Work Text:
The school day was over, and Santana’s ears were still ringing.
Kurt and Blaine’s song for her honestly hadn’t been that bad. It was sweet, really - but it just made her feel even more pissed off. They were so disgustingly happy that she just wanted to punch something.
Why couldn’t she be happy? Right now? Santana was doing just fine until fucking Finn had to go and open his mouth and spout off shit in the middle of the hallway like a six foot three little bitch. She was so angry at everything in her stupid, messed up life that seeing her two friends acting in love and happy and generally sickening set her off immediately.
And feeling that way about other people’s well-deserved happiness made her feel like an asshole, which made her even more angry. Shit, Santana was in a feedback loop of anger.
Strutting out to the parking lot, keeping her head high and avoiding eye contact with everyone, Santana made her way over to Kurt’s Navigator. She had a plan; she had a semi-apology worked out in her head that would expertly avoid the real reason she was upset, and would irritate Kurt just enough to distract him from it entirely.
Leaning against the driver’s side window, Santana stared at the front entrance to the school, looking for Kurt’s unmistakable bright red shirt and weird, cream, half-turtleneck-thing combo. When she finally saw him walk leisurely out of the front doors with Blaine, she straightened her posture, standing tall and waiting to give her piece to both of them at the same time. Playing the avoid and distract game would be more difficult with both of them there, but Santana was nothing if not an expert at hopping, skipping, dancing, and taking a boat to Timbuktu around her problems.
When Kurt finally looked away from Blaine and saw her standing there, he frowned slightly, and turned back to Blaine. They had a brief conversation, in which Blaine managed to glance at her cautiously multiple times, before finally, Blaine sighed, kissed Kurt’s cheek, and walked to the other side of the parking lot.
Santana sighed slightly in relief. Less complicated avoidance, then.
When he was a few cars away from her, Kurt called, “To what do I owe the pleasure, Santana?”
When he stopped in front of Santana, she smiled a little, and spoke. “I just wanted to extend to you my apologies for dissing your performance today. Really, I do understand your need to flaunt your very, very gay relationship-”
“Oh, is that what that was about?”
Shit. He was good.
Fuck. Save face. Keep going.
“If by that you mean my inability to handle overly sweet, sappy shit due to my care for my teeth, then yes.”
Kurt just stared at her blankly for several seconds with the unimpressed eyes he seemed to have down to a science. As Santana watched, however, his face started smoothing out until all that was left was pure empathy.
“Santana, you can’t keep acting like you’re okay with this. You don’t have to pretend that you’re fine. I know. It’s okay.”
There’s something a lot of people didn’t seem to understand about Santana.
When you’re angry all the time, everything can set you off. Anything can be the one thing that makes you fall apart and start screaming. A good day can mean nothing will happen at all; a bad day can mean everything comes spilling out at once like a fountain of pent-up emotions, ugly and vicious. And Santana was so angry. She was so mad at everything all the time. At herself, at the world, at her friends, at simple, little things, like her coffee not being hot enough or the blanket being too thin to keep warm - or too empty without someone else there.
But Santana wanted to be set off.
She wanted to be provoked and prodded at until it all came tumbling out. She wanted people to give her an excuse that she could take and run with until it turned into a reason, and her outburst of anger was given foundation. She knew what people said anyway; that she’s a hot mess, that she’s a bitch, that she’s a bully. She accepted these things as her credo, because she knew that in that moment, the way she was living - she was all those things. She just didn’t care.
Because Santana was angry all the time. She was constantly so fucking mad. She sat and typed work for class and in her mind she couldn’t register what she was saying because she was seething with rage at something, some random aspect of her life that pissed her off today. Santana sang a song for glee club and it didn’t matter what the song was about, she was thinking How can I make myself wanted right now and then she got angry at herself for thinking that way, and then she was angry at herself for being angry at herself and then - and it went on. Puck or Finn or Sam or Brittany abandoned her for someone else and she was so angry at them for leaving her. And so angry at herself, for not being good enough to make them want her enough to stay.
So she took those chances to be mad out loud. She took those moments where she could scream and swear and insult people, and all it would be is Here she goes again, this bitch, this angry asshole, overreacting at everything. If she never lost it, if she never screamed, how would she cope? How would she stay alive with everything she had in her mind still scratching at the inside of her brain, begging to be let out and heard? Something had to go. Something petty had to be thrown out to make room for the real anger she would gain tomorrow.
Santana lost it. Santana displaced. Santana let out misguided and unreasonable rage to devote the majority of her thoughts to the rest of her anger: the justified anger. The kind of anger that is too much vulnerability and too little fire to keep herself safe.
Santana would have rather been called a bitch than let people know how to hurt her any day.
But in that moment, standing in McKinley’s parking lot, Kurt Hummel staring at her with eyes too giving and stance too open, she couldn't keep the vulnerable anger at bay. It spilled out of her tear ducts in a rush, because it had waited so long to be seen and heard. She had waited so long for someone to listen who wouldn’t look at her like she was crazy, who would look at her and tell her that her anger was justified.
She didn’t want it to be him. She wanted it to be Brittany, or Puck in a past life, or even Quinn or Mercedes. But it was him. And Kurt knows. God, does he know. Does he have vulnerable anger too?
And Santana started to cry.
Kurt didn’t say anything, which Santana was grateful for. He opened the back door of his car and grabbed her wrist, pulling her to sit on the seat. He followed after, closing the door behind him before reaching for her hand again.
And there they sat.
Every single sob tore out of Santana, ripping itself free of the back of her mind, finally released. She was aware, distantly, of just how utterly wrecked she sounded, but she couldn’t care. Rage was falling out of her. It was never going to sound pretty when it hit the ground. It was, apparently, too much for Kurt, who pulled her across the seat into his arms. Santana, in turn, grabbed his arm and pushed her face into his shoulder. And he just kept holding her while she cried.
God, she was so fucking angry.
For several minutes, she cried next to him. Tears for her younger self, who was so small and fragile and didn’t know why she felt the way she did. All she knew was that she wasn’t normal, and that was too much. Tears for Brittany, because she was so… not innocent, exactly, but so breakable. Tears for Brittany because of everything they had done to hurt each other. Tears for herself now, dealing with being outed publicly and violently, like covers ripped off in the cold morning. Tears for everything she’s ever had to deal with.
Tears for Kurt, for dealing with it first, so that maybe, for her, things would be marginally easier.
For that, Santana was grateful.
After a few minutes of nothing but gasping sobs, she began to run out her steam. She became aware of Kurt’s breathing, deep and slow, his one hand stroking her hair in a soothing way that should have pissed her off, but instead just made her feel safe. She went quiet and focused on the feeling, holding onto it, a tether to reality.
For several seconds, all was silent in the car. Distantly, Santana could hear students still hanging around the parking lot walking past, talking loud and raucous, no cares to speak of. And for a moment, she wanted so badly to wipe her face and leave the car and forget this ever happened. She wanted to join the rest of the world. Maybe she could try forgetting the reasons why she would never really be a part of it and see what all the fuss was about being normal. Is it really as simple and easy as it seems?
But Santana didn’t move. She wasn’t going to pretend nothing happened. She was going to keep her face buried in Kurt’s shoulder and let herself be sad for a while.
Kurt, never ceasing his hand caressing her hair, finally spoke. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
And that really wasn’t what Santana was expecting.
“I know you don’t talk about how you feel unless you’re really drunk. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. We can just sit here, and you can cry, and I can plan how I’m gonna murder Finn for what he did to you and his downright idiotic reaction to it.”
That surprised a giggle out of Santana. The sound was so light in the heavy atmosphere of the car. It was an air bubble in the ocean that, before, only held tears. Santana felt Kurt’s slight smile against her head.
The light feeling didn’t last. “I- I honestly don’t know what I want. I want it to not have happened.”
Santana shifted, then, moving to sit upright next to Kurt on the bench seat. She stared at her lap. “I’m so angry at Finn, not just for doing it but not understanding why it’s a bad thing. He’s acting like it’s fine because it was inevitable, but it’s not fine. It’s not.”
Kurt nodded along with her. “No. It’s not,” he said, his eyes so understanding it made her want to cry again.
“It - it was supposed to be mine. It was supposed to be mine and I just… I should’ve gotten to say it myself. But instead everyone knows about one of my biggest weak spots because Finn was too goddamn careless to just be quiet.” She shook her head as if it would settle her thoughts in their places. “I want it to be mine again so I could just say it myself. I hate that me being a…” she cleared her throat, “Lesbian is such a big part of who I am, but it is. And I should get to be that part of me on my own terms.”
Santana leaned back into Kurt, then, taking advantage of the physical affection while she had it. Kurt continued to not say anything, but he took her hand and squeezed it, resting their now interlocked hands on the seat.
Santana frowned slightly. “You’re being very quiet. Isn’t this where you tell me it gets better or recommend me helplines and TV shows or something? I’m not watching The L Word.”
Kurt snorted at that. “I have never watched an episode of that in my life, thank you very much, so I couldn’t actually recommend it to you. You’re safe.” He squeezed her hand again. “No, I just didn’t think there was anything I could say, aside from wanting to roast Finn or turn back time or, yes, some it gets better-esque platitudes. I figure if you want me to talk, you’ll find a way to let me know.”
Santana smiled slightly at that. “Ugh, your ability to be perceptive is deeply irritating.”
“I live to be a mild annoyance to many.”
Santana smiled wider, but it faded rapidly when she remembered what she had been thinking about before.
Looking down at the floor again and tracing the lines on the carpet with her eyes, she spoke again. “I’m… I’m scared. I’m actually, genuinely scared. I don’t get scared, but I’m scared of what this means for me. I hate that this has the power to make me scared. I hate that, of all people, today it was Finn that had the power to make me scared. Because -” she inhaled, “I’ve - I saw how hard it was for you. And - God, I’m so selfish for this - I don’t want to deal with that. I don’t want it. I don’t think I’d be able to deal with it.”
Kurt held her tighter. “I don’t want you to deal with it either. No one should have to.”
Santana pulled away and looked at him, searching his face. “How did you do it? How do you live with it?”
At this, Kurt sighed heavily. He looked away, seemingly staring at the back of the front seat, but his eyes were somewhere else entirely. He stayed lost in thought for several seconds, debating his next words, before saying, “I nearly didn’t.”
The silence in the car was so loud Santana’s ears began to buzz.
“I was -” Kurt breathed in, deep and measured, obviously gripping to control. “Okay. Around sophomore year, I was genuinely - I was suicidal. I felt so isolated and unloved and hopeless and constantly hurt all the time and just so alone, and just… I felt like no one would care if I died, or the world would be better off without me. I put all this pressure on myself to be perfect for a world that didn’t want me to even exist.”
The buzzing grew louder, and for a moment, Santana felt on the verge of tears again. For once, she didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue. She didn’t know this story, but it was his, and it was clearly important.
“And it was awful. Obviously. I never want to feel like that again. But then I met people like Mercedes and the rest of the glee club and I got close to people and I started believing that maybe I could be loved, that maybe I was actually capable of being loved. Despite the fact that almost everything in my life had been a constant reminder of how I was too much, too weird, too abnormal for anyone to even like. And, yes, it took a while, but it was enough.” His mouth turned up at the corner, his eyes melting into memories.
“The knowledge that - that there were people who, despite having no obligation to, loved me. Knowing that I was loved by choice and that, one day, someone could choose to fall in love with me made me want to keep going. And you, you are so loved, Santana. By all of us. We've stuck by this long out of love, not obligation. We are choosing to love you.”
Finally, Kurt turned his head to look at Santana. She was vaguely aware of the fact that her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were probably unattractively bloodshot from crying, but Kurt didn’t say anything or even indicate that he noticed how distraught she looked. He just kept smiling that vague, relieved smile.
And then the smile faded.
“I won’t lie to you,” he continued, looking directly into her eyes, “It’s still not always good. Last year, for example. Absolutely awful. I had a support system this time, but, still. I will never say it’s not frightening. Sometimes on bad days I slide back down again. But you know what?”
Kurt grabbed Santana’s hands, looking at her with fire in his eyes. “I need you to listen to this. Really carefully.”
Santana nodded, gripping his hands so tightly she worried distantly his circulation would cut off. But she didn’t care. She needed to know that they were both still there.
Kurt’s eyes didn’t have fire in them anymore; they were on fire. “I’m here. I’m fucking alive. They didn’t kill me. No matter what anyone threw at me, they didn’t kill me. They didn’t kill us and they won’t kill us. We’re still here, and we’re alive. And that is just the biggest fuck you we could ever give them.”
Tears ran down Santana’s face once again, and she squeezed her eyes shut, gazing down in a desperate attempt to get them to stop. “You’re alive. I’m alive.”
“No one is more alive than you.”
Santana’s hand flew out of Kurt’s to cover her eyes as she cried harder.
Somehow, for now, the feeling of relief, of knowing that she had a hand to hold and to remind her that she wasn’t dead - not yet, and not soon, - was enough. Enough to cry out of relief and not anger, to smile messily through her tears, teeth bared. She was Santana Lopez. She wasn’t going to let this be the thing that broke her. She was rough and loud and a bitch and, apparently, also a surprisingly sensitive lesbian. Her resolve was steel before and would be again, she lived loudly and always where she could be seen, and she had a family of idiots that cared about her and whom she cared about back. Santana Lopez would not be consumed.
Kurt dug a tissue out of his bag and started dabbing at her cheeks gently before she snatched it out of his hand, a dry smirk crossing her face. She blew her nose and tossed the tissue on the ground, earning a glare from Kurt. She simply smiled, genuine this time, and leaned on him once again.
“Hey,” she said, face softening. “You’re a good friend.”
Once again, she felt Kurt’s smile grow on top of her head. “Thank you. I do my best. You’re not so bad yourself.”
Santana tilted her head back, forcing him to move his head so she could look at him. “Fuck you, I’m perfect.”
Kurt grinned. “Of course you are. You are my friend, Santana. Well, as long as you don’t decide you absolutely hate me out of nowhere for no reason and target all of my insecurities and make me feel like shit. All bets are off if that happens.”
“That’s not gonna happen. I wouldn’t do that to you. Rachel, maybe, not you. That would just be God being a bad screenwriter.”
Kurt laughed at that. “He’s a bit of a bitch like that sometimes, isn’t he.”
A laugh escaped Santana to match Kurt’s own. The air in the car felt so much more clear, less dense with so many pent-up thoughts.
Quietly, Santana whispered, “Can we just… sit for a minute? I don’t want to get up right now. And I probably look like ass.”
“I can promise you that you don’t, hun. But yes. Of course we can.”
And so they sat.
An angry bitch of a lesbian and a bullied gay kid in the back of a Navigator.