
Please, come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
There's something in between
You and I
Come around
Come around to me
She studied me as I sang to her, my voice lower and more reserved with the knowledge that she could hear me. It didn't help that she was laying so intimately against me while I serenaded her with this pleading song that begged her to love me. But she never broke eye contact, even when I blushed and squeezed her fingers in mine.
Can't you see
You're my life line?
Come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
I broke her intense gaze and sang the final chorus while looking out the window. When I finished she remained quiet for a bit, and we both knew what the other was thinking.
"Maybe we should talk," I said at last, changing the subject entirely. "About yesterday."
She nodded, not moving from my lap. I looked down at her, seeing her mouth set in a grim line. It wasn't going to be an easy conversation.
"You didn't tell me it had gotten that bad," I prompted, nudging her shoulder softly. "All those nights you spend over here, and you never said a word."
"I didn't want to worry you," she replied, readjusting her hand in mine so our fingers laced together. "You seemed like you had - have - a lot you're not telling me, too."
My cheeks burned red and I averted my eyes, embarrassed. I was not as stealthy as I'd hoped I was. "I take it you still haven't heard from Martin?"
She shook her head. "No. His last letter was sent from Kabul, with his new deployment orders. He lets us know where he's been and where he's going, but beyond that, the only way we know he's not dead is because we haven't had a visit from the army chaplain yet."
There was no bitterness in her tone, despite the fact that Martin was the main cause of much of her and her parents' pain. If he hadn't left, nothing would have changed. They could have gone on pretending to be happy and things might not have been great, but they would have been better than the way she was living now; like a pariah in her own home.
"Why doesn't he come back?" I asked curiously, still not understanding his decided lack of interest in the family that had raised him. "He's got to have furlough or leave or something."
"My father says he's a broken soldier," she said with a sigh. "One too many tragedies and no way to deal with them all. He doesn't know how to be anything but a warrior anymore. His platoon is his family now, not us. Mom knows the only way he's going to come home is in a body bag. It's why she gets so upset when we talk about him. I think he doesn't come back because he doesn't want a reminder of the way he used to be. It's okay. I get it."
I held my tongue to keep from blurting that I knew why she understood, that she wanted to change her family in much the same way that Martin had. But I knew better. Despite the way they treated her, she still loved them. They were her parents. They hadn't always been like that; distant and cold, even angry. When she was younger, and Martin had been around, she was lavished with gifts and Martin doted on her as the protective older brother. Her parents, loving Martin the best, followed suit. Once Martin was no longer around to show them how she ought to be treated, their attitudes changed abruptly. With his departure for boot camp came their resentment of the burden she represented, and she soon realized that she would be a poor substitute for the child they loved the most. She was left confused and desperate for the affection she'd once been given but was now denied.
"What are you going to do now?"
She cocked her head up to look at me, squinting. "What do you mean?"
"You can't go back to your house," I told her firmly. "Not after last night."
She pulled her hand from mine for the first time in more hours than I could count, and I was left with the loss like a hole in my chest. She sat up, her hair in a halo of tangles, and inched backward to look me more clearly in the eye.
"What do suggest I do, Britt?" she asked, her tone biting. "Where do you think I should stay? Here? Should I move in with you and your mom, play house, like everything is normal? Maybe you want me to make nice with the glee kids to take my mind off my horrible family and how awful they treat me?"
I should have expected her reaction, but I didn't. She wasn't just angry, she was livid. I'd crossed a line, talking about her family. Even though she knew that I was right, that she ought not go back, she was too proud and too loyal to ever admit as much.
"San, I didn't mean-"
"Maybe your family functions a little differently than mine," she spat. "Maybe your mom cares about your friends enough to sit with them all night while they cry. Maybe she listens to you tell her you're in love with another girl, and instead of kicking you out, she tells you she loves you no matter what. My mom doesn't do that. She would never..." she trailed off, her words catching in her throat in her own horror. The realization that she had been awake the whole time I was talking to my mother hit me like a truck. She swallowed, setting her shoulders, and her rage returned full force. "But she's still my mom. The only one I've got. You of all people should respect that."
She got to her feet and went to gather her coat, eager to escape the confines of my living room, of my company. She searched the floor for her discarded shoes, her back to me.
"Santana, stop."
She halted in the middle of the room, but didn't turn to face me. I stood and went to her, my knees weak in my sober state. But I needed to be strong; stronger than Santana's anger, stronger than her sadness. I took her by the wrist and she tensed.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"Of course you didn't," she returned shortly, but the bite had dissipated some. "I'm not going to just leave them."
I shook my head. "I wouldn't ask you to."
"But you did," she countered, her voice changing dramatically, lowering to a frightened whisper. "You think you're sneaky, Britt. You think I didn't know. Sing me that song again, B. Tell me what that meant to you."
She turned then, and I was stunned into silence. When had it grown so easy to profess everything but the one thing I want to tell her the most?
"You told your mom last night," she pressed on, taking a desperate step toward me. "Tell me now. Tell me what I already know."
"San, I don't-"
"Don't lie to me!" she shouted, yanking her arm away furiously. "Not you, B. I could take it from anyone but you. We've done this dance long enough. I can't do it anymore. I'm so tired of it all. Just tell me. Tell me!"
I was pacing as she shouted, biting my lower lip and packing at my nail beds, tears welling at the corners of my eyes. She knew. She'd heard. Had she known before that night? How long had we been skirting around one another, so close and yet never saying what we were thinking?
"I can't." It was instinctual; to protect this secret I'd been carrying with me. I'd invested so much of my energy into making sure that this was my reality, that I never came up with a plan for the day that maybe the fantasy came true.
"Yes, you can," she prompted, her eyes afire. "You've said it before."
"It didn't mean as much as it does now," I hissed, my stocking shuffling across the floor, picking up static while I paced. "If I say it, if I tell you and I get the same answer I did before, I don't think I could survive it."
She reached out to me, stopping my movement and holding us both so still that I swear I could hear her heart beating quick, in time with mine.
"Try me," she said desperately, her grip tight on both my wrists. "Tell me again, see what my answer is. Please."
I searched her eyes, hoping they would show me something I was missing. Why did I have to be one to say it? I'd done my due diligence before, and I'd been emphatically shot down. She'd been given her chance, and here she was, begging for another. Or was it a third chance? A fourth? Did it even matter? All that mattered was that she was begging. Santana Lopez did not beg. I saw that something I was searching for in that gesture. She couldn't be the one to say it because she was just as terrified as I was.
Terrified that she'd missed her shot.
I leaned into her, a heavy sigh on my lips that weighed them down, preventing them from moving to shape my words. She pulled me closer, our hips and foreheads meeting in the silence. We were both trembling. I pressed the bridge of my nose to her neck, grazing the soft flesh at the groove and breathing in her scent. She was musky, sweating anxiously. I considered, for a moment, not being able to take in the smell of her again, of not being allowed to make her anxious. The thought of that made my chest clench angrily. I knew, then, what I had to tell her.
"Santana…" I started, my words getting lost between my mouth and her skin.
"Brittany…" she returned, lifting her palm to cup the back of my neck, pulling gently so I was forced to look her in the eye. I wanted to look her in the eye, but even after all that, I was scared. Even though I knew, and she knew, what we both wanted to say. Saying it out loud made it real. We both needed a moment to prepare ourselves for the consequences of that.
The pad of her thumb dusted lightly across the base of my skull, just below and behind my ear. That rubbing thing she knew I couldn't resist. I leaned into it, sighing. Now or never. Now or never. Now or-
"I love you." I exhaled, the words sounding nothing like any other time I'd said them to her before. "I love you so much that it's hard to breathe. You touch my arm and my entire body goes nuclear. One look from you and everyone and everything else disappears. I love you so much I could die of it, San. Die."
Her hand didn't move from my neck, and she listened so intently as I rambled nonsensically. Her expression was soft, her eyes shifting back and forth between mine and my lips. But she stood silent, and still.
"Say something," I begged, fearing my words were once again falling on unwilling ears.
She licked her lips and took a practiced breath in, preparing herself. "I told you once," she started slowly, lifting her chin up to level her face with mine as best she could. "That I didn't deserve you. It's still true. But I think - I mean, I know - that without you there would be no me. I exist because you will me to. I exist because you love me. I exist to love you back."
She stood on her toes and pressed her lips to mine and my knees, having held up so well in the face of everything else, finally gave beneath the strain. She caught me, both arms cradling my weight as she lowered us to the ground. She sat with her legs spread and leaned back against the front of the couch, pulling me between her thighs and holding my back to her chest. My limbs were limp and immobile, but she gripped them across my body, her lips tracing circles over my shoulder.
I'd expected tears. Large, wallowing, terrified tears that usually appeared when one of us got overwrought or emotional. But none came. It was as though an easy calm had settled over the house like a blanket, swaddling us both together. We were done with tears, she and I. At least we could be happy with the knowledge that we were no longer dancing around one another. We had taken so long to get to that moment, torturing ourselves along the way, and for what? The sky hadn't opened up, lightening hadn't struck. I think we both half expected it to. But no; there was nothing but quiet, the rhythmic thump of her heart beating against my back, and her deep breathing in my ear.
I settled back into her body, letting her arms envelope me. She ran her palms down the tops of my arms until her hands were on mine, and she slid each of her fingers in between. I trembled at the fire under my skin when she touched me, and she squeezed me closer, not realizing that what I was shuddering at. I closed my eyes and the tremors eased as I took deep, rasping breaths through my nose and expelled them through my mouth. I rathered that I keep her arms around me, even though it hurt, than pull away from her.
"Now what?"
Her laughter broke the dreaded silence and echoed in the empty house. Pressed her lips to my neck then rested her chin on my shoulder. "I have no fucking idea, B."
As uncertain as she was, it didn't leave me in a panic. The not knowing was overshadowed by the knowledge that she loved me. That was enough certainty for one day, I thought.
"Can we just sit like this for a while?" she asked quietly, her mouth tenuously close to my ear.
I nodded, turning my head just enough to allow my lips to reach hers and I whispered into them before kissing her softly. "I'd like that."
Her grip around me tightened, but at the same time she relaxed further back against the couch, taking me with her. "Good. Because I have you now, Britt. I'm never letting you go."
Never should have been a frightening prospect. She put the full weight of her sincerity behind the statement, and I knew that she meant it. But there was something more comforting in the notion of forever than any 16-year-old should have been prepared for. In hindsight, it was a harbinger. Never is difficult to promise. Forever is nearly impossible.
But we were both happy enough to lie to ourselves, because lying was the closest to happy we'd ever been.
Chapter 19 - Part 1
Pairing: Brittany/Santana, mentions of Puck/Santana
Rating: T for language and themes. M in later chapters for physical intimacy.
Spoilers: General season 1
Description: Brittany has spent most of her life being what people believe she is, and nothing more. She starts to realize that this isn’t working, and decides to do something about it. Brittana.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 (part 1) | Chapter 17 (part 2) | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 (part 1) | Chapter 19 (part 2) | Chapter 20 (part 1) | Chapter 20 (part 2) |
I stroked Santana's hair while she slept late into the morning, unmoving. Mom had needed to leave for work, and had gently lifted Santana's head from her lap so I could take her place. Before she left, she stood at the doorway, watching us together. Her bank blazer was slightly wrinkled, and she looked tired from her night on the couch with Santana and I, but she was smiling. It had been so long since I'd seen her do that.
"You're so much braver than you think you are," she commented absently, as though she were thinking aloud. "You're not my little girl anymore. When did that happen?"
She left before I had a chance to respond, but I don't know that I would have come up with an acceptable answer if she'd stayed. Brave was the last thing I thought myself to be and I felt like more of a child on that night than I ever had before. I was helpless, unable to do anything for my best friend beyond holding her while she slept, whimpering softly at a dream. I imagined that was something like what she'd felt the previous morning in the shower.
I couldn't bear to wake her, so I sat on the couch, running my fingers through her hair. The silence was peaceful to a point, and then I felt my skin crawling once more, but not enough to make me disturb the first peaceful night's rest she'd had in probably months. So I bit my lower lip, worrying it between my teeth, and tried to think of something other than the need for a pill.
I started humming indiscriminately, no particular tune in mind, and softly so as not to wake Santana. At first it was to drown out the steady rhythm of my own pulse in my ears, the reminder that I was going on twelve hours sober. It was an unconscious reaction, to shift from a hum to a song, my vocal chords finding the notes before my brain processed the decision. I was busy thinking about other things: Santana, the dinner, the Charlie Brown Christmas tree in her basement. Anything to take my mind off the vibrating of my skin. But then, as I felt Santana's sleep-whimpering quiet, I did it more to calm her than myself.
"So high tonight, and I don't feel like coming down," I said softly, the melody lost in my whisper. "I could lie to you all my days, but you're the one. You're the one."
The tight grip she had on my hand loosened for the first time all night, but she didn't move. I found the notes to the song that was now looping through my mind, another distraction from the innate distaste I had for being sober.
"And I'm a fool for waiting so long… to let you know…"
Come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
There's something in between
You and I
Come around
Come around to me
She didn't stir, and I gently leaned over her so I could see her face. I pulled strands of dark hair out of the way. Her expression was calm, the bridge of her nose no longer scrunched but slack, and her mouth hung open just so. I grinned.
You feel like breathing
Come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
I tucked the loose hair behind her ears, marveling at how small they seemed. I ran my index finger around the shell and down the curve of her chin to her lips, parted just enough for her heavy breath to slip through.
Like summer light
Won't you come
Lay a ray down
You're the one
I could run
I could run for the life of me
But where would that get me?
Where would that lead?
She shifted as I looked over her, and I stilled. The music continued in my head while I stifled my mouth. I watched her, silent, and a frown crept across her face. She was awake after all.
"Why'd you stop?" she asked, her eyes still closed. "That was a beautiful song."
I tried to sound angry, but it was difficult, watching her wriggle closer to my body. "How long have you been awake?"
"Somewhere around the time you called yourself a fool," she replied, rolling onto her back and looking up at me. The light from the front window made her eyes glint and when she smiled at me, completely at ease with her head in my lap, she seemed more at peace than I'd ever seen her. "Finish the song, B."
"Those were just lyrics," I corrected quickly, averting my gaze in embarrassment. "I didn't really mean…" The look she gave me was skeptical and I sighed. "You weren't supposed to hear that. I can't finish now."
She squeezed my palm, still held in hers from the night before. "Sure you can. Just like in glee club. Sing to me."
I ran my finger down the side of her face and nodded, picking up at the chorus, just before the bridge.
And I'm a fool for waiting so long
Please, come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
There's something in between
You and I
Come around
Come around to me
She studied me as I sang to her, my voice lower and more reserved with the knowledge that she could hear me. It didn't help that she was laying so intimately against me while I serenaded her with this pleading song that begged her to love me. But she never broke eye contact, even when I blushed and squeezed her fingers in mine.
Can't you see
You're my life line?
Come around
Come around
Come around
Come around to me
I broke her intense gaze and sang the final chorus while looking out the window. When I finished she remained quiet for a bit, and we both knew what the other was thinking.
"Maybe we should talk," I said at last, changing the subject entirely. "About yesterday."
She nodded, not moving from my lap. I looked down at her, seeing her mouth set in a grim line. It wasn't going to be an easy conversation.
"You didn't tell me it had gotten that bad," I prompted, nudging her shoulder softly. "All those nights you spend over here, and you never said a word."
"I didn't want to worry you," she replied, readjusting her hand in mine so our fingers laced together. "You seemed like you had - have - a lot you're not telling me, too."
My cheeks burned red and I averted my eyes, embarrassed. I was not as stealthy as I'd hoped I was. "I take it you still haven't heard from Martin?"
She shook her head. "No. His last letter was sent from Kabul, with his new deployment orders. He lets us know where he's been and where he's going, but beyond that, the only way we know he's not dead is because we haven't had a visit from the army chaplain yet."
There was no bitterness in her tone, despite the fact that Martin was the main cause of much of her and her parents' pain. If he hadn't left, nothing would have changed. They could have gone on pretending to be happy and things might not have been great, but they would have been better than the way she was living now; like a pariah in her own home.
"Why doesn't he come back?" I asked curiously, still not understanding his decided lack of interest in the family that had raised him. "He's got to have furlough or leave or something."
"My father says he's a broken soldier," she said with a sigh. "One too many tragedies and no way to deal with them all. He doesn't know how to be anything but a warrior anymore. His platoon is his family now, not us. Mom knows the only way he's going to come home is in a body bag. It's why she gets so upset when we talk about him. I think he doesn't come back because he doesn't want a reminder of the way he used to be. It's okay. I get it."
I held my tongue to keep from blurting that I knew why she understood, that she wanted to change her family in much the same way that Martin had. But I knew better. Despite the way they treated her, she still loved them. They were her parents. They hadn't always been like that; distant and cold, even angry. When she was younger, and Martin had been around, she was lavished with gifts and Martin doted on her as the protective older brother. Her parents, loving Martin the best, followed suit. Once Martin was no longer around to show them how she ought to be treated, their attitudes changed abruptly. With his departure for boot camp came their resentment of the burden she represented, and she soon realized that she would be a poor substitute for the child they loved the most. She was left confused and desperate for the affection she'd once been given but was now denied.
"What are you going to do now?"
She cocked her head up to look at me, squinting. "What do you mean?"
"You can't go back to your house," I told her firmly. "Not after last night."
She pulled her hand from mine for the first time in more hours than I could count, and I was left with the loss like a hole in my chest. She sat up, her hair in a halo of tangles, and inched backward to look me more clearly in the eye.
"What do suggest I do, Britt?" she asked, her tone biting. "Where do you think I should stay? Here? Should I move in with you and your mom, play house, like everything is normal? Maybe you want me to make nice with the glee kids to take my mind off my horrible family and how awful they treat me?"
I should have expected her reaction, but I didn't. She wasn't just angry, she was livid. I'd crossed a line, talking about her family. Even though she knew that I was right, that she ought not go back, she was too proud and too loyal to ever admit as much.
"San, I didn't mean-"
"Maybe your family functions a little differently than mine," she spat. "Maybe your mom cares about your friends enough to sit with them all night while they cry. Maybe she listens to you tell her you're in love with another girl, and instead of kicking you out, she tells you she loves you no matter what. My mom doesn't do that. She would never..." she trailed off, her words catching in her throat in her own horror. The realization that she had been awake the whole time I was talking to my mother hit me like a truck. She swallowed, setting her shoulders, and her rage returned full force. "But she's still my mom. The only one I've got. You of all people should respect that."
She got to her feet and went to gather her coat, eager to escape the confines of my living room, of my company. She searched the floor for her discarded shoes, her back to me.
"Santana, stop."
She halted in the middle of the room, but didn't turn to face me. I stood and went to her, my knees weak in my sober state. But I needed to be strong; stronger than Santana's anger, stronger than her sadness. I took her by the wrist and she tensed.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"Of course you didn't," she returned shortly, but the bite had dissipated some. "I'm not going to just leave them."
I shook my head. "I wouldn't ask you to."
"But you did," she countered, her voice changing dramatically, lowering to a frightened whisper. "You think you're sneaky, Britt. You think I didn't know. Sing me that song again, B. Tell me what that meant to you."
She turned then, and I was stunned into silence. When had it grown so easy to profess everything but the one thing I want to tell her the most?
"You told your mom last night," she pressed on, taking a desperate step toward me. "Tell me now. Tell me what I already know."
"San, I don't-"
"Don't lie to me!" she shouted, yanking her arm away furiously. "Not you, B. I could take it from anyone but you. We've done this dance long enough. I can't do it anymore. I'm so tired of it all. Just tell me. Tell me!"
I was pacing as she shouted, biting my lower lip and packing at my nail beds, tears welling at the corners of my eyes. She knew. She'd heard. Had she known before that night? How long had we been skirting around one another, so close and yet never saying what we were thinking?
"I can't." It was instinctual; to protect this secret I'd been carrying with me. I'd invested so much of my energy into making sure that this was my reality, that I never came up with a plan for the day that maybe the fantasy came true.
"Yes, you can," she prompted, her eyes afire. "You've said it before."
"It didn't mean as much as it does now," I hissed, my stocking shuffling across the floor, picking up static while I paced. "If I say it, if I tell you and I get the same answer I did before, I don't think I could survive it."
She reached out to me, stopping my movement and holding us both so still that I swear I could hear her heart beating quick, in time with mine.
"Try me," she said desperately, her grip tight on both my wrists. "Tell me again, see what my answer is. Please."
I searched her eyes, hoping they would show me something I was missing. Why did I have to be one to say it? I'd done my due diligence before, and I'd been emphatically shot down. She'd been given her chance, and here she was, begging for another. Or was it a third chance? A fourth? Did it even matter? All that mattered was that she was begging. Santana Lopez did not beg. I saw that something I was searching for in that gesture. She couldn't be the one to say it because she was just as terrified as I was.
Terrified that she'd missed her shot.
I leaned into her, a heavy sigh on my lips that weighed them down, preventing them from moving to shape my words. She pulled me closer, our hips and foreheads meeting in the silence. We were both trembling. I pressed the bridge of my nose to her neck, grazing the soft flesh at the groove and breathing in her scent. She was musky, sweating anxiously. I considered, for a moment, not being able to take in the smell of her again, of not being allowed to make her anxious. The thought of that made my chest clench angrily. I knew, then, what I had to tell her.
"Santana…" I started, my words getting lost between my mouth and her skin.
"Brittany…" she returned, lifting her palm to cup the back of my neck, pulling gently so I was forced to look her in the eye. I wanted to look her in the eye, but even after all that, I was scared. Even though I knew, and she knew, what we both wanted to say. Saying it out loud made it real. We both needed a moment to prepare ourselves for the consequences of that.
The pad of her thumb dusted lightly across the base of my skull, just below and behind my ear. That rubbing thing she knew I couldn't resist. I leaned into it, sighing. Now or never. Now or never. Now or-
"I love you." I exhaled, the words sounding nothing like any other time I'd said them to her before. "I love you so much that it's hard to breathe. You touch my arm and my entire body goes nuclear. One look from you and everyone and everything else disappears. I love you so much I could die of it, San. Die."
Her hand didn't move from my neck, and she listened so intently as I rambled nonsensically. Her expression was soft, her eyes shifting back and forth between mine and my lips. But she stood silent, and still.
"Say something," I begged, fearing my words were once again falling on unwilling ears.
She licked her lips and took a practiced breath in, preparing herself. "I told you once," she started slowly, lifting her chin up to level her face with mine as best she could. "That I didn't deserve you. It's still true. But I think - I mean, I know - that without you there would be no me. I exist because you will me to. I exist because you love me. I exist to love you back."
She stood on her toes and pressed her lips to mine and my knees, having held up so well in the face of everything else, finally gave beneath the strain. She caught me, both arms cradling my weight as she lowered us to the ground. She sat with her legs spread and leaned back against the front of the couch, pulling me between her thighs and holding my back to her chest. My limbs were limp and immobile, but she gripped them across my body, her lips tracing circles over my shoulder.
I'd expected tears. Large, wallowing, terrified tears that usually appeared when one of us got overwrought or emotional. But none came. It was as though an easy calm had settled over the house like a blanket, swaddling us both together. We were done with tears, she and I. At least we could be happy with the knowledge that we were no longer dancing around one another. We had taken so long to get to that moment, torturing ourselves along the way, and for what? The sky hadn't opened up, lightening hadn't struck. I think we both half expected it to. But no; there was nothing but quiet, the rhythmic thump of her heart beating against my back, and her deep breathing in my ear.
I settled back into her body, letting her arms envelope me. She ran her palms down the tops of my arms until her hands were on mine, and she slid each of her fingers in between. I trembled at the fire under my skin when she touched me, and she squeezed me closer, not realizing that what I was shuddering at. I closed my eyes and the tremors eased as I took deep, rasping breaths through my nose and expelled them through my mouth. I rathered that I keep her arms around me, even though it hurt, than pull away from her.
"Now what?"
Her laughter broke the dreaded silence and echoed in the empty house. Pressed her lips to my neck then rested her chin on my shoulder. "I have no fucking idea, B."
As uncertain as she was, it didn't leave me in a panic. The not knowing was overshadowed by the knowledge that she loved me. That was enough certainty for one day, I thought.
"Can we just sit like this for a while?" she asked quietly, her mouth tenuously close to my ear.
I nodded, turning my head just enough to allow my lips to reach hers and I whispered into them before kissing her softly. "I'd like that."
Her grip around me tightened, but at the same time she relaxed further back against the couch, taking me with her. "Good. Because I have you now, Britt. I'm never letting you go."
Never should have been a frightening prospect. She put the full weight of her sincerity behind the statement, and I knew that she meant it. But there was something more comforting in the notion of forever than any 16-year-old should have been prepared for. In hindsight, it was a harbinger. Never is difficult to promise. Forever is nearly impossible.
But we were both happy enough to lie to ourselves, because lying was the closest to happy we'd ever been.
Chapter 19 - Part 1