fic: This is What I Know Now [Glee, Santana Lopez]
This is What I Know Now
Santana does this for herself; she knows all her best decisions have been all about her anyway.
Santana pov, light Brittany/Santana
[mentions of Finn/Rachel, Kurt/Blaine, Sam/Mercedes, obviously written before Chord drama. Thanks to C. for the look over.]
It had taken Santana way the fuck too long (in her never humble opinion) to get to this point. It’s right before Sectionals. She and Mercedes are having “spirited debate” (Mr. Schue and Rachel’s words) or “screaming match” (Blaine and Mike’s words) with Kurt and Rachel over competition solos. When Blaine asks why everything in New Directions has to turn into a screaming match, Kurt glares at him and throws his sheet music up in the air and stomps off. Blaine, of fucking course, is right off running behind him into the hallway. Everyone sits a little awkwardly for a moment as they can hear Kurt’s muffled ranting as he slams a locker door closed. Santana is left to roll her eyes as she hears Kurt’s ranting moving up the hallway and if you look out the door’s window you can see Blaine quickly walking behind Kurt as he paces.
Santana chances a glance over at Finn uncomfortably looking up at the ceiling while he pats Rachel on the thigh before taking her hand. Even Mercedes has Sam sitting there kicking at her foot trying to distract her from glaring at Rachel and rolling her eyes every time Kurt's voice raises in the hallway. Santana is fucking pissed right now. She’s pissed at Schue’s favoring Rachel, she’s pissed at Kurt for siding with Rachel so he could get a solo along with her, and she’s pissed at every person in this room but herself for looking so damn irritating to her as she sits with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She doesn’t feel like she can twist herself up any smaller.
But really if she plays fair with herself at all, she’s more than anything really pissed at this fucking feeling in her stomach. That weak part of her that keeps her feet scared and her hands shaking when she thinks of everything she feels she’s already lost. The ridiculousness of her condition is worthy of a Lifetime movie and she can’t even deal with herself anymore.
She stomps out of the choir room the opposite way Kurt and Blaine had gone. She seeks some sort of peace in the girl's bathroom fumbling for her lipstick and some blotting paper in her cosmetic bag. She carefully slides on the bright red lipstick and is studying her nails in the mirror when she sees Brittany standing behind her in the mirror. Brittany adjusts the butterfly barrette clipping her hair back from her face and smoothes her hair down before she meets Santana’s eyes.
Finally, she says, “Hi.” Perfect. Perfect, like Santana isn’t standing there trying to find a way to get away from everything that Brittany, that her intense jealously and everything else makes her feel. Because when it’s like this, when it makes Santana so afraid and weak, it isn’t easier with feelings. It blows with feelings.
"Can I help you?" Santana says, zipping her purse back up. At that, Brittany does that thing where she twists her fingers and bounces from foot to foot before shrugging.
Even though she can’t say it, can’t allow herself to mean it like that, more than anything Santana wants Brittany to offer her hands out to her. Not just because she’s tired of feeling so Goddamn lonely, but because she’s tired of feeling so Brittany-less. She’s tired of reminding herself she only has herself to blame in oh so many ways for all of it too. Though, it’s always been easier to blame Brittany and her rainbows and sunshine filled smile rather than the way Santana’s entire body loosens when that smile is directed at her.
"You and Mercedes would be great on that song." Brittany says finally and this is what breaks Santana. Brittany just standing there smiling a little at her. She just lets herself step forward and bury her face in Brittany chest, hair. At first, Brittany just stands there and Santana feels her heart speed up until Brittany’s stance softens. Santana can pretend she doesn’t have tears in her eyes as long as Brittany is pushing Santana's hair back with one hand and lacing their fingers with the other.
"Santana, if you..." Brittany starts and Santana pulls back looking at her, and it's the firm but doubting look on Brittany's face that steels something in her, she can feel herself wanting to stop her loneliness so much that she just says,
"Go on back. I'll be there in a minute." Brittany frowns, sighing. She wanders out the bathroom pulling her phone out before she lets the door swing shut behind her.
Santana does this for herself; she knows all her best decisions have been all about her anyway. Besides, if she'd been able to do this for Brittany, she'd have done it a year ago, two years ago. If she could have done this for Brittany,she would have done it when she was thirteen and went down on Brittany and then told her it was just something you did, practice with friends. The next afternoon she cornered Puck at the arcade in the mall. He was arguing with Finn about something and she whispered in his ear, popping her lips as he looked her up and down and said, “Later Hudson.” She’d popped his cherry in the stall of the girls bathroom at the North Hills Mall with Finn and Brittany standing guard outside the bathrooms. When Puck kissed her afterward and his hands fumbled around her panties, the only thought in her head had been how Brittany said her name as her thighs had clenched and the smell of her lotion and Chapstick as she kissed Santana nervously afterward. That Monday, Quinn called her a slut and Santana figured that was better than a lot of other words.
The halls are empty and she can still hear the choir room in complete chaos as she nears the door and peeks in. Mr. Schue seems to be in a heated discussion with the entire group about something and Quinn is sitting at the piano, leaning on it everyone else is spread out in their seats and they’re all irritated and bored. Santana tightens her ponytail and slams the door to the room open and stands in front of Mr. Schuester, who stops in mid-sentence.
"So, I'm like a lesbian or whatever, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be wearing flannel or eating granola or whatever." She crosses her arms defensively as if inviting any dissent on her confession.
Rachel rolls her eyes. Mike, Tina, Lauren, and Blaine all give her a nice round of applause. Sam and Finn are leaning into each other whispering until Finn gets Blaine's attention and says something to him and Blaine ends up almost yelling, "No, no that is not how that works. Not at all," and Kurt makes a questioning face and Blaine is giving Sam and Finn (both relieved) uncomfortable looks.
It's Quinn that comes up and hugs her, but she's looking at Brittany sitting there smiling at her.
Mr. Schue pats her on the shoulder and says, "thanks for sharing that with us." Santana finds herself staring at the small scuff on the side of her cheerleader sneakers as she sits down in an empty chair at the end of the front row near Mercedes.
After that, there's a part of Santana that looks back and wonders why that felt like the worst part. That thinks the words ripping out of her mouth was the most painful part. Like it’s because she's showing in some way how afraid she's been of that word for so many years. Yes, there's the consequences, the full frontal slushie she gets the first week. She’s been parking in the lot near the football field (but away from the tennis courts) since her dad gave her the cherry red Mustang with a vanity plate for her sixteenth. She’d gotten out of the habit last year of letting herself linger watching the football players and Cheerios practice, feeling the absence of her ponytail and pleated skirt. Even now as she feels her ponytail swinging behind her, she feels the absence of everything that used to shield her and she envies so many other girls no
She’s walking past the field to her car when half the JV football players Code Red her. Which of course lands her in Figgins’s office after she jumps them and it takes Puck, Finn, and Sam to pull her off the couple she could get her hands on.
“They’re the ones that threw six large cups of cherry slushie all over me!” she yells when Figgins asks what provoked her, and she rolls her eyes when he asks if she really had to retaliate like that.
“You of all people, Ms. Lopez, with your history with the Bully Whips, should know the importance of not using aggression to solve your problems.” Santana signs the warning slip and rolls her eyes when she leaves, preparing for another day.
The next day when she gets to the fence lining the football field, Puck is standing there and hurries to walk alongside her.
“Not interested, Puckerman, in case you didn’t under-”
“No, I know. I’m just walking. You know. Like people do with feet on the ground and stuff.”
“Well, that’s good since you’re going to have to run laps for Bieste for being late to practice.”
Puck shrugs and keeps walking with her, “Finn’s covering for me.” Santana turns and raises an eyebrow.
“Fuck off, Puck. I don’t need you useless bitches following me around to protect me.” She stamps down on his foot with her heel and he hands her a piece of paper in what she recognizes as Kurt and Rachel's handwriting that has a schedule for which Glee member was going to walk her to her car every day. There’s a picture of a car and some skulls drawn in the corner that are decidedly Finn.
She tacks the paper up in the choir room with a giant red marker writing “DON’T YOU DARE!” on it.
Even though when she makes it to the football field unnoticed she figures she has the Glee Club to thank. Sam tells her later that they were yelling at the JV boys when they told them they had already been threatened by “Fucking Karofsky of all people.” Sam shrugs and stuffs his dirty practice jersey into his bag. After that, no one tries to walk with her again. Well, one time Blaine caught up with her asking her questions about something from their pre-cal class and she backed him against the fence yelling at him until she realized he had missed part of the lecture that day and Kurt came up behind them screaming.
The next worst is two weeks before prom, when she’s dancing around really being “more” than friends with Brittany and prom and the two of them dancing (together) her heart feeling light and excited and terrified at the thought. She comes out of her last class of the day and the word "Dyke" is written in heavy permanent marker across her locker.
"Seems a lot of jocks don't like the idea that they weren’t the one to fuck the lesbian out of me." Santana says, trying to dismiss it somehow. She’s actually pretty sure it was some Cheerios. They walk by her and Brittany and snicker, looking smug and satisfied in the way Santana invented. Then again, it just as easily could be anyone. Brittany helps her use some soap and hairspray to get rid of the Sharpie on her locker.
"I'm proud of you," Brittany says and Santana looks at her and her smile and the way her pink polished nails tap a little against the metal of the locker nervously as she waits for Santana to say something. There's that warm twist in her stomach and Santana says,
"I am too."
[the end]
Santana does this for herself; she knows all her best decisions have been all about her anyway.
Santana pov, light Brittany/Santana
[mentions of Finn/Rachel, Kurt/Blaine, Sam/Mercedes, obviously written before Chord drama. Thanks to C. for the look over.]
It had taken Santana way the fuck too long (in her never humble opinion) to get to this point. It’s right before Sectionals. She and Mercedes are having “spirited debate” (Mr. Schue and Rachel’s words) or “screaming match” (Blaine and Mike’s words) with Kurt and Rachel over competition solos. When Blaine asks why everything in New Directions has to turn into a screaming match, Kurt glares at him and throws his sheet music up in the air and stomps off. Blaine, of fucking course, is right off running behind him into the hallway. Everyone sits a little awkwardly for a moment as they can hear Kurt’s muffled ranting as he slams a locker door closed. Santana is left to roll her eyes as she hears Kurt’s ranting moving up the hallway and if you look out the door’s window you can see Blaine quickly walking behind Kurt as he paces.
Santana chances a glance over at Finn uncomfortably looking up at the ceiling while he pats Rachel on the thigh before taking her hand. Even Mercedes has Sam sitting there kicking at her foot trying to distract her from glaring at Rachel and rolling her eyes every time Kurt's voice raises in the hallway. Santana is fucking pissed right now. She’s pissed at Schue’s favoring Rachel, she’s pissed at Kurt for siding with Rachel so he could get a solo along with her, and she’s pissed at every person in this room but herself for looking so damn irritating to her as she sits with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She doesn’t feel like she can twist herself up any smaller.
But really if she plays fair with herself at all, she’s more than anything really pissed at this fucking feeling in her stomach. That weak part of her that keeps her feet scared and her hands shaking when she thinks of everything she feels she’s already lost. The ridiculousness of her condition is worthy of a Lifetime movie and she can’t even deal with herself anymore.
She stomps out of the choir room the opposite way Kurt and Blaine had gone. She seeks some sort of peace in the girl's bathroom fumbling for her lipstick and some blotting paper in her cosmetic bag. She carefully slides on the bright red lipstick and is studying her nails in the mirror when she sees Brittany standing behind her in the mirror. Brittany adjusts the butterfly barrette clipping her hair back from her face and smoothes her hair down before she meets Santana’s eyes.
Finally, she says, “Hi.” Perfect. Perfect, like Santana isn’t standing there trying to find a way to get away from everything that Brittany, that her intense jealously and everything else makes her feel. Because when it’s like this, when it makes Santana so afraid and weak, it isn’t easier with feelings. It blows with feelings.
"Can I help you?" Santana says, zipping her purse back up. At that, Brittany does that thing where she twists her fingers and bounces from foot to foot before shrugging.
Even though she can’t say it, can’t allow herself to mean it like that, more than anything Santana wants Brittany to offer her hands out to her. Not just because she’s tired of feeling so Goddamn lonely, but because she’s tired of feeling so Brittany-less. She’s tired of reminding herself she only has herself to blame in oh so many ways for all of it too. Though, it’s always been easier to blame Brittany and her rainbows and sunshine filled smile rather than the way Santana’s entire body loosens when that smile is directed at her.
"You and Mercedes would be great on that song." Brittany says finally and this is what breaks Santana. Brittany just standing there smiling a little at her. She just lets herself step forward and bury her face in Brittany chest, hair. At first, Brittany just stands there and Santana feels her heart speed up until Brittany’s stance softens. Santana can pretend she doesn’t have tears in her eyes as long as Brittany is pushing Santana's hair back with one hand and lacing their fingers with the other.
"Santana, if you..." Brittany starts and Santana pulls back looking at her, and it's the firm but doubting look on Brittany's face that steels something in her, she can feel herself wanting to stop her loneliness so much that she just says,
"Go on back. I'll be there in a minute." Brittany frowns, sighing. She wanders out the bathroom pulling her phone out before she lets the door swing shut behind her.
Santana does this for herself; she knows all her best decisions have been all about her anyway. Besides, if she'd been able to do this for Brittany, she'd have done it a year ago, two years ago. If she could have done this for Brittany,she would have done it when she was thirteen and went down on Brittany and then told her it was just something you did, practice with friends. The next afternoon she cornered Puck at the arcade in the mall. He was arguing with Finn about something and she whispered in his ear, popping her lips as he looked her up and down and said, “Later Hudson.” She’d popped his cherry in the stall of the girls bathroom at the North Hills Mall with Finn and Brittany standing guard outside the bathrooms. When Puck kissed her afterward and his hands fumbled around her panties, the only thought in her head had been how Brittany said her name as her thighs had clenched and the smell of her lotion and Chapstick as she kissed Santana nervously afterward. That Monday, Quinn called her a slut and Santana figured that was better than a lot of other words.
The halls are empty and she can still hear the choir room in complete chaos as she nears the door and peeks in. Mr. Schue seems to be in a heated discussion with the entire group about something and Quinn is sitting at the piano, leaning on it everyone else is spread out in their seats and they’re all irritated and bored. Santana tightens her ponytail and slams the door to the room open and stands in front of Mr. Schuester, who stops in mid-sentence.
"So, I'm like a lesbian or whatever, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be wearing flannel or eating granola or whatever." She crosses her arms defensively as if inviting any dissent on her confession.
Rachel rolls her eyes. Mike, Tina, Lauren, and Blaine all give her a nice round of applause. Sam and Finn are leaning into each other whispering until Finn gets Blaine's attention and says something to him and Blaine ends up almost yelling, "No, no that is not how that works. Not at all," and Kurt makes a questioning face and Blaine is giving Sam and Finn (both relieved) uncomfortable looks.
It's Quinn that comes up and hugs her, but she's looking at Brittany sitting there smiling at her.
Mr. Schue pats her on the shoulder and says, "thanks for sharing that with us." Santana finds herself staring at the small scuff on the side of her cheerleader sneakers as she sits down in an empty chair at the end of the front row near Mercedes.
After that, there's a part of Santana that looks back and wonders why that felt like the worst part. That thinks the words ripping out of her mouth was the most painful part. Like it’s because she's showing in some way how afraid she's been of that word for so many years. Yes, there's the consequences, the full frontal slushie she gets the first week. She’s been parking in the lot near the football field (but away from the tennis courts) since her dad gave her the cherry red Mustang with a vanity plate for her sixteenth. She’d gotten out of the habit last year of letting herself linger watching the football players and Cheerios practice, feeling the absence of her ponytail and pleated skirt. Even now as she feels her ponytail swinging behind her, she feels the absence of everything that used to shield her and she envies so many other girls no
She’s walking past the field to her car when half the JV football players Code Red her. Which of course lands her in Figgins’s office after she jumps them and it takes Puck, Finn, and Sam to pull her off the couple she could get her hands on.
“They’re the ones that threw six large cups of cherry slushie all over me!” she yells when Figgins asks what provoked her, and she rolls her eyes when he asks if she really had to retaliate like that.
“You of all people, Ms. Lopez, with your history with the Bully Whips, should know the importance of not using aggression to solve your problems.” Santana signs the warning slip and rolls her eyes when she leaves, preparing for another day.
The next day when she gets to the fence lining the football field, Puck is standing there and hurries to walk alongside her.
“Not interested, Puckerman, in case you didn’t under-”
“No, I know. I’m just walking. You know. Like people do with feet on the ground and stuff.”
“Well, that’s good since you’re going to have to run laps for Bieste for being late to practice.”
Puck shrugs and keeps walking with her, “Finn’s covering for me.” Santana turns and raises an eyebrow.
“Fuck off, Puck. I don’t need you useless bitches following me around to protect me.” She stamps down on his foot with her heel and he hands her a piece of paper in what she recognizes as Kurt and Rachel's handwriting that has a schedule for which Glee member was going to walk her to her car every day. There’s a picture of a car and some skulls drawn in the corner that are decidedly Finn.
She tacks the paper up in the choir room with a giant red marker writing “DON’T YOU DARE!” on it.
Even though when she makes it to the football field unnoticed she figures she has the Glee Club to thank. Sam tells her later that they were yelling at the JV boys when they told them they had already been threatened by “Fucking Karofsky of all people.” Sam shrugs and stuffs his dirty practice jersey into his bag. After that, no one tries to walk with her again. Well, one time Blaine caught up with her asking her questions about something from their pre-cal class and she backed him against the fence yelling at him until she realized he had missed part of the lecture that day and Kurt came up behind them screaming.
The next worst is two weeks before prom, when she’s dancing around really being “more” than friends with Brittany and prom and the two of them dancing (together) her heart feeling light and excited and terrified at the thought. She comes out of her last class of the day and the word "Dyke" is written in heavy permanent marker across her locker.
"Seems a lot of jocks don't like the idea that they weren’t the one to fuck the lesbian out of me." Santana says, trying to dismiss it somehow. She’s actually pretty sure it was some Cheerios. They walk by her and Brittany and snicker, looking smug and satisfied in the way Santana invented. Then again, it just as easily could be anyone. Brittany helps her use some soap and hairspray to get rid of the Sharpie on her locker.
"I'm proud of you," Brittany says and Santana looks at her and her smile and the way her pink polished nails tap a little against the metal of the locker nervously as she waits for Santana to say something. There's that warm twist in her stomach and Santana says,
"I am too."
[the end]