Preview: What Is Done in the Dark
Title: What Is Done in the Dark
Pairing: Santana/Brittany
Rating: R/NC-17
Word count: 35,000+
Genre: 1890s Western AU
Summary: Santana is on the run from her father's killers as she searches for her surrogate brother, the most infamous outlaw in the West.
Brittany shifts in the saddle, leaning back so that she’s resting more of her weight against Santana. “Almost there.”
The back of Santana’s neck prickles with alarm at the drowsiness of Brittany’s voice. She cranes her neck and peers around Brittany’s shoulder until she can see her face; blue eyes blink sleepily back at her. “Where? How much further?”
“Up there,” she answers languidly, gesturing vaguely ahead of them. “And not much. It’s a clearing near the creek. You can’t miss it.”
Santana hopes that’s true. She exerts gentle pressure on Brittany’s waist until the other girl is leaning back against her fully, then uses her free hand to pluck the reins from both of Brittany’s. “I’ll get us there the rest of the way, okay? You just relax.”
Brittany nods. She buries the fingers of one hand into the horse’s mane and rests her other arm against the one Santana has wrapped around her waist, covering Santana’s hand with her own and twining their fingers together.
It’s ridiculous, because Brittany is nearly faint with blood loss and Santana should definitely be focusing on trying to find this clearing, but having the other girl pressed so fully against her has Santana’s mind buzzing. This is the closest Santana has been to another person in years, and it’s uncomfortably intimate. Every inch of her body that’s touching Brittany’s is humming, and while she and Finn occasionally doubled up on the same horse when they were children, it never felt anything like this. It takes a significant exertion of Santana’s will power to make herself concentrate on the task at hand, rather than on how nice the warm weight of Brittany’s body is.
Fortunately it isn’t long before Santana picks up on the sound of running water, and a few minutes later they push through a final line of trees and into what she assumes is Brittany’s clearing and the rendezvous point where they’re supposed to meet Finn. It’s a sandy patch of land dotted with rocks, some half-rotted tree trunks, and a few cacti, that slopes down to the bank of a shallow, swift-running creek. It isn’t much, but it is a clearing, and it gives her ample room to finally take a look at Brittany’s gunshot wound.
Santana puts a steadying hand on Brittany’s hip and uses her other to make sure Brittany has both of her own hands clenched tightly in the horse’s mane. “Hang on for just a minute, all right? I’m going to get down, and then I’ll help you, okay?”
At Brittany’s acknowledging nod, Santana finds the stirrup with her left foot, then carefully swings her right leg over the horse’s hindquarters and lowers herself to the ground. Without Santana’s body to support her own, Brittany is already beginning to sway in the saddle, and Santana hurries to help her dismount from the horse before she passes out and falls off. Even so, she still ends up practically collapsing against Santana.
“Sorry,” Brittany mumbles as Santana staggers under the unexpected burden of her weight. “I don’t know why I can’t...I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’ve been bleeding for God only knows how long,” Santana grunts. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that’s what’s wrong.”
The haze in Brittany’s eyes clears momentarily as she glares at Santana. “Are you always so rude?”
“I’m usually worse.” There’s a large boulder leaning half-buried in the sand not far away, so Santana loops Brittany’s uninjured arm over her own shoulders and half-drags the other girl over to it. She eases Brittany down onto the soft sand and helps her lean back against the surface of the rock. “Help me get your coat off, and don’t argue with me.”
Brittany weakly nods her assent, and between the two of them they manage to ease off her duster. Underneath, the left sleeve of Brittany’s white shirt is soaked with dark, sticky red blood from mid-bicep to cuff. The hot, heavy smell makes Santana’s stomach heave, but she manages a smile for Brittany’s benefit. “Not as bad as I thought,” she lies. “But I need to look at it, okay? We need to take off your shirt.”
“We,” Brittany says absently as she begins to fumble with the buttons of her shirt with her good hand. “I read somewhere once that the Queen always says that instead of ‘I’. The royal we, they call it.” She looks inquisitively at Santana. “Isn’t that strange?”
“She’s English, what do you expect? Here, let me do that.” Santana kneels down beside her and gently brushes Brittany’s fluttering hand aside to undo a few of the buttons herself. “Lean forward a little bit for me so I can pull this off.” She does, and Santana pulls the shirt off over her head.
The wound is a small, ragged hole in the fleshy part of Brittany’s upper arm, and though it’s definitely raw and inflamed, it doesn’t appear to be as bad as Santana’s expected from the amount of blood on Brittany’s shirt. Gingerly, she raises Brittany’s arm and is relieved to see an exit wound as well.
Santana’s only previous experience with gunshot wounds is with her father’s. Her memory of her papi lying on his stomach on his bed, unconscious but still screaming as the surgeon digs the shotgun pellets out of his back, is one that still comes to her in frightening, heartrending clarity in her dreams. She swallows against it, enormously grateful that she doesn’t have to try and remove a bullet herself.
“It looks good,” she tells Brittany, projecting false confidence into her voice. “The bullet went straight through. That’s good.”
The corner of Brittany’s mouth quirks in an unexpected smile. “You said that already.”
“Good news is worth repeating,” Santana returns lightly. “It needs to be disinfected. Do you have any--”
“There’s a flask in one of the saddlebags,” Brittany interrupts. “And some other stuff.”
There are several saddlebags lashed to the horse’s saddle, and Santana rifles quickly through them before finding a tarnished metal flash shoved to the bottom of one. She unscrews the lid and sniffs, and sure enough, it’s full of some kind of whiskey.
She returns to Brittany’s side carrying both the flask and a knife she’d found. She uses the latter to slice several wide strips of cloth from Brittany’s ruined shirt to use as makeshift bandages, then looks at Brittany and tries to hide her own trepidation. "This is going to hurt."
“Yeah.” Brittany’s eyes are wide face in a face that’s gone bone-white. She tugs the bandanna from around her neck and rolls it several times against her thigh, then clamps the twisted material between her teeth and bites down and speaks around it. “Do it.”
Santana doesn’t give either one of them a chance to think about what’s coming. She tilts the open flask above Brittany’s wound and pours whiskey over it.
Brittany screams.
Pairing: Santana/Brittany
Rating: R/NC-17
Word count: 35,000+
Genre: 1890s Western AU
Summary: Santana is on the run from her father's killers as she searches for her surrogate brother, the most infamous outlaw in the West.
Brittany shifts in the saddle, leaning back so that she’s resting more of her weight against Santana. “Almost there.”
The back of Santana’s neck prickles with alarm at the drowsiness of Brittany’s voice. She cranes her neck and peers around Brittany’s shoulder until she can see her face; blue eyes blink sleepily back at her. “Where? How much further?”
“Up there,” she answers languidly, gesturing vaguely ahead of them. “And not much. It’s a clearing near the creek. You can’t miss it.”
Santana hopes that’s true. She exerts gentle pressure on Brittany’s waist until the other girl is leaning back against her fully, then uses her free hand to pluck the reins from both of Brittany’s. “I’ll get us there the rest of the way, okay? You just relax.”
Brittany nods. She buries the fingers of one hand into the horse’s mane and rests her other arm against the one Santana has wrapped around her waist, covering Santana’s hand with her own and twining their fingers together.
It’s ridiculous, because Brittany is nearly faint with blood loss and Santana should definitely be focusing on trying to find this clearing, but having the other girl pressed so fully against her has Santana’s mind buzzing. This is the closest Santana has been to another person in years, and it’s uncomfortably intimate. Every inch of her body that’s touching Brittany’s is humming, and while she and Finn occasionally doubled up on the same horse when they were children, it never felt anything like this. It takes a significant exertion of Santana’s will power to make herself concentrate on the task at hand, rather than on how nice the warm weight of Brittany’s body is.
Fortunately it isn’t long before Santana picks up on the sound of running water, and a few minutes later they push through a final line of trees and into what she assumes is Brittany’s clearing and the rendezvous point where they’re supposed to meet Finn. It’s a sandy patch of land dotted with rocks, some half-rotted tree trunks, and a few cacti, that slopes down to the bank of a shallow, swift-running creek. It isn’t much, but it is a clearing, and it gives her ample room to finally take a look at Brittany’s gunshot wound.
Santana puts a steadying hand on Brittany’s hip and uses her other to make sure Brittany has both of her own hands clenched tightly in the horse’s mane. “Hang on for just a minute, all right? I’m going to get down, and then I’ll help you, okay?”
At Brittany’s acknowledging nod, Santana finds the stirrup with her left foot, then carefully swings her right leg over the horse’s hindquarters and lowers herself to the ground. Without Santana’s body to support her own, Brittany is already beginning to sway in the saddle, and Santana hurries to help her dismount from the horse before she passes out and falls off. Even so, she still ends up practically collapsing against Santana.
“Sorry,” Brittany mumbles as Santana staggers under the unexpected burden of her weight. “I don’t know why I can’t...I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’ve been bleeding for God only knows how long,” Santana grunts. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that’s what’s wrong.”
The haze in Brittany’s eyes clears momentarily as she glares at Santana. “Are you always so rude?”
“I’m usually worse.” There’s a large boulder leaning half-buried in the sand not far away, so Santana loops Brittany’s uninjured arm over her own shoulders and half-drags the other girl over to it. She eases Brittany down onto the soft sand and helps her lean back against the surface of the rock. “Help me get your coat off, and don’t argue with me.”
Brittany weakly nods her assent, and between the two of them they manage to ease off her duster. Underneath, the left sleeve of Brittany’s white shirt is soaked with dark, sticky red blood from mid-bicep to cuff. The hot, heavy smell makes Santana’s stomach heave, but she manages a smile for Brittany’s benefit. “Not as bad as I thought,” she lies. “But I need to look at it, okay? We need to take off your shirt.”
“We,” Brittany says absently as she begins to fumble with the buttons of her shirt with her good hand. “I read somewhere once that the Queen always says that instead of ‘I’. The royal we, they call it.” She looks inquisitively at Santana. “Isn’t that strange?”
“She’s English, what do you expect? Here, let me do that.” Santana kneels down beside her and gently brushes Brittany’s fluttering hand aside to undo a few of the buttons herself. “Lean forward a little bit for me so I can pull this off.” She does, and Santana pulls the shirt off over her head.
The wound is a small, ragged hole in the fleshy part of Brittany’s upper arm, and though it’s definitely raw and inflamed, it doesn’t appear to be as bad as Santana’s expected from the amount of blood on Brittany’s shirt. Gingerly, she raises Brittany’s arm and is relieved to see an exit wound as well.
Santana’s only previous experience with gunshot wounds is with her father’s. Her memory of her papi lying on his stomach on his bed, unconscious but still screaming as the surgeon digs the shotgun pellets out of his back, is one that still comes to her in frightening, heartrending clarity in her dreams. She swallows against it, enormously grateful that she doesn’t have to try and remove a bullet herself.
“It looks good,” she tells Brittany, projecting false confidence into her voice. “The bullet went straight through. That’s good.”
The corner of Brittany’s mouth quirks in an unexpected smile. “You said that already.”
“Good news is worth repeating,” Santana returns lightly. “It needs to be disinfected. Do you have any--”
“There’s a flask in one of the saddlebags,” Brittany interrupts. “And some other stuff.”
There are several saddlebags lashed to the horse’s saddle, and Santana rifles quickly through them before finding a tarnished metal flash shoved to the bottom of one. She unscrews the lid and sniffs, and sure enough, it’s full of some kind of whiskey.
She returns to Brittany’s side carrying both the flask and a knife she’d found. She uses the latter to slice several wide strips of cloth from Brittany’s ruined shirt to use as makeshift bandages, then looks at Brittany and tries to hide her own trepidation. "This is going to hurt."
“Yeah.” Brittany’s eyes are wide face in a face that’s gone bone-white. She tugs the bandanna from around her neck and rolls it several times against her thigh, then clamps the twisted material between her teeth and bites down and speaks around it. “Do it.”
Santana doesn’t give either one of them a chance to think about what’s coming. She tilts the open flask above Brittany’s wound and pours whiskey over it.
Brittany screams.