Fic: i-80 west, part six (Brittany/Santana, R)
Title: i-80 west, part six
Characters: Brittany, Mike, Brittany/Santana
Length: 8.5k
Rating: R
Summary: Brittany and Santana graduate high school and spend one last summer in Lima before leaving for college.
A/N: Super thanks, as always, to JJ for giving me all the notes in the world about Utah and going above and beyond in beta duties in helping me write this part. Thanks to my gf for a) putting up with me and b) letting me write this when we were supposed to be hanging out this week. Thanks to everyone for reading and all the awesome comments/messages you send. Sorry I left you all on that cliffhanger that one time.
The city is a lot bigger than she thought it would be.
Or maybe that’s just the effect they get after so long in the mountains because she’s not even sure if they’re in the city proper yet. There are buildings on both sides of the road, and busy intersections and actual people, which automatically makes it more like civilisation than the canyons and mountains, and even Santana relaxes a little next to her though she’s still staring straight ahead and gripping the wheel tighter than she really needs to.
Brittany thinks the mountains freaked her out, because Santana hates it when she feels like she’s not in control, and she reaches over to lay a hand on her knee as they head further south, blinking a little in confusion when Santana starts and jerks her leg away.
“San?” she asks, hand hovering between them like it doesn’t really know what to do.
“Cramp,” Santana mumbles out of the side of her mouth, only it doesn’t sound quite like it’s true, but then she kicks her leg out a little like she’s trying to stretch out the muscle and Brittany thinks maybe she meant it after all.
The buildings and the people all seems weirdly beautiful after so long on winding mountain roads that seem like they’ll never end, and she snaps a few photos as they go, the mountains hanging over everything in the distance like a warning.
She thinks absently if that’s maybe what all that stuff about symbolism and, like, it raining in books when people are sad meant in English class and then wonders where the thought came from.
Santana still isn’t looking at anything but the road, so Brittany snaps a couple of pictures of her driving, just because, squinting down at the screen a little when she notices the way Santana’s features are drawn into a frown. She rubs her finger against the screen like she’s trying to smooth the creases away and wishes she could do it for real, wishes that Santana would never look that way again and she’d just grin her goofy I’m so in love smile and crack a joke instead.
She hates the mountains, just a little bit, for taking that Santana away.
She makes a note to try to wipe the look off of Santana’s face when they get to the hotel and stares down at the picture a little longer, trying to decide where would be the best place to start.
+
Santana takes them to a pretty nice hotel just off the freeway, and she sits completely still in her seat for a whole minute after she’s killed the engine, still gripping the wheel.
She knows Santana gets stuck on feelings sometimes, the same way that she gets stuck on words and what they mean when no one else really cares, and she lets Santana blink and breathe for a second before she reaches over and tugs her hands off the wheel gently, rubbing her thumb between her knuckles as Santana turns to look at her. She looks so confused for a second that Brittany wants to laugh only it dies a little in her throat when Santana blinks and pulls away to climb out of the car without saying a word.
She exhales heavily into the empty car and then reaches for the door handle to follow her, trying to swallow the irritation bubbling up in the back of her throat. “I’ll get the bags,” she says, just to stop herself from grabbing Santana and shaking her until she snaps out of it, and Santana just nods before heading for the front desk.
Santana takes care of checking in while Brittany stands slightly behind her, pulling her overnight bag higher on her shoulder when it slides down and keeping her eyes on Santana the whole time, wondering why her mood didn’t disappear as soon as they left the mountains instead of staying with her, hovering over them like a raincloud.
Santana doesn’t even wait to see if she’s following before she takes the key and heads in the direction the concierge points them in, and Brittany stares at her for a moment before hurrying to catch her. “Hey, wait up,” she says, almost laughing in disbelief as she covers the space between them quickly. “Wait!”
She’s definitely not imagining it when Santana shrugs away from her touch, and she pulls her own hand back like she’s been burnt, following Santana at more of a safe distance as she carries on like nothing happened.
She hasn’t seen Santana like this for a long while, not since lockers and hallways and words said that can’t be taken back, and she doesn’t understand how something as stupid as a road is making her act this way. She wasn’t like this after her abuela, or after the campaign commercial that nearly ruined everything; she’d spent both nights sobbing in Brittany’s arms and telling her everything instead of hiding and pretending she was going through it alone, so she doesn’t understand how a mountain is making her act like she’s the only one in this hallway.
She doesn’t understand why Santana won’t even look at her, like Brittany was the one who put the mountains there all those years ago, just to make Santana scared today.
Santana opens the door to their room quickly and doesn’t bother to turn the light on when she steps inside, just climbs up onto the bed and rolls onto her side, her back to Brittany as she pulls her knees up to her chest. Brittany drops the bags and kicks the door shut behind her, eyeing Santana for a minute before crossing the room to the bathroom and flicking the light on. She watches Santana flinch from the sudden brightness.
She wouldn’t normally bother, but she shuts the connecting door and stares at it for a second, weirdly glad for the privacy. She feels a twinge of guilt and pushes it away, because one of the promises that always hung unsaid between them is that they wouldn’t ever put up walls again, and she stares at herself in the mirror and runs a hand through her hair, peeling it away from the back of her neck in the sticky summer heat. She runs the water in the sink until it’s cold, splashing it on her face as she runs a hand over her eyes a little harder than she needs to, taking a moment to let the frustration ebb out of her as the water dries on her skin.
The thing is, she knows Santana is probably going to be okay in the morning. She’s always cared too quickly and too much ever since they were little, bearing grudges against kids who hurt one or both of them at recess for a couple of days and forgetting about it by the end of the week, but this isn’t elementary school, and Brittany doesn’t know what hurt her, and somehow it seems like a grudge against a mountain should be the kind of thing that lasts, just like the mountain itself.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to breathe out the way she feels and let it drift away. There’s no breeze in their room, none outside either, and she feels it hang in the air, like it doesn’t want to leave just yet. She wonders if Santana will be able to feel it, in the other room.
She takes a moment to collect herself before she reaches for the door handle and pushes it open, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light coming through the shades as she shuts off the bathroom light behind her. Santana is still where she left her, only her legs aren’t drawn up quite so tight anymore, and Brittany sinks down on the bed behind her, watching as the bed dips under her weight and Santana slides towards her a little, even though she’s obviously still trying to hold herself apart.
Brittany reaches for her slowly, like she might startle, even though she can’t see her coming. She presses just her fingertips to her back and waits, wondering if Santana will pull away. When she doesn’t, she moves her fingers slowly, until her palm is flat against Santana’s spine in the small of her back, and she isn’t sure if she’s imagining it or not but it feels like Santana leans into her touch so she keeps her hand there, holding it still like if she does Santana will forget it’s there, hiding in plain sight.
“Do you want to go out to eat?” Brittany asks softly, moving the tips of her fingers in tiny circles against Santana’s shirt and she feels Santana shake her head just the tiniest bit.
“Not hungry,” Santana mumbles, but at least she’s talking and Brittany rubs a little more, thinking maybe she’s found the secret to unlocking whatever it is that keeps Santana’s bad mood inside of her and it’s starting to escape.
She feels Santana still under touch, almost like she’s shocked at the sound of her own voice.
“Well, wanna come with me to get something?” Brittany asks, and she can see the moment she’s pushed too much just as it creeps up on them and Santana rolls away a little, so she’s half on her stomach and less on her side. Brittany’s hand hovers between them, unsure at the sudden loss of contact, before following Santana and settling against her back again.
“I’m tired, I’m going to sleep,” Santana says shortly, and Brittany feels a twinge of something go through her chest, and it’s only then that she realises how scared Santana actually is. It reminds her of the last time that Santana has refused to go somewhere with her, of text messages and songbirds and apologies sent at 2am, and Brittany presses a hand to her chest like she’s trying to stop the feeling from escaping.
She takes a breath and hates the way it sounds a little ragged in her throat. “Are you okay?” She asks desperately, suddenly needed to hear her answer. “Did the mountains freak you out?”
“I’m just tired,” Santana replies quickly, and there’s something about the way she says it that sounds weird, like her inflection isn’t quite right.
Brittany feels tears at the corners of her eyes and blinks them away, suddenly needing to not be here. “Well you shouldn’t sleep in your clothes,” she says, desperate for something to say. She pulls her hand back from Santana quickly and stands, turning away without a second glance. “I’m gonna go find a vending machine,” she swallows to stop her voice breaking on the next words. “I’ll be back in a second.”
She still thinks she needs to say that because she isn’t sure if Santana knows it, all of a sudden.
She scoops the key off the desk where Santana dropped it without waiting for a response, and steps out into the hallway before the first tears fall, letting the door slam shut behind her.
+
She heads back the way they came up, because she remembers catching sight of a vending machine with brightly coloured packets of chips and candy in it, and though she isn’t even sure that she wants food anymore she retraces her steps until she finds it in a little alcove, set back from the doors to the other rooms. She stares at the lurid packaging without really seeing it, and she slides a hand down the machine slowly, until she’s leaning forward to rest her head against the cool glass, taking deep breaths as she fights the tears threatening to spill over.
She hasn’t felt this way for so long that she almost doesn’t recognise the emotions, frustration and hurt merging together until she doesn’t know which one is strongest, just knows that she thought she wouldn’t ever feel this way again, and especially not because of Santana.
She realises how silly that thought is the second it crosses her mind, because Santana was always the only one who could ever make her feel this way, and no-one else has ever come close. She always knew that meant something big and important, but it still doesn’t stop it hurting right now, or all those times before.
She rubs her hand over her face and tries to calm down, because this isn’t helping, and she knows everything will be fine in the morning, everything has to be fine in the morning, because they’re in Salt Lake and they’re going to California, and Brittany didn’t realise quite how scary that was until this very moment, when all she wants to do is reach out and grab Santana and bury her face in the space between her neck and shoulder and can’t.
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a handful of change, staring at the coins until they start to make sense and she can pluck out quarters and dimes and push them into the machine, sure she’s putting too much money in and pressing buttons at random until a bag of chips drops into the bottom and she reaches in to pull it out and look at what she’s chosen, laughing a little without any humour in it when she sees the colour.
She doesn’t even like salt and vinegar chips.
(Santana does.)
She looks through her money again and figures she has enough to get something cheese flavoured and devoid of any nutritional value, and feeds the machine coins again, fingers dancing over the button as she makes her choice. She takes both bags back to their room, clutching them a little harder than she maybe needs to, balancing them in the crook of her arm while she pushes the keycard into the slot and waits for the light to turn green.
It takes her a couple of tries before she gets it to work, and she steadies herself before walking back through the door. Her eyes immediately go to Santana, the way she’s still in exactly the same place she left her, her knees back up closer to her chest as she holds herself stiff and still, too much tension in her muscles for her to be asleep, although Santana must think she has her fooled because she doesn’t say anything, just stays still and curled up in the darkness.
She sits down on the rickety chair by the desk and eats her chips in silence, without really tasting them, washing it down with the bottled water they’d brought in from the car earlier. It’s like chewing cardboard, and she doesn’t finish the bag, just tosses it onto the desk next to the bag of salt and vinegar and swallows more water, trying to rid herself of the taste.
She pulls her sleep shirt and shorts out of her overnight bag and scrambles into them in the bathroom, pausing a second before she shuts the door and peers through the gap until Santana disappears from view. She brushes her teeth steadily but even the mint tastes bitter somehow, until she’s spitting the foam from her mouth and swirling a mouthful of water around again.
She opens the door and pauses, looking at Santana in the light from the bathroom, still unmoving and hard where she left her. “San?” she says, the word almost catching in her throat. She swallows but the next words still come out as a sort of strangled whisper, “Are you awake?”
Santana doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. Brittany squeezes her hands into fists at her sides, if only to stop herself from crossing the room and shaking Santana until she says something, even if she tells her to stop.
She opens her mouth, but no words come out, and she doesn’t think she could find the words to say what she means anyway, so she just reaches for the light switch and climbs into bed, feeling an irrational surge of satisfaction when she doesn’t touch Santana at all, just lies on her back and stares at the ceiling, breathing into the darkness.
Santana still isn’t asleep, still too carefully arranged and stiff, her limbs not heavy and relaxed the way they usually are when she’s in Brittany’s arms and blinking sleepily, pressing clumsy kisses to the underside of her chin and sliding towards unconsciousness.
She wonders briefly if maybe that’s why she can’t fall asleep, because they’re not curled up together the way they’re supposed to be.
She shifts her head around on the pillow until she’s staring at Santana’s back, at her impossibly dark hair on the pillow, and wants to reach out and run her fingers through it. She wants to wrap her arms around Santana and pull her into the crook of her body, holding her safe until whatever it is that scares her leaves them alone, until she’s kissed all the worry lines from her forehead and she’s smiling at her again.
Her last thought before she falls asleep is of Santana crying in the dark, and just before she reaches her to pull her into a hug the floor drops out from under her and she’s falling, falling until-
+
Brittany wakes up right on the edge of the bed, and it takes her a moment to remember where she is, and then she’s rolling over and searching for Santana frantically before she even knows what she’s doing, breathing out a sigh of relief when she finds her in exactly the same position as the night before, still wearing her clothes, her whole body loose in sleep the way it hadn’t been the night before.
She reaches out and touches her back lightly, barely tracing the shape of her through her shirt, not wanting to wake her up in case she’s still going to behave the way she did the night before. She eases herself out of bed slowly, checking every couple of inches to make sure she hasn’t disturbed Santana, but she breathes on, slow and deep, unaware that Brittany is moving at all.
The night before seems far away, suddenly, in the light filtering through the shades, like a bad dream fading as soon as you wake. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and glances down at Santana again, watching her back rise and fall as she breathes, and resists the urge to reach out for her again.
Just because the dream faded for her doesn’t mean it did for Santana. Her mom always told her you shouldn’t wake someone from a bad dream because then they get stuck in it for the rest of the day, and she doesn’t want that to happen to Santana, so.
She stretches herself up to her full height when she gets to her feet, reaching her arms up until she feels her shoulder start to pop and drops them down again as she exhales noisily, cutting off the sigh suddenly when she remembers Santana is still asleep. She scoops her shorts off the floor and pulls her phone out of the pocket to check the time, swallowing a yawn when she sees that it’s 8.30am, like just seeing the numbers makes her tired somehow, even though she doesn’t really feel sleepy anymore.
Her stomach growls when she sees the packets of chips still lying on the desk, but she can’t bring herself to eat them, and she wonders if there’s anywhere that she could get food nearby. She gets dressed quickly, stepping into clean underwear before tugging her shorts up her legs and reaching for the deodorant in her bag.
She should really shower away the dirt and the road from the day before, but she thinks she might be able to make it down to the front desk to ask about food and make it back before Santana wakes, and her stomach growls again, like it’s agreeing with her plan. She realises Santana’s probably hungry too and that food could be a pretty good peace offering-even if she’s not entirely sure she needs to make one-but she doesn’t want to not be there if she wakes up, pretty sure that would be the worst thing after last night, and she searches through her bag for a scrap of paper or anything to scrawl a note on and let her know where she is.
She comes up empty and settles for propping the bag of chips up against Santana’s glasses on the table next to her, before she notices Santana’s phone leaning against the base of the lamp and almost smacks her hand against her head when she realises she can just text Santana and delete the message if she’s back before she gets up.
For no reason as at all, she thinks of those romantic comedies they’d watched together over the years and all the times Santana had admonished the characters for not picking up the phone to call or text their boyfriends and girlfriends when the crazy stuff had started happened, just so they knew nothing was wrong. Santana always hated those movies.
She pulls her own phone out of her pocket and taps her fingers against the screen quickly, waiting until Santana’s phone vibrates against the table so she knows the message sent. She stares down at Santana for a second before she goes, and can’t stop herself from leaning down to ghost a kiss against her forehead and brush some of the hair from her eyes, and hates to tear herself away when the corner of Santana’s mouth crooks up into a smile and she tries to move closer, even though Brittany is no longer there.
Her stomach growls again, and she pulls herself away, sneaking one last glance at her before she pulls her sweatshirt off the back of the chair by the desk and tries to shut the door quietly behind her.
+
There’s a guy at the front desk who is far too cheery for this time in the morning, and Brittany smiles at him politely when he asks if there’s anything he can do to help.
“I was just wondering if there’s somewhere I could get food,” Brittany says, toying with the hem of her shorts. “Somewhere close by? We got in late last night and didn’t eat anything before we went to sleep.”
She watches him slide his eyes to the side like he’s thinking, before his grin widens a little. “There’s a Macdonalds at the Gateway,” he says, and reels off the address and which way she should go. “There’s a Jamba Juice down that way too.”
She thanks him and pulls her phone out of her pocket to check the time, but she hasn’t been gone long and judging by the directions he gave her she could totally drive down there and back before Santana wakes up. She casts one glance down the hall to their room before hurrying outside, crossing the parking lot to where Santana left their car the night before, standing all alone in the morning sun.
She fumbles through her pockets in search of the keys, because she swore she swiped them off of the desk along with the keycard, but she goes through each pocket twice, in her shorts and sweatshirt both, before she realises they must be back in the room.
“Shit,” she mumbles under her breath. She slumps head first against the car, already baked warm from the sun, and bumps her palms against the glass, feeling the warmth seep into her skin.
It’s only then that she notices something glinting inside the car in the light and cups her hands together against the glass to block out the sun, so she can see better.
It takes her second to remember it’s Santana’s grandmother’s ring, and she almost kicks herself when everything suddenly snaps into place. She feels like someone just turned all the lights on and she was standing in the dark, and she presses her palm to the glass a little more, like she could reach right through and pluck it out of the cupholder if only she presses hard enough.
“Oh, Santana,” she sighs heavily, and sees the whole thing again in reverse, starting with Santana curled up on the bed and ending when she dropped the ring into the cupholder carelessly, when Santana hadn’t wanted to take it back.
“Shit,” she mumbles again, chewing on her lip as she glances back towards the hotel before she reaches into her pocket for her phone. She dials the number quickly, shifting nervously as she waits for him to pick up.
“Britt?” his voice is hoarse with sleep, and she suddenly remembers the fact that they’re in two different time zones. It takes her a second to work out that it’s two hours later for him, and she would roll her eyes at the fact that he’s still asleep if this wasn’t so serious. “Ugh, what time is it?”
“What would you have done if Tina had given you your ring back?” Brittany says all in a rush, because she figures she might as well ask him now she called and woke him up, tripping over the words a little in her anxiousness. “Because I think I made Santana think I didn’t want to marry her.” She presses a hand to her mouth to muffle the weird laugh that bubbles up her throat, aware suddenly of how funny that sounds when she says it out loud.
There’s silence for a long moment before he speaks, and his voice still sounds rough with sleep. “Britt? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Yesterday, I borrowed her ring and when I tried to give it back she said I should keep it and then I put it in the cupholder when she wouldn’t take it,” Brittany explains, growing a little more frantic with every word. “If Tina had done that to you would you have freaked out?”
“No,” Mike says quickly, and she hears a sigh as he rustles around in his bed, trying to get more comfortable. “Because I’m not a crazy person.”
“She’s not a crazy person either, Mike,” Brittany says immediately. “She’s just...”
“Santana,” Mike replies quickly. “I know. Look, it’s still early what do you want from me?”
“It’s 11am,” Brittany puts in quickly, after she works it out. “It’s 9am here.”
Mike is silent for just a second before he goes on, ignoring her. “You wanted to marry that girl since you gave her that ring pop when you were six years old. I remember, okay? I was there. And if she thinks you don’t then she’s even more ridiculous than I thought.”
“You remember that?” Brittany feels herself blush, smile tugging at her lips as she remembers handing Santana the candy at recess and then the way they’d stolen licks of it together, until their mouths were sticky and red with it, matching clown smiles on their faces.
“Just go and get married and leave me alone,” Mike grumbles and Brittany laughs because suddenly everything really is as simple as that, “I want to go back to sleep.” She hears him yawn, “Where the hell are you anyway?”
“Utah,” Brittany replies through a grin, amazed at how light everything suddenly feels.
“I don’t think you can get married there,” Mike says seriously, as if they really were going to run off and get married, just because he suggested it.
“It’s a good thing we don’t have to get married yet then,” Brittany says with a laugh, because if she thinks about the fact that their marriage might be State-dependent at some unspecified point in the future she’ll lose the good mood she’s found.
“Just make sure to send me an invite,” Mike says through another yawn. “Can I go back to sleep now?”
“I guess,” Brittany says, to both parts, and hears him laugh. “Thanks, Mikey.”
“Any time,” he yawns again. “Except maybe not while I’m asleep next time.”
“Deal,” Brittany says as he mumbles a goodbye and the line goes dead, and she smiles to herself for a moment before her eyes settle on the ring again.
She wants to go back to their room and kiss Santana back to wakefulness, she wants to wrap herself around her until she looks at her and laughs in that way that means everything is okay again, but her stomach gives a growl as if to remind her that she’s still hungry and she knows Santana will be too.
She feels a little bit more like she should go and get a peace offering now, even though she’s still not entirely sure if she needs to.
The guy behind the desk said the food wasn’t far, only a couple blocks away, and she glances back at the ring one more time before she pushes herself back off the car and spins in the direction he pointed her, footsteps quick and sure as she breaks into a jog and glances at the street signs, hoping she’s going the right way.
+
She hasn’t gone very far at all when she hits this quaint little row of shops, all tiny and bearing family names over the doors. She slows down a little as she passes and peers around her, wondering if she could be lucky enough to find a coffee shop or something even though the concierge at the hotel didn’t say there were any.
Santana probably would have liked coffee. She can’t believe she forgot to ask.
She isn’t looking for it, but she sees it anyway, her eyes drawn to the sun glinting off the metals on display in the window, at the gold and silver flashing up at her, and she comes to a stop as her eyes slide over the whole window display, sure it’s suddenly important. It takes her a second to realise she has her face pressed to the glass, her hands hovering just short of touching it as she peers down at the rings slotted into the cushioned cases, and she swallows against the sudden dryness in her throat.
It’s stupid, because she’s never more than given a cursory glance to all the window displays like these back in Lima, but there’s something about the fact that they’re far from home and all alone that makes her stop and look at the rings, wondering what made Santana refuse to take back hers the day before.
It’s stupid, because she’s not going to walk in there and buy a ring and take it back to the hotel and go down on one knee. It’s not even legal here, or back home, or where they’re going, and she doesn’t need a piece of paper with a government stamp on it to prove what she’s known all along anyway. She’s always known she was going to marry Santana some day, and she doesn’t need a ring to prove that right now, even if Santana thinks they do.
It’s stupid, because she’s still looking, even though she wants to walk away.
There’s a sales assistant moving some of the display around, and she sees Brittany through the window and smiles up at her, hardly older than Brittany is herself. Brittany smiles back shyly, dropping her hands to her sides self-consciously when she realises they’re still hovering near the glass. The girl flutters her fingers like she’s beckoning her closer, and Brittany doesn’t feel like she has any choice but to go in, pushing the door open and hearing the chime of a bell as it opens.
It’s much cooler inside the shop than in the morning sun, and Brittany lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, never more grateful for air conditioning that she has been in this moment.
“Morning!” The girl says brightly. “I saw you standing out there, do you wanna take a look around?” She stands to attention like she’s waiting for some sort of signal, back straight as she looks at her, and Brittany almost takes a step backwards before she can help herself.
“I-I was just looking at the rings in the window,” Brittany stutters awkwardly, already wanting to leave despite the air conditioning, but the girl’s eyes light up at the word ‘ring’ and her smile somehow grows even brighter. She kind of reminds Brittany of Rachel Berry, but worse, and the thought alone is enough to make her want to leave and never come back.
“Wishing that special someone would propose?” the assistant grins again, and ushers Brittany towards one of the displays on the walls before leaning in, voice hushed, “These are our more... economical rings,” she says conspiratorially. “My Joe got me one of these,” she suddenly pushes her left hand under Brittany’s nose, and she blinks at it for a second before it withdraws, “Because he’s just working in his father’s garage right now and you know how that is.”
She trills out a laugh, and Brittany actually stares in disbelief, wondering if all her friends are about to Punk her, and the girl is going to pull off a mask and reveal Rachel underneath.
She can feel her mouth actually hang open for a second before she realises the girl is staring at her expectantly and then she forces herself to say, “It’s beautiful,” and watches her preen a little, the index finger of her right hand playing over the gold band and tiny diamond on the ring finger of her left.
“What about you?” She asks and Brittany’s mind stalls for a second to catch up to the conversation, overwhelmed by the sheer force of the girl’s smile.
“We’re on our way to California for college,” Brittany says after a moment, “So...”
“You’ll probably want to stick to this range then,” the girl says without missing a beat, gripping her elbow and smiling encouragingly. “I’ll leave you to browse while I just put these things away,” she indicates the remnants of whatever she was doing to the window display and Brittany nods dumbly and glances back towards the rings, already wondering how long she has to stand here before she can leave.
“My name’s Meghan,” the girl adds over her shoulder, when she reaches to pluck the empty tray from the window. “Call if you need me!”
She doesn’t even really see the rings in front of her, because even if she was going to buy Santana a ring today it wouldn’t be one of these. It’s not because they’re cheap-even the cheapest is out of Brittany’s price range right now, and she always had this dream of them starving and poor at college, auditioning for jobs and wearing tacky plastic cereal box rings on their fingers-but because she realises, staring at them, that they don’t have to do what anyone expects of them. They don’t even have to get rings at all if they don’t want to, because a little strip of metal can’t make her love Santana any more than she already does.
(She thinks they probably will though, because Santana’s old fashioned like that, and the thought sends a little flush through her.)
She reaches out and traces her index fingers over one of the rings on a whim, the only one that caught her eye, just as Meghan appears at her elbow again. “Ooh that one’s pretty!” she says, and Brittany almost jumps in shock.
“Jesus,” she mutters under her breath and watches Meghan’s eyes narrow quickly, the smile falling from her face.
“Did you want to try that on?” her voice has lost a little of its sparkle and Brittany shakes her head quickly, her hand falling away to toy with the hem of her shorts.
“You can if you want to,” she says, and reaches for it herself, plucking it off of the pillow and offering it to Brittany on her hand. She smiles again, only not quite as bright as before and Brittany takes the ring and slips it on just so she doesn’t have to refuse her again.
It’s a little small, and she twists it round her finger with a wince, making sure she’ll still be able to remove it. She feels constricted all of a sudden, the ring tight around her finger as Meghan looks at her, and she wants nothing more than to pull it off.
“It’s pretty,” Meghan says again, although she doesn’t sound like she means it. “You should bring your boyfriend with you so he can see it. I showed Joe the ones I liked before he chose which one to buy,” she glances down at the ring on her finger and back up at her again, almost like she’s sizing her up.
“What did you say your boyfriend’s name was?” Meghan asks, and now her expression is curious with an edge of something else, something hard, lurking in her eyes.
She doesn’t look much like Rachel Berry any more.
Brittany opens her mouth and then shuts it again abruptly, because she’s suddenly realised why the girl is looking at her like that. She forgets sometimes that other people get stuck on words too, only they don’t get stuck quite the same way that she does.
She twists the ring of her finger and offers it back to Meghan. It hovers between them for a moment. “Her name is Santana,” she says softly, and she can’t stop the note of pride creeping into her voice, the happiness she feels whenever she gets to reveal to someone that Santana is hers, even if that person doesn’t understand or even know Santana at all.
Meghan’s face gets hard, and Brittany can almost see the moment her walls come up, like she’s under attack and trying to keep Brittany out. “Her name?” She asks, almost to herself, and Brittany can’t resist nodding.
“My girlfriend’s name is Santana,” it comes out overly loud in the sudden silence of the shop and hangs between them for a second in the air.
Meghan suddenly blinks and snatches the ring back so that she can slip it into the case again, where it belongs. “That ring doesn’t fit,” she says, but Brittany knows that what she really means is that none of the rings do.
(She gets stuck on words sometimes.)
“I think-” Meghan says, then breaks off to look at her again for a second, almost like she’s readying herself for a fight. “I think you should leave. We don’t have- We don’t sell-”
“Yeah,” Brittany says, taking three quick steps towards the door, feeling her heart tighten in her chest painfully. “Yeah.”
+
She starts walking as soon as she gets outside, aware enough of her surroundings to make sure she’s heading in the direction she’s supposed to before she stares down at her feet and finds comfort in the way they move, one in front of the other over and over, forward momentum she thinks she needs right now just so she doesn’t run back to the hotel.
She doesn’t know why it hurts as much as it does, because she grew up in Ohio and went to a high school where pelting kids who showed any sign of difference with slushies was the main form of entertainment. Sometimes, she’s still not sure how she made it out without being slushied herself, and she remembers the couple of times she had to wash red dye number six off of Santana’s forehead and out of her hair and shivers despite the heat of the morning.
She doesn’t understand why the girl back at the store looked at her the way she did, why she hated her the way she did, when all she did was tell the truth. She remembers her mom telling her when she was little that no-one would hate you for telling the truth, but then she thinks of Santana all through high school and knows that isn’t true, because Santana told the truth to everyone and they all thought she was a bitch, and that made her lie about the biggest truth of all just so people wouldn’t hate her for that too.
Thinking of Santana sends a pang through her, and she wishes Santana was here because she would have known what to say to Meghan, even if she would have cried about it afterward, once they were safely back in their hotel room in each other’s arms. That would be okay though, because Brittany would know just how to hold her to make it all better, how to brush the hair away from her eyes and smile against her lips when she kissed the hurt away.
She wishes Santana could kiss this away.
She tries to push her thoughts away but they just come back stronger, like monsters in the sequels to bad horror films, until all she can see is the smile falling from Meghan’s face when she’d said Santana’s name, and all she can hear is the way Meghan had told her the ring didn’t fit. Her vision blurs and she quickens her pace, bumping into someone coming the other way without noticing, mumbling an apology when they ask if she’s okay, and hurrying on because she’s sure, all of a sudden, that everyone here hates them no matter how sincere their concern sounds.
She never really realised before what it was that Santana was terrified of all those years, but she thinks she gets it now.
She only stops walking when she gets to the intersection, and she’s about to turn south when the park across the street catches her eye, and she wipes at her tears with the back of her hand before she crosses the road and heads inside, taking comfort in the shade under the trees. She just needs a minute away from shops and streets and people judging her without knowing her. She just needs a minute to take a breath and hide under the trees, because trees can’t look at her the way the girl back at the store did, and she likes them for that, all of a sudden.
There are a few people nearby, young mothers with younger children sitting on blankets or playing games, but Brittany walks on and ignores them out in the open spaces, sticking to the trees and the quiet shade they provide. She sees groups of teenagers laughing and lying around, little kids charging around playing catch or chasing each other, their mothers shouting at them to be careful, and all she can think is how she doesn’t see anyone like her and Santana, and feels like she’s struggling to breath all of a sudden.
She’s never felt more alone in her life, not even when Santana pushed her away that day at the lockers or when she had to go to junior prom on her own because the one person she wanted to go with was already taken. She’s suddenly very aware of just how far from home they are and it makes her feel tiny, the same way some people’s shocked glances when she’d crossed the stage at graduation made her feel tiny, like she doesn’t want people to see her and she just needs to hide away. It’s not the good kind of tiny she feels when she’s pressed against Santana at night, like they’re the only two people in the world, too big and too small at once, and she presses her hand to her chest and stumbles on, keeping to the shade, sure if she just keeps going it’ll get better somehow.
She comes right to the edge of the trees before she sees the pool and stops suddenly, hoping no one has noticed her and she’s still hidden away. She presses her back into the rough bark of a tree, feeling it press into her skin in a way that hurts in a good way, and shades her eyes with her hand, eyes flitting around from person to person quickly, like she’s trying to decide if they’re a threat.
There are more women with young children, some not all that much older than Brittany herself, a couple with their boyfriends or husbands, she guesses, cooing over babies and toddlers and helping them dangle their feet in the water.
It reminds her of Ashley and she feels a pang, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be at home cuddled up with her and Santana on the couch, watching some animated movie they’re seen a hundred times before. She remembers the summer she and Santana took Ashley to the community pool almost every day, just after she’d learnt how to swim, how Santana had swung her around by her hands while she laughed and caught Brittany’s eye, blushing furiously when Brittany had beamed back at her, for some reason neither of them really understood at the time.
She thinks about them taking another girl to the pool in the future, dark eyed like Santana and blonde haired like her.
She’s pulled from the thought by a loud splash, and when she looks over a young guy has just jumped into the pool fully clothed with a frantic look on his face, arms already outstretched like they’re grabbing for something, while a woman stands at the edge of the pool with her hand pressed to her mouth, eyes wide as she watches. It takes a moment for Brittany to make sense of what’s happening, and then the guy has a young boy in his arms, no more than three or four years old, coughing up water as he cries loudly for his mom. Brittany figures he must have slipped under the water and not been able to stand up again, and she watches as the woman-his mom, she guesses-wraps him up in a towel and cuddles him close as a couple of people nearby flock around her, checking he’s okay. Another guy shakes the first by the hand as the women fuss over the boy, and Brittany watches the whole scene like she’s seeing it on a television, like it’s not real somehow, just because of the distance that separates them.
She’d jump in too, while Santana stood immobile on the edge of pool, her heart in her mouth and her hands pressed to her face, and the thought sends a jolt through her.
There’s still no one like her and Santana at the pool, but it doesn’t matter now, because there’s her and Santana, the only thing she’s wanted since she was aware of wanting anything at all, and even if the people at the pool and the girl back at the store don’t realise that, she knows it and that’s all that matters.
It makes her feel tiny-bad and tiny-good all at once, and she kicks back off the tree and takes a step towards the open area, taking one last look at the people around the pool before she turns and goes back the way she came, determination in every step. She finds her way to where she came in and looks up at the street signs hurriedly, reorienting herself and remembering the directions the concierge gave her back at the hotel. She needs to get food and get back to the hotel as quickly as she can, because she doesn’t care anymore if Santana was freaked out the night before, she just needs to see her and remind herself of everything she has.
She thinks Santana needs to be reminded of that too.
She doesn’t even notice the little shops turning into houses, doesn’t really see the kids playing on lawns and the women who watch them, eerily similar from house to house. She doesn’t care at all if they look at her, if they can see Santana written on her face as plain as the freckles on her nose. She just walks on and on and on, smiling to herself, her steps in time with the thoughts of Santana humming through her mind.
+
She finds the strip mall the concierge told her about easily enough, and takes a couple of steps towards the Macdonalds before she realises how long she’s been gone, and then she pulls her phone out of her pocket quickly, and sure enough it’s after 10.30am so she changes her mind and heads for Chipotle instead, discounting the restaurants she doesn’t know in favour of something familiar.
Just before she puts her phone back in her pocket, she wonders at the fact that Santana still hasn’t called her, and feels twinge of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. She hopes she’s just tired from driving the day before, and she pushes the thought away as she steps inside the restaurant, not even bothering to glance up at the menu because they always get the same thing every single time they go to the Chipotle back in Lima and she doesn’t see why they should change now.
She reels off their orders quickly, as familiar as her own name, and fishes around in her pocket for the money to pay, suddenly wondering if she has enough. She does, but she makes a note to go to an ATM before they leave, if only to stop Santana from trying to pay for everything between here and California, even though she knows Brittany hates it.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket again while she waits for their food, checking for messages that aren’t there, before sliding it back in. She wishes their food would hurry up, because she can feel that nervous flutter in her stomach again and suddenly needs to be back at the hotel.
She almost snatches the food out of the guy’s hands when he hands it over, calling a “Thank you!” over her shoulder when she spins and heads for the door, skipping around a couple of kids and the young couple watching over them.
She thinks she can go north up N 500 W to get back to the hotel, instead of going round the block like she did to get here, and she checks the street signs once more before she sets off in that direction, gripping their food in her hands as she hurries along, dodging around the people she encounters and wishing she could go faster.
She just wants to see Santana again and reassure herself that she’s still there. It feels like days since she held her even though it’s only been a few hours, and her feet get faster and faster, until she thinks she’s starting to look like Road Runner from all those old cartoons, her feet a blurring mess beneath her.
She doesn’t care, just picks up speed, until she’s breaking into a jog and then almost running, as fast as she can, every slap of her feet against the pavement carrying her closer to Santana, and back to her arms again.
Part Seven