fic: gravity (1/2)
Title: gravity (1/2)
Pairing: Brittany/Santana
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3386
Summary: Santana thinks of her summer in comparison to others; with Brittany and then without, and there’s really no other conclusion.
Spoilers: Before 3x01
Back when her parents first started fighting, real fighting, like slammed car doors and empty seats at the dinner table, Santana would often run away to the playground. All she had to do was glance back once just before turning the corner, and Brittany, who seemed to be perpetually outside doing something like blowing bubbles with her cat would always take that as her cue to follow her.
They didn’t play “House” anymore because the gap between the perfect world she and Brittany created together and the place she actually called her home was frankly much too large and realizing it was depressing. So Brittany made up another game called “Space” where they pretended to be astronauts, letting the swings take them far away.
Santana remembers sitting at their usual places on swings after a fight one day, watching soft blond hair and long pale limbs scrape the sky from the corner of her eye and listening to the steady swishing of the chains of Brittany’s swing while she stayed on the ground, distracting herself by rearranging woodchips with her feet.
Brittany was getting ready to finish the final stage of the game, to launch herself out of the rocketship and land on the moon, so Santana watched as Brittany pumped her legs hard a few turns and hurled herself from the swing, watching for that perfect slowed moment of when the firm fingers of gravity seem to let her pass untouched. That moment when her arms are outstretched, body curved in a perfect arc, hair trailing after like a comet’s tail. She could jump higher than any of the other kids at their school, even Finn, who was already like a million feet tall to start with.
Santana swore Brittany touched the sky every time.
She landed flawlessly, of course, with bent knees on bare feet, like an Olympic gymnast, flashing Santana the smile that made her stomach turn to jelly. On her way, she stooped and gently plucked a flower from its spot in the grass. Walking over to Santana, Brittany tucked it carefully behind her ear. Santana’s eyes fluttered shut at the contact.
“Are you okay?” she heard Brittany ask softly.
She opened her eyes and looked at Brittany with her worried smile and scraped knuckles, feeling her heart swell a million sizes too large and a sudden urge to kiss them. Kiss her.
Shaking the thoughts out of her head, she offers a tiny smile. “Better.”
“Good.” Brittany nodded, playing with Santana’s fingers.
Looking away, Santana wiped at her face with her free hand. “God, I’m such a baby.”
Brittany shook her head. “You’re not a baby. You’re brave.” She paused, adding, “Besides, babies smell bad and they throw up all over the place.”
Santana choked out a laugh, then shrugged, staring down at her shoes. “I’m just so sick of crying.” In truth, Santana always thought Brittany was the brave one, flipping off swings, climbing the highest trees, dealing with her. Santana only looked brave.
She really needed to grow up. They were almost in high school for fuck’s sake.
Brittany frowned, thinking about it for a moment before her entire face brightened and she almost jumped with excitement. “I have an idea.” She then tugged on Santana’s hand, pulling her towards the jungle gym.
Santana got up from the swing and followed her to the monkey bars. Slightly confused, she watched as Brittany quickly hoisted herself up and swung her legs over the top. Slowly, she lowered her body and let go of her arms, hanging upside down and looking horrendously adorable with her lightly freckled stomach peeking out of her shirt and her face all flushed.
Brittany grins and taps the spot next to her until Santana looked around, shrugs, and climbed up and they hung upside down, side by side. After the initial feeling that she was going to fall and break her neck had passed, it really wasn’t that bad.
Santana couldn’t help a smile from breaking out. “Britt, what are we doing?”
“Whenever I feel like crying, I hang upside down,” Brittany explained, shifting slightly to adjust herself.
And Santana’s first instinct was to find out who had ever made Brittany want to cry, and then proceed to bring the entire standing of Lima Heights down on their asses. But then her curiosity got the better of her and she asked instead, “But why?”
“So the tears can’t get away.” Brittany said easily, like keeping the tears from falling could make her feel better.
The loud pounding of blood rushing through her head did do a good job of distracting her for a while, and Santana could feel the tears get trapped right below her upper eyelids so she grinned at Brittany, bumping the sides of their arms together affectionately. “I guess you’re right, B.” Not knowing what to do with her hands, she lets go of the bar and lets them hang awkwardly below her head.
Brittany smiled back at her encouragingly and offered her pinky.
And when Santana shifted closer to connect their pinkies, she did feel better. Brittany closed her eyes and took dramatically deep breaths, mimicking what those people did in her mom’s yoga DVDs. Santana laughed, and the flower Brittany put in her hair earlier slowly fluttered to the ground, landing in the space right underneath their hands.
---
Three years later and here she is, sprawled out on the living room couch. It’s only about twelve o’clock noon in the middle of a Saturday, and she’s not letting go of the opportunity to laze around the last weeks of summer without a fight. But both her parents are gone from the house and reruns on the home improvement channel got old twelve episodes ago, so Santana flips through a couple more stations before giving up.
Sighing, she switches off the television, stretches and yawns. She checks her phone which consists of Quinn’s irritatingly obscure sarcasm, Rachel’s relentless nagging about practicing for glee, and four messages from Brittany at the beginning of summer that she’s read through a million times, thought about a million different ways, but never answered.
It’s the first summer since they’ve met that Santana hasn’t seen Brittany almost everyday and it’s still throwing her off. She knows things are getting a bit too pathetic when her life could pretty much be summed up by Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. But still, she can’t quite bring herself to man up and stop avoiding her. Time apart is good for them, Santana keeps telling herself, and one of these days she hopes she’ll believe it.
And she really should be working out to Coach Sylvester’s preseason training plan too, but Saturdays were her and Brittany’s off days for hanging out with each other and she never really got out of that habit. Santana sits on the bottom of the staircase and plays with the laces on her sneakers, considering going for a jog purely due to boredom. She looks between the couch and her shoes one last time, sighing, and the jog wins.
Stuffing her earphones in, she pulls on her shoes and steps outside, stretching her arms out slightly before taking up a light pace.
As she turns the corner, she finds herself glancing back down the street purely by habit, like she can’t give up that maybe Brittany’s somewhere watching, waiting for her cue all along. She quickly shakes her head and speeds up. Turning her music to full volume, she runs until she can barely feel her legs, trying to drown out that absurd feeling of hope welling in her chest.
---
It’s nearing five o’clock when she just finishes the workout. Her driveway is still empty so she walks right past it and finds herself heading to the park and collapsing on the closest bench she finds.
She lies facing towards the sky and slings an arm half over her eyes, shielding herself from the sun and waits until her breath is back to filling her lungs at a normal rate before she sits up and looks around. There’s a young mother scolding her son for eating sand across the park, but other than that, the playground is pretty much deserted.
It’s also a lot smaller and emptier than she remembered, but she finds everything still where she had pictured it. Santana pushes herself off the bench and begins to walk around, somewhat awestruck with all the memories coming back alive, like seeing ghosts floating upwards from empty skeletons.
When she makes it to the monkey bars, the memory of hanging upside down with Brittany rushes back to her so vividly that she wants to try it again, remembering that it always seemed to help when she was upset.
Ten minutes later, Santana’s pretty sure her face is past the shade of an overripe tomato and all it’s doing is giving her an even larger migraine, so she finally gives up, slipping off and landing on the mulch.
Santana sits under the bars, eyes fuzzy, head pounding, leaning against the post to catch her breath. She waits for the blood to rush to her body, realizing the fact that it was never the gravity that helped and the overwhelming possibility that she might have figured all of this out a little too late.
She feels a sudden suffocating urge to immerse herself in alcohol, but not even Puck will deal with her at this point, and she knows by now that getting drunk alone almost always ends badly, so she decides to stay and put up with it a little, drawing her knees closer towards herself.
She stays there well after sunset, watching the sky turn into a dark bruise.
---
There’s exactly one week until school starts, the messages are still sitting unanswered in her phone, and Santana is conditioning, hard, determined to make captain if it kills her. Which, at this rate, with such an overly excessive workout plan and not-so-balanced diet, it probably will. At the very least, it’s keeping her busy.
It’s the third run she’s been on today, her whole body feels like it’s been run over by a cement mixer, twice, and she’s more than ready to pass out in her bathtub.
But of course, just as Santana rounds the last corner of her jog, she passes by the Pierces’ house, and she sees a blond figure coming towards her. Heart jumping out of her chest, she realizes it’s Brittany, back from dance camp early and dressed in her old gray Cheerios t-shirt and red shorts. She’s in summer mode-her golden hair messily tied up in a ponytail, long legs on bare feet, all tan and freckly, and god, just beautiful. Even though it’s basically what she looks like every summer all summer, Santana doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of the sight.
She seems to be saying something, but Santana can’t hear over the music. She quickly takes off her earphones and stuffs them in her pocket, sees Brittany gesture and hears her say something about looking out, but before she can blink, there’s a mob of grey fur running straight towards her.
Suddenly thankful that she has some experience catching the little demon toddlers she occasionally babysits and that Mrs. Pierce is quite generous with the kibble, Santana just barely manages to tear her eyes away in time to scoop up the cat into her arms before it runs into the road. He hisses and claws at her stomach, but she doesn’t really feel it at all.
All she feels is the thumping of Brittany’s bare feet on the pavement as she’s coming towards her, echoing up her own body and pounding to a jarring stop in her chest.
She briefly thinks back to a time when she would play flashlight tag with Puck and all the neighborhood kids, remembers how no one was ever able to catch Brittany because of her natural grace and agility. And as long as Brittany was running beside her, Santana never seemed to run out of air.
But now, as Brittany slows to a stop just inches away and grins, Santana feels breathless.
Brittany on the other hand, seems somewhat surprised and relieved but otherwise unaffected. “Hey,” she greets lightly, still smiling her famous smile, nose crinkle and everything. She moves closer as if to hug her but chews on her bottom lip and catches herself at the last second, swaying back and forth on her heels.
“Hey,” Santana responds, almost shyly. She smiles back, momentarily captivated, then suddenly remembers the squirming cat in her arms, awkwardly holding him out. “I think this is yours.”
“Yeah.” Brittany’s eyes take a second to flicker back to Lord Tubbington. “Thanks for catching him.” She gingerly takes the struggling cat back, winking. “I always knew he liked you.”
Santana wrinkles her nose as Lord Tubbington hisses at her and makes a last effort to claw her face off. “Right.”
Brittany chuckles, her laughter blending in with the breeze. “Don’t blame him, San. It’s hard not to,” she says as she turns to put Lord Tubbington back in the kiddy pool.
It hits her like a punch to the chest, and Santana wonders whether there will ever be a time where the words Brittany throws her so offhandedly won’t affect her as much.
Brittany turns the hose on and looks back at her. “Following Coach’s training plan, huh?”
Santana nods, grimacing. “Yeah. Just a few hundred miles more to go, and I think I’ll have captain’s spot secured.”
“You probably already do,” Brittany responds, with that easy confidence that Santana had always been jealous of. “No one deserves it more than you.”
You do, Santana wants to say, and something inside of her thinks, and no one deserves you.
She raises a hand to block out the sun and hesitantly trails behind. “Do you need any help?”
“I was just finishing giving him his third bath before he escaped so it shouldn’t be much longer,” Brittany explains. She manages to spray him with the hose one last time before he leaps out of the pool, hissing and sputtering, spewing foam on both Santana and Brittany.
“You better not roll in the dirt again!” Brittany shouts after his retreating form, sighing.
Santana braces herself in case she has to catch him again. Thankfully he just eyes them cautiously, then takes a spot at the bottom of the steps, licking at his fur with disdain. Santana moves to brush some soap off of herself and Brittany quickly reaches for a towel. “Sorry about that.” She carefully wipes a spot of foam from Santana’s cheek and hands her the washcloth.
“Thanks,” Santana says, feeling somewhat shaky.
“No problem.” Brittany offers a small smile before turning to get her own towel. “So, what have you been up to this summer? I haven’t seen you around much.”
“Oh you know. Getting back in shape for Cheerios, tanning, working on songs for glee, sewing up more voodoo dolls…” Santana shrugs. “What about you?”
“Other than the dance camp thing, I haven’t been doing much,” Brittany tells her composedly, picking up the kiddy pool and dumping the water into the grass. “Which is okay I guess. It keeps me pretty busy.”
Santana stands in silence for a while, chewing on her lip. “I’m sorry,” she finally says.
There’s a moment where Brittany looks surprised but then the side of her mouth turns up slightly and the crease in the center of her forehead appears as she replies gently, “I know.”
Santana sighs, staring at the tiny little rivers the disposed water was making on the pavement. “I guess I say that too much.”
Brittany places the pool back into the garage before she stops. Standing perfectly still in front of Santana, she says simply, “I know you mean it though.”
Slowly, Brittany goes back to finishing up, pulling the garage door shut. As Brittany turns and runs her hands under the hose, Santana catches on the hint that she should go home. She debates whether to should say something before she does, knowing that it couldn’t possibly make up for anything, that it would complicate the everything she worked so hard to keep simple.
And she’s done so well at pretending there wasn’t a huge gaping void in her life up until this point, but right now she feels like throwing it all away just for any sign that she isn’t the only one who feels as if everything is slowly collapsing from the inside out.
“I miss you,” Santana finally offers, giving up. She wants to say more and wishes she said less, but she’s exhausted and hot and unbearably guilty and just wants to drown in her bathtub and forget everything.
But as she turns around to leave, Brittany drops everything and grabs onto her wrist, fingers still damp from the hose. The little hairs on Santana’s wrist rise up around it, until her entire arm is tingling.
Brittany’s face is suddenly so close in proximity to her own, Santana could count the small constellation of freckles falling over her nose and see the tiny flecks of silver in her eyes.
“You don’t have to,” she says softly, and knowing what she really means, all of this, makes it so much easier for the words to cut right through her.
Santana swallows. “Britt,” she tries weakly, “you know I can’t just-”
“Why not?” Brittany interjects. Her tone is neutral as ever, but her eyes pose a clear challenge. She steps impossibly closer, until Santana could feel her breath grazing her lips.
“I-” Santana opens her mouth to say something, but the sheer magnetism of Brittany’s soft gaze burns straight through her and her thoughts disappear completely.
Brittany holds her ground, silently daring her. Suddenly, the front door creaks open and a blond head emerges. Brittany reluctantly drops Santana’s arm but doesn’t make an effort to step back.
“Brittany, dear, dinner’s ready!” Brittany’s mom calls as the cat bounded up the stairs upon hearing the word ‘dinner’. “Did you finish Tubby’s bath?”
“Yes, mom,” Brittany responds automatically, pausing before she adds, “Santana was just helping me clean up.”
Brittany’s mom looks up in surprise. “Oh hi, Santana! I haven’t seen you in quite a while. Will you be joining us for dinner too?”
Santana blinks and shakes her head, finally finding her voice. “No, thank you, Mrs. P, I told my mom I’d be home for dinner,” she lies, dropping her gaze when she feels Brittany’s eyes on her.
“Oh that’s too bad. No one appreciates my breadsticks like you do,” she sighs, winking. “Promise you’ll be around again soon?”
Santana replies, “I promise.” The words almost get stuck in her throat on the way because if there’s one thing Santana has learned to avoid, it’s promises. But if there’s one thing she repeatedly fails at, it’s following her own rules when Brittany’s involved.
The woman beams widely, bearing a frightening resemblance to her daughter. “Lovely. It was great seeing you again, sweetie.”
Santana nods. “You too, Mrs. P.”
Brittany’s mom looks between them for a moment before smiling and going back into the house.
“Well I guess I have to go now,” Brittany says with an apologetic smile. She looks like she was going to say something else but just ends up saying, “Thanks for helping with Tubbs.”
Managing a nod, Santana tries her hardest not to look disappointed and relieved. But then Brittany moves closer, wrapping her arms around Santana’s shoulders in a hug so tight she forgets how to speak.
“Don’t break your promise,” she hears Brittany whisper before she lets go too soon. And when Santana opens her eyes, she’s already disappeared into the house.
Finally letting go of the breath she didn’t know she was keeping, Santana forces herself to turn and leave, refusing to look back.
Brittany’s wet handprint burns like salt in a wound the entire way home.
PART 2
Pairing: Brittany/Santana
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3386
Summary: Santana thinks of her summer in comparison to others; with Brittany and then without, and there’s really no other conclusion.
Spoilers: Before 3x01
Back when her parents first started fighting, real fighting, like slammed car doors and empty seats at the dinner table, Santana would often run away to the playground. All she had to do was glance back once just before turning the corner, and Brittany, who seemed to be perpetually outside doing something like blowing bubbles with her cat would always take that as her cue to follow her.
They didn’t play “House” anymore because the gap between the perfect world she and Brittany created together and the place she actually called her home was frankly much too large and realizing it was depressing. So Brittany made up another game called “Space” where they pretended to be astronauts, letting the swings take them far away.
Santana remembers sitting at their usual places on swings after a fight one day, watching soft blond hair and long pale limbs scrape the sky from the corner of her eye and listening to the steady swishing of the chains of Brittany’s swing while she stayed on the ground, distracting herself by rearranging woodchips with her feet.
Brittany was getting ready to finish the final stage of the game, to launch herself out of the rocketship and land on the moon, so Santana watched as Brittany pumped her legs hard a few turns and hurled herself from the swing, watching for that perfect slowed moment of when the firm fingers of gravity seem to let her pass untouched. That moment when her arms are outstretched, body curved in a perfect arc, hair trailing after like a comet’s tail. She could jump higher than any of the other kids at their school, even Finn, who was already like a million feet tall to start with.
Santana swore Brittany touched the sky every time.
She landed flawlessly, of course, with bent knees on bare feet, like an Olympic gymnast, flashing Santana the smile that made her stomach turn to jelly. On her way, she stooped and gently plucked a flower from its spot in the grass. Walking over to Santana, Brittany tucked it carefully behind her ear. Santana’s eyes fluttered shut at the contact.
“Are you okay?” she heard Brittany ask softly.
She opened her eyes and looked at Brittany with her worried smile and scraped knuckles, feeling her heart swell a million sizes too large and a sudden urge to kiss them. Kiss her.
Shaking the thoughts out of her head, she offers a tiny smile. “Better.”
“Good.” Brittany nodded, playing with Santana’s fingers.
Looking away, Santana wiped at her face with her free hand. “God, I’m such a baby.”
Brittany shook her head. “You’re not a baby. You’re brave.” She paused, adding, “Besides, babies smell bad and they throw up all over the place.”
Santana choked out a laugh, then shrugged, staring down at her shoes. “I’m just so sick of crying.” In truth, Santana always thought Brittany was the brave one, flipping off swings, climbing the highest trees, dealing with her. Santana only looked brave.
She really needed to grow up. They were almost in high school for fuck’s sake.
Brittany frowned, thinking about it for a moment before her entire face brightened and she almost jumped with excitement. “I have an idea.” She then tugged on Santana’s hand, pulling her towards the jungle gym.
Santana got up from the swing and followed her to the monkey bars. Slightly confused, she watched as Brittany quickly hoisted herself up and swung her legs over the top. Slowly, she lowered her body and let go of her arms, hanging upside down and looking horrendously adorable with her lightly freckled stomach peeking out of her shirt and her face all flushed.
Brittany grins and taps the spot next to her until Santana looked around, shrugs, and climbed up and they hung upside down, side by side. After the initial feeling that she was going to fall and break her neck had passed, it really wasn’t that bad.
Santana couldn’t help a smile from breaking out. “Britt, what are we doing?”
“Whenever I feel like crying, I hang upside down,” Brittany explained, shifting slightly to adjust herself.
And Santana’s first instinct was to find out who had ever made Brittany want to cry, and then proceed to bring the entire standing of Lima Heights down on their asses. But then her curiosity got the better of her and she asked instead, “But why?”
“So the tears can’t get away.” Brittany said easily, like keeping the tears from falling could make her feel better.
The loud pounding of blood rushing through her head did do a good job of distracting her for a while, and Santana could feel the tears get trapped right below her upper eyelids so she grinned at Brittany, bumping the sides of their arms together affectionately. “I guess you’re right, B.” Not knowing what to do with her hands, she lets go of the bar and lets them hang awkwardly below her head.
Brittany smiled back at her encouragingly and offered her pinky.
And when Santana shifted closer to connect their pinkies, she did feel better. Brittany closed her eyes and took dramatically deep breaths, mimicking what those people did in her mom’s yoga DVDs. Santana laughed, and the flower Brittany put in her hair earlier slowly fluttered to the ground, landing in the space right underneath their hands.
---
Three years later and here she is, sprawled out on the living room couch. It’s only about twelve o’clock noon in the middle of a Saturday, and she’s not letting go of the opportunity to laze around the last weeks of summer without a fight. But both her parents are gone from the house and reruns on the home improvement channel got old twelve episodes ago, so Santana flips through a couple more stations before giving up.
Sighing, she switches off the television, stretches and yawns. She checks her phone which consists of Quinn’s irritatingly obscure sarcasm, Rachel’s relentless nagging about practicing for glee, and four messages from Brittany at the beginning of summer that she’s read through a million times, thought about a million different ways, but never answered.
It’s the first summer since they’ve met that Santana hasn’t seen Brittany almost everyday and it’s still throwing her off. She knows things are getting a bit too pathetic when her life could pretty much be summed up by Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. But still, she can’t quite bring herself to man up and stop avoiding her. Time apart is good for them, Santana keeps telling herself, and one of these days she hopes she’ll believe it.
And she really should be working out to Coach Sylvester’s preseason training plan too, but Saturdays were her and Brittany’s off days for hanging out with each other and she never really got out of that habit. Santana sits on the bottom of the staircase and plays with the laces on her sneakers, considering going for a jog purely due to boredom. She looks between the couch and her shoes one last time, sighing, and the jog wins.
Stuffing her earphones in, she pulls on her shoes and steps outside, stretching her arms out slightly before taking up a light pace.
As she turns the corner, she finds herself glancing back down the street purely by habit, like she can’t give up that maybe Brittany’s somewhere watching, waiting for her cue all along. She quickly shakes her head and speeds up. Turning her music to full volume, she runs until she can barely feel her legs, trying to drown out that absurd feeling of hope welling in her chest.
---
It’s nearing five o’clock when she just finishes the workout. Her driveway is still empty so she walks right past it and finds herself heading to the park and collapsing on the closest bench she finds.
She lies facing towards the sky and slings an arm half over her eyes, shielding herself from the sun and waits until her breath is back to filling her lungs at a normal rate before she sits up and looks around. There’s a young mother scolding her son for eating sand across the park, but other than that, the playground is pretty much deserted.
It’s also a lot smaller and emptier than she remembered, but she finds everything still where she had pictured it. Santana pushes herself off the bench and begins to walk around, somewhat awestruck with all the memories coming back alive, like seeing ghosts floating upwards from empty skeletons.
When she makes it to the monkey bars, the memory of hanging upside down with Brittany rushes back to her so vividly that she wants to try it again, remembering that it always seemed to help when she was upset.
Ten minutes later, Santana’s pretty sure her face is past the shade of an overripe tomato and all it’s doing is giving her an even larger migraine, so she finally gives up, slipping off and landing on the mulch.
Santana sits under the bars, eyes fuzzy, head pounding, leaning against the post to catch her breath. She waits for the blood to rush to her body, realizing the fact that it was never the gravity that helped and the overwhelming possibility that she might have figured all of this out a little too late.
She feels a sudden suffocating urge to immerse herself in alcohol, but not even Puck will deal with her at this point, and she knows by now that getting drunk alone almost always ends badly, so she decides to stay and put up with it a little, drawing her knees closer towards herself.
She stays there well after sunset, watching the sky turn into a dark bruise.
---
There’s exactly one week until school starts, the messages are still sitting unanswered in her phone, and Santana is conditioning, hard, determined to make captain if it kills her. Which, at this rate, with such an overly excessive workout plan and not-so-balanced diet, it probably will. At the very least, it’s keeping her busy.
It’s the third run she’s been on today, her whole body feels like it’s been run over by a cement mixer, twice, and she’s more than ready to pass out in her bathtub.
But of course, just as Santana rounds the last corner of her jog, she passes by the Pierces’ house, and she sees a blond figure coming towards her. Heart jumping out of her chest, she realizes it’s Brittany, back from dance camp early and dressed in her old gray Cheerios t-shirt and red shorts. She’s in summer mode-her golden hair messily tied up in a ponytail, long legs on bare feet, all tan and freckly, and god, just beautiful. Even though it’s basically what she looks like every summer all summer, Santana doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of the sight.
She seems to be saying something, but Santana can’t hear over the music. She quickly takes off her earphones and stuffs them in her pocket, sees Brittany gesture and hears her say something about looking out, but before she can blink, there’s a mob of grey fur running straight towards her.
Suddenly thankful that she has some experience catching the little demon toddlers she occasionally babysits and that Mrs. Pierce is quite generous with the kibble, Santana just barely manages to tear her eyes away in time to scoop up the cat into her arms before it runs into the road. He hisses and claws at her stomach, but she doesn’t really feel it at all.
All she feels is the thumping of Brittany’s bare feet on the pavement as she’s coming towards her, echoing up her own body and pounding to a jarring stop in her chest.
She briefly thinks back to a time when she would play flashlight tag with Puck and all the neighborhood kids, remembers how no one was ever able to catch Brittany because of her natural grace and agility. And as long as Brittany was running beside her, Santana never seemed to run out of air.
But now, as Brittany slows to a stop just inches away and grins, Santana feels breathless.
Brittany on the other hand, seems somewhat surprised and relieved but otherwise unaffected. “Hey,” she greets lightly, still smiling her famous smile, nose crinkle and everything. She moves closer as if to hug her but chews on her bottom lip and catches herself at the last second, swaying back and forth on her heels.
“Hey,” Santana responds, almost shyly. She smiles back, momentarily captivated, then suddenly remembers the squirming cat in her arms, awkwardly holding him out. “I think this is yours.”
“Yeah.” Brittany’s eyes take a second to flicker back to Lord Tubbington. “Thanks for catching him.” She gingerly takes the struggling cat back, winking. “I always knew he liked you.”
Santana wrinkles her nose as Lord Tubbington hisses at her and makes a last effort to claw her face off. “Right.”
Brittany chuckles, her laughter blending in with the breeze. “Don’t blame him, San. It’s hard not to,” she says as she turns to put Lord Tubbington back in the kiddy pool.
It hits her like a punch to the chest, and Santana wonders whether there will ever be a time where the words Brittany throws her so offhandedly won’t affect her as much.
Brittany turns the hose on and looks back at her. “Following Coach’s training plan, huh?”
Santana nods, grimacing. “Yeah. Just a few hundred miles more to go, and I think I’ll have captain’s spot secured.”
“You probably already do,” Brittany responds, with that easy confidence that Santana had always been jealous of. “No one deserves it more than you.”
You do, Santana wants to say, and something inside of her thinks, and no one deserves you.
She raises a hand to block out the sun and hesitantly trails behind. “Do you need any help?”
“I was just finishing giving him his third bath before he escaped so it shouldn’t be much longer,” Brittany explains. She manages to spray him with the hose one last time before he leaps out of the pool, hissing and sputtering, spewing foam on both Santana and Brittany.
“You better not roll in the dirt again!” Brittany shouts after his retreating form, sighing.
Santana braces herself in case she has to catch him again. Thankfully he just eyes them cautiously, then takes a spot at the bottom of the steps, licking at his fur with disdain. Santana moves to brush some soap off of herself and Brittany quickly reaches for a towel. “Sorry about that.” She carefully wipes a spot of foam from Santana’s cheek and hands her the washcloth.
“Thanks,” Santana says, feeling somewhat shaky.
“No problem.” Brittany offers a small smile before turning to get her own towel. “So, what have you been up to this summer? I haven’t seen you around much.”
“Oh you know. Getting back in shape for Cheerios, tanning, working on songs for glee, sewing up more voodoo dolls…” Santana shrugs. “What about you?”
“Other than the dance camp thing, I haven’t been doing much,” Brittany tells her composedly, picking up the kiddy pool and dumping the water into the grass. “Which is okay I guess. It keeps me pretty busy.”
Santana stands in silence for a while, chewing on her lip. “I’m sorry,” she finally says.
There’s a moment where Brittany looks surprised but then the side of her mouth turns up slightly and the crease in the center of her forehead appears as she replies gently, “I know.”
Santana sighs, staring at the tiny little rivers the disposed water was making on the pavement. “I guess I say that too much.”
Brittany places the pool back into the garage before she stops. Standing perfectly still in front of Santana, she says simply, “I know you mean it though.”
Slowly, Brittany goes back to finishing up, pulling the garage door shut. As Brittany turns and runs her hands under the hose, Santana catches on the hint that she should go home. She debates whether to should say something before she does, knowing that it couldn’t possibly make up for anything, that it would complicate the everything she worked so hard to keep simple.
And she’s done so well at pretending there wasn’t a huge gaping void in her life up until this point, but right now she feels like throwing it all away just for any sign that she isn’t the only one who feels as if everything is slowly collapsing from the inside out.
“I miss you,” Santana finally offers, giving up. She wants to say more and wishes she said less, but she’s exhausted and hot and unbearably guilty and just wants to drown in her bathtub and forget everything.
But as she turns around to leave, Brittany drops everything and grabs onto her wrist, fingers still damp from the hose. The little hairs on Santana’s wrist rise up around it, until her entire arm is tingling.
Brittany’s face is suddenly so close in proximity to her own, Santana could count the small constellation of freckles falling over her nose and see the tiny flecks of silver in her eyes.
“You don’t have to,” she says softly, and knowing what she really means, all of this, makes it so much easier for the words to cut right through her.
Santana swallows. “Britt,” she tries weakly, “you know I can’t just-”
“Why not?” Brittany interjects. Her tone is neutral as ever, but her eyes pose a clear challenge. She steps impossibly closer, until Santana could feel her breath grazing her lips.
“I-” Santana opens her mouth to say something, but the sheer magnetism of Brittany’s soft gaze burns straight through her and her thoughts disappear completely.
Brittany holds her ground, silently daring her. Suddenly, the front door creaks open and a blond head emerges. Brittany reluctantly drops Santana’s arm but doesn’t make an effort to step back.
“Brittany, dear, dinner’s ready!” Brittany’s mom calls as the cat bounded up the stairs upon hearing the word ‘dinner’. “Did you finish Tubby’s bath?”
“Yes, mom,” Brittany responds automatically, pausing before she adds, “Santana was just helping me clean up.”
Brittany’s mom looks up in surprise. “Oh hi, Santana! I haven’t seen you in quite a while. Will you be joining us for dinner too?”
Santana blinks and shakes her head, finally finding her voice. “No, thank you, Mrs. P, I told my mom I’d be home for dinner,” she lies, dropping her gaze when she feels Brittany’s eyes on her.
“Oh that’s too bad. No one appreciates my breadsticks like you do,” she sighs, winking. “Promise you’ll be around again soon?”
Santana replies, “I promise.” The words almost get stuck in her throat on the way because if there’s one thing Santana has learned to avoid, it’s promises. But if there’s one thing she repeatedly fails at, it’s following her own rules when Brittany’s involved.
The woman beams widely, bearing a frightening resemblance to her daughter. “Lovely. It was great seeing you again, sweetie.”
Santana nods. “You too, Mrs. P.”
Brittany’s mom looks between them for a moment before smiling and going back into the house.
“Well I guess I have to go now,” Brittany says with an apologetic smile. She looks like she was going to say something else but just ends up saying, “Thanks for helping with Tubbs.”
Managing a nod, Santana tries her hardest not to look disappointed and relieved. But then Brittany moves closer, wrapping her arms around Santana’s shoulders in a hug so tight she forgets how to speak.
“Don’t break your promise,” she hears Brittany whisper before she lets go too soon. And when Santana opens her eyes, she’s already disappeared into the house.
Finally letting go of the breath she didn’t know she was keeping, Santana forces herself to turn and leave, refusing to look back.
Brittany’s wet handprint burns like salt in a wound the entire way home.
PART 2