Fic: i-80 west, part one b (Brittany/Santana, R)
Title: i-80 west, part one b
Characters: Brittany/Santana, (w/ Quinn, Sam, Mike/Tina)
Rating: R (for later parts)
Summary: Brittany and Santana graduate high school and spend one last summer in Lima before going to college.
Santana walks straight through her front door and into her abuela’s arms.
Her abuela hugs the same way that Brittany does: arms wrapped around her tightly, warm presence all around her keeping her safe. She’s barely taller than Santana in her heels, so Santana tucks her chin into the space between her shoulder and neck, smiling where no one can see.
“Congratulations, Santana honey,” her grandmother murmurs into her hair. “I’m so proud of you.”
Santana nods her head against her abuela’s shoulder, not trusting herself to speak as she feels tears at the corners of her eyes, and then her father says, “We all are,” from somewhere behind her and she’s suddenly swallowing against the lump in her throat and sucking in a shaky breath as the tears threaten to fall.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry today but she’s not made of stone, and she still remembers what it felt like when she thought her abuela would never be proud of her again.
Her grandmother lets go of her slowly, pulling back to hold her at arm’s length and survey her critically. She brushes a single tear away from Santana’s cheek with a wrinkled hand and shakes her head, “Stop that now. Don’t you know today is supposed to be happy?”
“I am really happy,” Santana sniffles, laughing a little as she wipes the back of her hand against her eyes and her grandmother frowns at her, “Really.”
Her grandmother smacks her lips together and rolls her eyes, and Santana thinks she’s seeing a vision of her future for a second before she speaks and Santana hears her accent, “Then you shouldn’t cry. Come.” She pulls her towards the living room, arm strong around her back, as she guides her towards the couch. “How did Brittany look, eh? Tell me about the good parts.”
“Beautiful,” Santana smiles a little as she takes a seat. She glances to the doorway where her parents are standing watching them, then pulls her cell phone out, “Do you want to see a picture?”
It’s the one photo they took together before they found their parents. They’re only just in the frame, because Santana had to hold her own phone to take the photo and she got distracted from aiming by the way Brittany had kissed her, one hand in her hair, fingers against her neck, the other holding her own cap flat against her head as it had started to fall. They were supposed to be just smiling goofily, heads pressed close together before Brittany had turned and sucked Santana’s bottom lip between both of hers. They’re both smiling into the kiss, Santana in surprise, Brittany playfully, and they look so, so happy, like they know a secret no one else does.
“Oh Santanita,” her grandmother murmurs, wiping at her face with one hand and wrapping the other around her back, pulling her close, “Santana.”
+
It’s only after her abuela has left and she’s getting dressed to go to Brittany’s after dinner that it really hits her that she’s graduated high school and she’s going to college in the fall. She stares at herself in the mirror while she’s putting her makeup on, trying to decide if she looks older and wiser than she did that morning.
She thinks she still looks the same.
She stares for a long time before she looks away, eyes finding her diploma rolled out and held down between two books on her desk, and then the Stanford acceptance letter pinned to her notice board next to a picture of her and Brittany.
She finishes putting her makeup on carefully, rubbing at a tiny smudge of eyeliner in the corner of her eye until it’s gone, and taking care to blot her lips . She smoothes her hand down her dress, getting the last wrinkles out and then surveys her appearance in the mirror again critically, hoping she looks okay.
Brittany didn’t tell her to dress up but she has anyway, wanting to look nice when she meets Brittany’s extended family for the first time since she became her girlfriend. She’s known some of them since she was little, from the odd occasions when Brittany was allowed to bring her best friend to family gatherings, and she wonders if any of them remember the little girls they used to be, running wild and sharing pieces of cake under tables where no one would find them. It’s weird, meeting them again now things have shifted so dramatically, like they have all the power and she has none. She wants them to like her - she thinks they used to like her - and she feels a little like a nervous teenager meeting their date’s parents for the first time.
She runs her hand through her hair one last time before she turns away to grab her cell and text Brittany that she’s about to leave. She clomps down the stairs noisily, and just before she leaves she catches sight of her reflection in the hallway mirror.
She thinks she looks older now.
+
Brittany’s waiting for her on the porch when she gets there, half hidden in the shadows and leaning back against the door. The porch light glints off the highlights in her hair as she stands there, and she looks so peaceful, Santana almost doesn’t want to disturb her, happy just to look. She parks at the end of the driveway, behind all the cars belonging to Brittany’s extended family members, and crunches up the gravel as quietly as she can in her heels.
Brittany hears her coming and kicks back from the door, and Santana watches the way she steps out of the darkness and down the steps towards her like she’s being revealed, the dull light from the porch sliding across her face drawing her into existence.
She almost forgets to breathe, just for a minute.
They meet on the middle step, Brittany pulling her into a hug and burying her face in her hair, and Santana breathes in the smell of her, shampoo and perfume and Brittany down underneath it all.
“How was dinner?” Brittany asks, and Santana can feel her lips moving against her neck as she speaks.
It makes her shiver and ache for Brittany’s mouth, so she says, “Good,” and leans up to kiss Brittany’s neck, then her cheek, mouth curving into a smile against the skin. “But this is better.”
Brittany grins and turns her head until their lips meet, arms snaking around Santana’s neck and into her hair to pull her closer. “Yeah,” Brittany agrees simply, half hidden in a sigh between kisses so Santana almost doesn’t hear it. Brittany kisses her again, a little more chastely, then pulls back to rest her forehead against Santana’s, and when Santana opens her eyes all she can see is Brittany, freckles and a blur of blue where her eyes merge together.
They stay like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, just breathing together like two halves of a whole.
Brittany is quite for a moment longer, and then she leans back a little to find Santana’s eyes, searching for something. “I’m going to introduce you as my girlfriend.”
“I know.”
Brittany nods, eyes still locked with hers. “But that’s still okay?”
Santana feels a pang that even now Brittany still feels like she needs to ask, and she stands up on her tip-toes and kisses her again, slow and sweet, one hand pressed to her cheek, thumb tracing her cheekbone softly.
She wishes Brittany didn’t have to ask.
“Of course, Britt-Britt,” she says when she pulls back, finding Brittany’s eyes and smiling, waiting until she sees the answering smile on Brittany’s face before she speaks again, “But wait, I thought they already knew about us. Didn’t you tell people at your cousin’s wedding?”
“They know I have a girlfriend but they don’t know it’s you,” Brittany takes her hand and climbs a step, moving closer to the door, and tugs on her hand. Santana follows, watching as Brittany slides back into the shadows. “And I want them to know it’s you, so.” Brittany shrugs a little, like it’s not a big deal, but Santana can’t stop herself from kissing her again, just once, before they go inside.
+
Santana walks through the door with her hand in Brittany’s, and when Brittany’s aunts and uncles turn to look at them Brittany says, “This is my girlfriend, Santana,” smiling at her in a way that makes Santana blush, warm and possessive all at once.
+
“So Santana, where are you going to college?” Brittany’s uncle asks her when she’s waiting to get sodas from the fridge for her and Brittany.
“Um,” Santana nearly swallows her tongue. She’s a little thrown by the fact that Brittany isn’t there to deflect the attention, and she can’t actually remember which uncle this is, but she clears her throat and says, “Stanford,” anyway. “I’m gonna be pre-med, I think,” she adds, after a second’s hesitation. It kind of feels like bragging somehow, and she wishes she could take it back almost as soon as she’s said it.
“A doctor, eh?” He nudges another of Brittany’s uncles and winks, taking another sip of his beer, “So you’ll be able to take good care of our Brittany then. Financially, I mean.”
Santana flushes and has to look down, because honestly, it’s something she hasn’t really thought about but now that he’s mentioned it it’s making her feel a little funny, and part of her has to fight the urge to say, “Yes sir!” like some kind of boy scout. She’d roll her eyes at herself if she wasn’t trying so hard to make a good impression.
“You’ve embarrassed her now,” the second Uncle says, smiling warmly until Santana nods shyly. “Don’t mind him, he’s just stuck in 1963.”
“I am not! I just like to check up on who Britt is dating,” he takes another mouthful of his beer, “I asked that boy in the wheelchair the same thing.”
“So you and Brittany must have chosen your colleges together, then?” the more sober uncle goes on, ignoring the other.
Santana nods and smiles, thinking back to them lying on the floor of Brittany’s room, flipping through college brochures last fall. “Well Berkeley has a really great dance program,” she explains, “And my parents wanted me to go to Stanford, so it made a lot of sense for both of us.” And it’s really fucking far away from Lima, she wants to add but doesn’t, because, well, good impressions aren’t usually helped by cursing.
“It sounds like you two really have the future all planned out,” Brittany’s uncle says, pulling her out of her thoughts.
“Yeah,” Santana agrees cautiously, “I guess we have.” The thought sends a shiver through her, and she wonders, briefly, when the hell that happened.
She remembers how Brittany had rolled onto her elbow and pushed the Berkeley brochure towards her shyly, murmuring, “We could go to California together,” in this quiet voice that turned it into a question, and how she’d just sort of stared at Brittany in disbelief and shaken her head - because weren’t they always going together? - before she’d leaned forward and kissed her hard, pushing her back down against the floor. Now that she’s thinking back to it, she felt like she was growing up then as she’d kissed Brittany, fingers tangling in her hair. They’d made love slowly, trailing fingers exploring the bodies they knew so well, quiet but for the murmured gasps against each other’s mouths in the stillness of the room. After, Santana had lain with her head on Brittany’s chest, listening to the thud of her heart and whispered, “We’re going to California together,” in a way that turned it into a promise, and Brittany had kissed her then, making her own promise in return.
She’s shaken from the memory by Brittany’s uncle handing her two sodas from the fridge, icy cold against her suddenly too warm skin, and she takes them quickly, glad he doesn’t know what she was thinking about a second before. “So you take care of our Brittany now, y’hear?” he winks at her roguishly and drags Brittany’s other uncle off to the living room.
Santana shakes her head, faint blush on her cheeks, and watches them go.
+
One of Brittany’s aunts ask them how long they’ve been together just as she’s leaving, because, she says, they look so happy they must still be in their honeymoon phase. Santana looks at Brittany helplessly, wondering if the answer is since senior year or since freshman year or something else entirely, and then Brittany says, “Since we were five,” shyly, in this sweet little voice that tugs at Santana behind her bellybutton.
Brittany’s aunt stares at them dumbly for a moment, and then shakes her head as she pulls Brittany into a hug and kisses her cheek, and Santana sees her whisper something into Brittany’s ear just before she pulls back. They watch her head down the driveway in silence, and then Santana turns to find Brittany looking at her with a smile on her face, head canted to the side like she’s puzzling something out.
“What did she say Britt-Britt?” Santana asks softly, reaching over for her hand.
“She said I should marry you,” Brittany replies, not quite meeting her eyes, and Santana feels her stomach flip-flop again.
It’s not that she hasn’t thought about it, but it’s something she kind of thought she could never have so she’d tried to push from her mind. When Brittany says it out loud it suddenly becomes possible again, something Santana hadn’t even known she’d wanted until this moment, and she has to fight hard to keep her face neutral.
“Damn right,” she says after a second’s hesitation, just long enough for Brittany to notice. She’d tried to put something of her old bravado back into her voice, to turn it into a joke, but it sounds like a weak imitation and besides she never was that person with Brittany. It shouldn’t be a big a deal, but they’re both making it into one, and Santana has to resist the urge to scuff her feet against the hard wood floor just to give herself something to do. She clasps her fingers together, twisting them nervously, and she’s not looking at Brittany now either.
It’s uncomfortable for a second longer, and then Brittany laughs, a little bit higher than usual, in the back of her throat, and Santana slides her gaze to her all at once, like she’s pulling off a band aid. Brittany has an unreadable expression on her face, a faint blush on her cheeks, and then she rolls her eyes and pushes Santana back into the living room and the moment is lost.
+
Brittany’s aunts and uncles leave slowly, and Santana yawns behind her hand and thinks maybe she should go too, even though she’d told her mom she was going to stay. She still doesn’t like to assume she can just stay over whenever she wants, even though she pretty much does, and when she says as much to Brittany, Brittany just looks at her steadily and says, “Oh San,” in this voice that sounds like her heart is breaking.
Santana can’t bear the way Brittany is looking at her, so she shifts her gaze sideways until Brittany puts her fingers under her chin and tilts her head back gently to find her eyes. “You’re such a dork sometimes,” Brittany whispers in the same heartbreak voice, tracing her thumb over Santana’s bottom lip slowly.
I am not, Santana wants to retort, but then Brittany is leaning forward to kiss her and the words die in her throat.
+
They find Ashley asleep in a corner of the living room while they’re tidying up, curled into a ball next to one of the armchairs.
“She didn’t want to go to bed and miss anything,” Brittany’s mom says fondly, collecting the empty glasses and cans dotted around the room. “She said she wanted to stay up and be a big girl like you two,” she sighs and shakes her head. “She’s growing up.”
“Yeah, we kinda do that, mom.” Brittany nudges her playfully, trying to keep the moment light. “Did you know I graduated high school today?”
Santana hides her smile, and throws a few more paper plates into the garbage bag. Brittany catches her eye and rolls her own theatrically, and then Santana can’t help but laugh as well. “Yeah, did you hear we’re going to college in the fall?” She adds, as innocently as she can.
Brittany’s mom just laughs at her, and she feels it again, that weird feeling of being included and loved that makes her chest tighten, and she has to smile and look away.
“How did I end up with such a couple of smart asses huh?” Brittany’s mom stacks glasses onto the tray she’s carrying and heads for the kitchen, bumping Brittany with her hip as she walks past, “And just for that, you two get to put Ash to bed.”
Brittany sighs dramatically and says something about that not being fair, but Santana barely notices past her sudden panic. How the hell do you put a nine year old to bed? Whenever they’ve babysat in the past, they’d always made sure Ashley was in bed before she fell asleep, Santana staring her down when she had to with the scowl Ashley seems to have picked up herself, just so she and Brittany could spend more time sneaking kisses under the blanket on the couch before Brittany’s mom and dad came home.
“Do we-should we wake her?” Santana asks helplessly, suddenly sure that if they do that she’ll never go back to sleep. She wants to do this right, with every fibre of her being, though she isn’t sure, all of a sudden, why it’s so important to her. She fiddles with her hands nervously, waiting for Brittany to answer.
“Relax, I’ve got her,” Brittany says, looking at her like she’s acting weird, or grown an extra body part or something. She crouches down next to her sister then slides her arms under her carefully, lifting her from the floor. Santana watches in amazement as Brittany manages to lift Ashley without waking her, and how, after a moment, Ashley whimpers and slides her arms around Brittany’s neck and snuggles closer. Santana doesn’t know how, but Ashley is still asleep, and Santana trails after Brittany as she climbs the stairs, sure she’s watching some kind of magic trick.
“Can you get the door? And the covers?” Brittany whispers over Ashley’s head, so Santana does, opening the door to Ashley’s room and then turning the bed down so Brittany can set her down in the middle of it. She tugs Ashley out of her clothes gently, stroking her arm and whispering comforting nonsense sounds as Santana stands by not knowing what to do.
After a moment she reaches over and turns on the night-light, because that’s the kind of thing she might have liked when she was nine, she thinks, someone to turn on the night light for her.
Brittany pulls a sleep shirt out of Ashley’s closet and slides it over her head like a magician pulling a cloth off a table without disturbing the place settings. Ashley is still asleep, somehow, and Santana doesn’t understand, not at all, when Brittany pulls the blankets over her and then smoothes them down to tuck her in. Brittany nods towards the door, and they tip toe away, listening to Ashley’s deep, even breathing and holding their breath.
In the hallway, Santana huffs out a lungful of air and says, “I don’t know where you learnt to do that weird piece of magic, but when we have kids you’re totally in charge of putting them to bed,” without really thinking about it, and it’s only after she sees the way Brittany is looking at her that her brain catches up with her mouth. She flushes with embarrassment and starts to stammer, “I mean-“
Then Brittany just says, “Okay,” quickly, low and a little bit excited, before Santana can say anything else. The rest of her words die in her throat, and Santana grins at her like some kind of idiot, until Brittany shakes her head and laughs, taking her hand to pull her back downstairs to finish cleaning.
+
“You can go to bed if you want, we can handle the rest,” Brittany’s mom says, as she stacks glasses in the dishwasher. They’ve been slumped against the kitchen counter for the past ten minutes, watching her and yawning in turns, and Santana is so tired she thinks she might just collapse face down on the counter and sleep for a week.
“No it’s okay, mom. We’ll totally help some more,” Brittany says, making more of an effort to stand up straight and just sort of failing. She slumps down again, hands flat against the counter top and yawns again.
Santana looks at the clock on the wall and then sinks her head back down into her hands. It’s much later than she thought, and she rubs her hand over her face to wake herself up. “Yeah, help more,” she echoes in a mumble, struggling to get the words out. Brittany giggles and leans into her, bumping her head against Santana’s shoulder.
“If you can’t even form sentences you shouldn’t be helping,” Mrs. Pierce says sternly, clicking the dishwasher closed and turning it on. “Go to bed!”
She stares at them until they nod, and then before they leave Brittany crosses the room to pull her into a hug. “Thanks for today, mom,” she says as they break apart.
Santana waits by the door, feeling like she’s intruding on what should be a private moment. Mrs. Pierce sniffs once, waving a hand in front of her face to try and stop the tears, and then she nudges Brittany towards the door and says, “I thought I told you to go to bed.”
Santana wants to say thank you too, thank you for including her like she’s a part of the family and making her feel welcome, but she can’t find the right words. Her throat works soundlessly for a moment and then she stutters, “Thank you for-um…”
Before she can finish the sentence, Brittany’s mom crosses the room and pulls her into a hug, arms wrapping around her tightly. She has one hand on the back of Santana’s head and one on the small of her back, the same way her abuela used to hug her when she was little, and she hugs her back shyly, hands barely touching her.
“You’re always welcome here, Santana. Always,” Brittany’s mom says into her hair, and Santana nods against her shoulder, heart feeling like it’s about to burst. When they break apart, Mrs. Pierce laughs at the look on her face and pushes her towards the doorway.
She feels fingers sliding into hers and turns, finding Brittany smiling at her, eyes soft and shining. “Come on, San,” she says sweetly, brushing her fingertips again Santana’s palm. “Let’s go to bed.”
Santana nods and lets herself be pulled through the door.
+
They undress in silence, too tired even to really look at each other, happy enough to shed their clothes and pull on ratty old sleep shirts before crawling into bed. Santana shifts onto her side and looks at Brittany, just looks at her, reaching out to trace her fingers over her cheekbones lightly. Sometimes she thinks she’d be happy if she could just look at Brittany forever, watching the way the light plays over the angles of her face and body, her hair shimmering like spun gold. She’s so beautiful it makes her ache, and after a moment Brittany’s arms come up to wrap around her back and pull her closer, until they’re pressed together with no space left between them. Santana nuzzles into her, nudging her knee between Brittany’s, not with any kind of intent but just because it’s comfortable, and Brittany shifts her hips a little, until they fit together like two puzzle pieces, so close Santana can’t tell them apart.
They kiss lazily, not really leading to anything but just because they can, bodies curled into each other in the dark. Brittany brushes her tongue against Santana’s lips, clumsy with sleep, and Santana sucks it into her mouth slowly, just because.
Normally, their kisses would be getting more desperate by now, all tongues and swollen lips, until their hands were sliding down between their bodies searching for something more, but it’s still late and they’re still tired, so they’re content just to kiss, closed mouthed and slow now, as they start to slide towards sleep.
After a while, Brittany sighs and pulls back to ghost kisses against Santana’s jaw and down her neck, and then Santana threads her hands into Brittany’s hair like it’s something precious, holding her as close as she knows how. Brittany breathes into the hollow of her throat, breath cool against her too hot skin, lips pressing into the bones there every time Santana swallows.
Santana breathes out against Brittany’s forehead, tracing shapes into her shoulder blade with the arm wrapped around Brittany’s back, and wishes she never had to move again.
“Today was kind of perfect,” Brittany whispers sleepily, pressing another kiss into her skin. Her eyes are closed and she looks like she’s nearly asleep, and Santana wonders if she even knows she’s said it.
“Yeah,” Santana agrees thickly, not sure if Brittany can hear her but pressing one last kiss to her forehead anyway. “Yeah, it really was, Britt-Britt.”
Part Two
Characters: Brittany/Santana, (w/ Quinn, Sam, Mike/Tina)
Rating: R (for later parts)
Summary: Brittany and Santana graduate high school and spend one last summer in Lima before going to college.
Santana walks straight through her front door and into her abuela’s arms.
Her abuela hugs the same way that Brittany does: arms wrapped around her tightly, warm presence all around her keeping her safe. She’s barely taller than Santana in her heels, so Santana tucks her chin into the space between her shoulder and neck, smiling where no one can see.
“Congratulations, Santana honey,” her grandmother murmurs into her hair. “I’m so proud of you.”
Santana nods her head against her abuela’s shoulder, not trusting herself to speak as she feels tears at the corners of her eyes, and then her father says, “We all are,” from somewhere behind her and she’s suddenly swallowing against the lump in her throat and sucking in a shaky breath as the tears threaten to fall.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry today but she’s not made of stone, and she still remembers what it felt like when she thought her abuela would never be proud of her again.
Her grandmother lets go of her slowly, pulling back to hold her at arm’s length and survey her critically. She brushes a single tear away from Santana’s cheek with a wrinkled hand and shakes her head, “Stop that now. Don’t you know today is supposed to be happy?”
“I am really happy,” Santana sniffles, laughing a little as she wipes the back of her hand against her eyes and her grandmother frowns at her, “Really.”
Her grandmother smacks her lips together and rolls her eyes, and Santana thinks she’s seeing a vision of her future for a second before she speaks and Santana hears her accent, “Then you shouldn’t cry. Come.” She pulls her towards the living room, arm strong around her back, as she guides her towards the couch. “How did Brittany look, eh? Tell me about the good parts.”
“Beautiful,” Santana smiles a little as she takes a seat. She glances to the doorway where her parents are standing watching them, then pulls her cell phone out, “Do you want to see a picture?”
It’s the one photo they took together before they found their parents. They’re only just in the frame, because Santana had to hold her own phone to take the photo and she got distracted from aiming by the way Brittany had kissed her, one hand in her hair, fingers against her neck, the other holding her own cap flat against her head as it had started to fall. They were supposed to be just smiling goofily, heads pressed close together before Brittany had turned and sucked Santana’s bottom lip between both of hers. They’re both smiling into the kiss, Santana in surprise, Brittany playfully, and they look so, so happy, like they know a secret no one else does.
“Oh Santanita,” her grandmother murmurs, wiping at her face with one hand and wrapping the other around her back, pulling her close, “Santana.”
+
It’s only after her abuela has left and she’s getting dressed to go to Brittany’s after dinner that it really hits her that she’s graduated high school and she’s going to college in the fall. She stares at herself in the mirror while she’s putting her makeup on, trying to decide if she looks older and wiser than she did that morning.
She thinks she still looks the same.
She stares for a long time before she looks away, eyes finding her diploma rolled out and held down between two books on her desk, and then the Stanford acceptance letter pinned to her notice board next to a picture of her and Brittany.
She finishes putting her makeup on carefully, rubbing at a tiny smudge of eyeliner in the corner of her eye until it’s gone, and taking care to blot her lips . She smoothes her hand down her dress, getting the last wrinkles out and then surveys her appearance in the mirror again critically, hoping she looks okay.
Brittany didn’t tell her to dress up but she has anyway, wanting to look nice when she meets Brittany’s extended family for the first time since she became her girlfriend. She’s known some of them since she was little, from the odd occasions when Brittany was allowed to bring her best friend to family gatherings, and she wonders if any of them remember the little girls they used to be, running wild and sharing pieces of cake under tables where no one would find them. It’s weird, meeting them again now things have shifted so dramatically, like they have all the power and she has none. She wants them to like her - she thinks they used to like her - and she feels a little like a nervous teenager meeting their date’s parents for the first time.
She runs her hand through her hair one last time before she turns away to grab her cell and text Brittany that she’s about to leave. She clomps down the stairs noisily, and just before she leaves she catches sight of her reflection in the hallway mirror.
She thinks she looks older now.
+
Brittany’s waiting for her on the porch when she gets there, half hidden in the shadows and leaning back against the door. The porch light glints off the highlights in her hair as she stands there, and she looks so peaceful, Santana almost doesn’t want to disturb her, happy just to look. She parks at the end of the driveway, behind all the cars belonging to Brittany’s extended family members, and crunches up the gravel as quietly as she can in her heels.
Brittany hears her coming and kicks back from the door, and Santana watches the way she steps out of the darkness and down the steps towards her like she’s being revealed, the dull light from the porch sliding across her face drawing her into existence.
She almost forgets to breathe, just for a minute.
They meet on the middle step, Brittany pulling her into a hug and burying her face in her hair, and Santana breathes in the smell of her, shampoo and perfume and Brittany down underneath it all.
“How was dinner?” Brittany asks, and Santana can feel her lips moving against her neck as she speaks.
It makes her shiver and ache for Brittany’s mouth, so she says, “Good,” and leans up to kiss Brittany’s neck, then her cheek, mouth curving into a smile against the skin. “But this is better.”
Brittany grins and turns her head until their lips meet, arms snaking around Santana’s neck and into her hair to pull her closer. “Yeah,” Brittany agrees simply, half hidden in a sigh between kisses so Santana almost doesn’t hear it. Brittany kisses her again, a little more chastely, then pulls back to rest her forehead against Santana’s, and when Santana opens her eyes all she can see is Brittany, freckles and a blur of blue where her eyes merge together.
They stay like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, just breathing together like two halves of a whole.
Brittany is quite for a moment longer, and then she leans back a little to find Santana’s eyes, searching for something. “I’m going to introduce you as my girlfriend.”
“I know.”
Brittany nods, eyes still locked with hers. “But that’s still okay?”
Santana feels a pang that even now Brittany still feels like she needs to ask, and she stands up on her tip-toes and kisses her again, slow and sweet, one hand pressed to her cheek, thumb tracing her cheekbone softly.
She wishes Brittany didn’t have to ask.
“Of course, Britt-Britt,” she says when she pulls back, finding Brittany’s eyes and smiling, waiting until she sees the answering smile on Brittany’s face before she speaks again, “But wait, I thought they already knew about us. Didn’t you tell people at your cousin’s wedding?”
“They know I have a girlfriend but they don’t know it’s you,” Brittany takes her hand and climbs a step, moving closer to the door, and tugs on her hand. Santana follows, watching as Brittany slides back into the shadows. “And I want them to know it’s you, so.” Brittany shrugs a little, like it’s not a big deal, but Santana can’t stop herself from kissing her again, just once, before they go inside.
+
Santana walks through the door with her hand in Brittany’s, and when Brittany’s aunts and uncles turn to look at them Brittany says, “This is my girlfriend, Santana,” smiling at her in a way that makes Santana blush, warm and possessive all at once.
+
“So Santana, where are you going to college?” Brittany’s uncle asks her when she’s waiting to get sodas from the fridge for her and Brittany.
“Um,” Santana nearly swallows her tongue. She’s a little thrown by the fact that Brittany isn’t there to deflect the attention, and she can’t actually remember which uncle this is, but she clears her throat and says, “Stanford,” anyway. “I’m gonna be pre-med, I think,” she adds, after a second’s hesitation. It kind of feels like bragging somehow, and she wishes she could take it back almost as soon as she’s said it.
“A doctor, eh?” He nudges another of Brittany’s uncles and winks, taking another sip of his beer, “So you’ll be able to take good care of our Brittany then. Financially, I mean.”
Santana flushes and has to look down, because honestly, it’s something she hasn’t really thought about but now that he’s mentioned it it’s making her feel a little funny, and part of her has to fight the urge to say, “Yes sir!” like some kind of boy scout. She’d roll her eyes at herself if she wasn’t trying so hard to make a good impression.
“You’ve embarrassed her now,” the second Uncle says, smiling warmly until Santana nods shyly. “Don’t mind him, he’s just stuck in 1963.”
“I am not! I just like to check up on who Britt is dating,” he takes another mouthful of his beer, “I asked that boy in the wheelchair the same thing.”
“So you and Brittany must have chosen your colleges together, then?” the more sober uncle goes on, ignoring the other.
Santana nods and smiles, thinking back to them lying on the floor of Brittany’s room, flipping through college brochures last fall. “Well Berkeley has a really great dance program,” she explains, “And my parents wanted me to go to Stanford, so it made a lot of sense for both of us.” And it’s really fucking far away from Lima, she wants to add but doesn’t, because, well, good impressions aren’t usually helped by cursing.
“It sounds like you two really have the future all planned out,” Brittany’s uncle says, pulling her out of her thoughts.
“Yeah,” Santana agrees cautiously, “I guess we have.” The thought sends a shiver through her, and she wonders, briefly, when the hell that happened.
She remembers how Brittany had rolled onto her elbow and pushed the Berkeley brochure towards her shyly, murmuring, “We could go to California together,” in this quiet voice that turned it into a question, and how she’d just sort of stared at Brittany in disbelief and shaken her head - because weren’t they always going together? - before she’d leaned forward and kissed her hard, pushing her back down against the floor. Now that she’s thinking back to it, she felt like she was growing up then as she’d kissed Brittany, fingers tangling in her hair. They’d made love slowly, trailing fingers exploring the bodies they knew so well, quiet but for the murmured gasps against each other’s mouths in the stillness of the room. After, Santana had lain with her head on Brittany’s chest, listening to the thud of her heart and whispered, “We’re going to California together,” in a way that turned it into a promise, and Brittany had kissed her then, making her own promise in return.
She’s shaken from the memory by Brittany’s uncle handing her two sodas from the fridge, icy cold against her suddenly too warm skin, and she takes them quickly, glad he doesn’t know what she was thinking about a second before. “So you take care of our Brittany now, y’hear?” he winks at her roguishly and drags Brittany’s other uncle off to the living room.
Santana shakes her head, faint blush on her cheeks, and watches them go.
+
One of Brittany’s aunts ask them how long they’ve been together just as she’s leaving, because, she says, they look so happy they must still be in their honeymoon phase. Santana looks at Brittany helplessly, wondering if the answer is since senior year or since freshman year or something else entirely, and then Brittany says, “Since we were five,” shyly, in this sweet little voice that tugs at Santana behind her bellybutton.
Brittany’s aunt stares at them dumbly for a moment, and then shakes her head as she pulls Brittany into a hug and kisses her cheek, and Santana sees her whisper something into Brittany’s ear just before she pulls back. They watch her head down the driveway in silence, and then Santana turns to find Brittany looking at her with a smile on her face, head canted to the side like she’s puzzling something out.
“What did she say Britt-Britt?” Santana asks softly, reaching over for her hand.
“She said I should marry you,” Brittany replies, not quite meeting her eyes, and Santana feels her stomach flip-flop again.
It’s not that she hasn’t thought about it, but it’s something she kind of thought she could never have so she’d tried to push from her mind. When Brittany says it out loud it suddenly becomes possible again, something Santana hadn’t even known she’d wanted until this moment, and she has to fight hard to keep her face neutral.
“Damn right,” she says after a second’s hesitation, just long enough for Brittany to notice. She’d tried to put something of her old bravado back into her voice, to turn it into a joke, but it sounds like a weak imitation and besides she never was that person with Brittany. It shouldn’t be a big a deal, but they’re both making it into one, and Santana has to resist the urge to scuff her feet against the hard wood floor just to give herself something to do. She clasps her fingers together, twisting them nervously, and she’s not looking at Brittany now either.
It’s uncomfortable for a second longer, and then Brittany laughs, a little bit higher than usual, in the back of her throat, and Santana slides her gaze to her all at once, like she’s pulling off a band aid. Brittany has an unreadable expression on her face, a faint blush on her cheeks, and then she rolls her eyes and pushes Santana back into the living room and the moment is lost.
+
Brittany’s aunts and uncles leave slowly, and Santana yawns behind her hand and thinks maybe she should go too, even though she’d told her mom she was going to stay. She still doesn’t like to assume she can just stay over whenever she wants, even though she pretty much does, and when she says as much to Brittany, Brittany just looks at her steadily and says, “Oh San,” in this voice that sounds like her heart is breaking.
Santana can’t bear the way Brittany is looking at her, so she shifts her gaze sideways until Brittany puts her fingers under her chin and tilts her head back gently to find her eyes. “You’re such a dork sometimes,” Brittany whispers in the same heartbreak voice, tracing her thumb over Santana’s bottom lip slowly.
I am not, Santana wants to retort, but then Brittany is leaning forward to kiss her and the words die in her throat.
+
They find Ashley asleep in a corner of the living room while they’re tidying up, curled into a ball next to one of the armchairs.
“She didn’t want to go to bed and miss anything,” Brittany’s mom says fondly, collecting the empty glasses and cans dotted around the room. “She said she wanted to stay up and be a big girl like you two,” she sighs and shakes her head. “She’s growing up.”
“Yeah, we kinda do that, mom.” Brittany nudges her playfully, trying to keep the moment light. “Did you know I graduated high school today?”
Santana hides her smile, and throws a few more paper plates into the garbage bag. Brittany catches her eye and rolls her own theatrically, and then Santana can’t help but laugh as well. “Yeah, did you hear we’re going to college in the fall?” She adds, as innocently as she can.
Brittany’s mom just laughs at her, and she feels it again, that weird feeling of being included and loved that makes her chest tighten, and she has to smile and look away.
“How did I end up with such a couple of smart asses huh?” Brittany’s mom stacks glasses onto the tray she’s carrying and heads for the kitchen, bumping Brittany with her hip as she walks past, “And just for that, you two get to put Ash to bed.”
Brittany sighs dramatically and says something about that not being fair, but Santana barely notices past her sudden panic. How the hell do you put a nine year old to bed? Whenever they’ve babysat in the past, they’d always made sure Ashley was in bed before she fell asleep, Santana staring her down when she had to with the scowl Ashley seems to have picked up herself, just so she and Brittany could spend more time sneaking kisses under the blanket on the couch before Brittany’s mom and dad came home.
“Do we-should we wake her?” Santana asks helplessly, suddenly sure that if they do that she’ll never go back to sleep. She wants to do this right, with every fibre of her being, though she isn’t sure, all of a sudden, why it’s so important to her. She fiddles with her hands nervously, waiting for Brittany to answer.
“Relax, I’ve got her,” Brittany says, looking at her like she’s acting weird, or grown an extra body part or something. She crouches down next to her sister then slides her arms under her carefully, lifting her from the floor. Santana watches in amazement as Brittany manages to lift Ashley without waking her, and how, after a moment, Ashley whimpers and slides her arms around Brittany’s neck and snuggles closer. Santana doesn’t know how, but Ashley is still asleep, and Santana trails after Brittany as she climbs the stairs, sure she’s watching some kind of magic trick.
“Can you get the door? And the covers?” Brittany whispers over Ashley’s head, so Santana does, opening the door to Ashley’s room and then turning the bed down so Brittany can set her down in the middle of it. She tugs Ashley out of her clothes gently, stroking her arm and whispering comforting nonsense sounds as Santana stands by not knowing what to do.
After a moment she reaches over and turns on the night-light, because that’s the kind of thing she might have liked when she was nine, she thinks, someone to turn on the night light for her.
Brittany pulls a sleep shirt out of Ashley’s closet and slides it over her head like a magician pulling a cloth off a table without disturbing the place settings. Ashley is still asleep, somehow, and Santana doesn’t understand, not at all, when Brittany pulls the blankets over her and then smoothes them down to tuck her in. Brittany nods towards the door, and they tip toe away, listening to Ashley’s deep, even breathing and holding their breath.
In the hallway, Santana huffs out a lungful of air and says, “I don’t know where you learnt to do that weird piece of magic, but when we have kids you’re totally in charge of putting them to bed,” without really thinking about it, and it’s only after she sees the way Brittany is looking at her that her brain catches up with her mouth. She flushes with embarrassment and starts to stammer, “I mean-“
Then Brittany just says, “Okay,” quickly, low and a little bit excited, before Santana can say anything else. The rest of her words die in her throat, and Santana grins at her like some kind of idiot, until Brittany shakes her head and laughs, taking her hand to pull her back downstairs to finish cleaning.
+
“You can go to bed if you want, we can handle the rest,” Brittany’s mom says, as she stacks glasses in the dishwasher. They’ve been slumped against the kitchen counter for the past ten minutes, watching her and yawning in turns, and Santana is so tired she thinks she might just collapse face down on the counter and sleep for a week.
“No it’s okay, mom. We’ll totally help some more,” Brittany says, making more of an effort to stand up straight and just sort of failing. She slumps down again, hands flat against the counter top and yawns again.
Santana looks at the clock on the wall and then sinks her head back down into her hands. It’s much later than she thought, and she rubs her hand over her face to wake herself up. “Yeah, help more,” she echoes in a mumble, struggling to get the words out. Brittany giggles and leans into her, bumping her head against Santana’s shoulder.
“If you can’t even form sentences you shouldn’t be helping,” Mrs. Pierce says sternly, clicking the dishwasher closed and turning it on. “Go to bed!”
She stares at them until they nod, and then before they leave Brittany crosses the room to pull her into a hug. “Thanks for today, mom,” she says as they break apart.
Santana waits by the door, feeling like she’s intruding on what should be a private moment. Mrs. Pierce sniffs once, waving a hand in front of her face to try and stop the tears, and then she nudges Brittany towards the door and says, “I thought I told you to go to bed.”
Santana wants to say thank you too, thank you for including her like she’s a part of the family and making her feel welcome, but she can’t find the right words. Her throat works soundlessly for a moment and then she stutters, “Thank you for-um…”
Before she can finish the sentence, Brittany’s mom crosses the room and pulls her into a hug, arms wrapping around her tightly. She has one hand on the back of Santana’s head and one on the small of her back, the same way her abuela used to hug her when she was little, and she hugs her back shyly, hands barely touching her.
“You’re always welcome here, Santana. Always,” Brittany’s mom says into her hair, and Santana nods against her shoulder, heart feeling like it’s about to burst. When they break apart, Mrs. Pierce laughs at the look on her face and pushes her towards the doorway.
She feels fingers sliding into hers and turns, finding Brittany smiling at her, eyes soft and shining. “Come on, San,” she says sweetly, brushing her fingertips again Santana’s palm. “Let’s go to bed.”
Santana nods and lets herself be pulled through the door.
+
They undress in silence, too tired even to really look at each other, happy enough to shed their clothes and pull on ratty old sleep shirts before crawling into bed. Santana shifts onto her side and looks at Brittany, just looks at her, reaching out to trace her fingers over her cheekbones lightly. Sometimes she thinks she’d be happy if she could just look at Brittany forever, watching the way the light plays over the angles of her face and body, her hair shimmering like spun gold. She’s so beautiful it makes her ache, and after a moment Brittany’s arms come up to wrap around her back and pull her closer, until they’re pressed together with no space left between them. Santana nuzzles into her, nudging her knee between Brittany’s, not with any kind of intent but just because it’s comfortable, and Brittany shifts her hips a little, until they fit together like two puzzle pieces, so close Santana can’t tell them apart.
They kiss lazily, not really leading to anything but just because they can, bodies curled into each other in the dark. Brittany brushes her tongue against Santana’s lips, clumsy with sleep, and Santana sucks it into her mouth slowly, just because.
Normally, their kisses would be getting more desperate by now, all tongues and swollen lips, until their hands were sliding down between their bodies searching for something more, but it’s still late and they’re still tired, so they’re content just to kiss, closed mouthed and slow now, as they start to slide towards sleep.
After a while, Brittany sighs and pulls back to ghost kisses against Santana’s jaw and down her neck, and then Santana threads her hands into Brittany’s hair like it’s something precious, holding her as close as she knows how. Brittany breathes into the hollow of her throat, breath cool against her too hot skin, lips pressing into the bones there every time Santana swallows.
Santana breathes out against Brittany’s forehead, tracing shapes into her shoulder blade with the arm wrapped around Brittany’s back, and wishes she never had to move again.
“Today was kind of perfect,” Brittany whispers sleepily, pressing another kiss into her skin. Her eyes are closed and she looks like she’s nearly asleep, and Santana wonders if she even knows she’s said it.
“Yeah,” Santana agrees thickly, not sure if Brittany can hear her but pressing one last kiss to her forehead anyway. “Yeah, it really was, Britt-Britt.”
Part Two