Work Text:
The instant Santana looked at Brittany, she knew Brittany was going to be special to her in some way.
And years later, Santana looks back and is surprised to see how much that rang true… through Glee Club, through the Cheerios… through Brittany being shot from a cannon-
Yeah, that was something Santana did not want to revisit. She had been scared out of her mind for Brittany’s safety, and as much as she didn’t really like Finn at that time, he sure saved their asses by coming for them just before they left.
Or maybe he shouldn’t have, considering that by saving Brittany, it’s exactly what continued this nasty affliction. She screams so loud in her head that her ears ring with her own suffering as her throat is scratchy, way too scratchy for her and she’s coughing like mad, hunched over the school toilet bowl with Rachel and Quinn over her shoulders, snapping instructions to Parker, a sarcastic, smart and scary individual who was the first (other than Brittany herself) to notice something wrong with Santana.
She can’t pinpoint when it started. It was just… some time after Regionals, when Brittany had asked her to hang out… did she start coughing. At first, it was tiny broken bits of yellow petals. Not really identifiable as petals. Santana thought she was hacking up bits of yellow paper in confusion, though that made her question when and where was she ingesting yellow paper without her own notice. It only started when Brittany had turned to her and smiled.
God.
She was so doomed.
Because Brittany was sitting next to her, smiling at Santana like she was the brightest thing in the room, like she hung the moon and stars, talking excitedly about science and god knows what crazy things the Brainiacs were up to.
And it evolved into whole petals when they returned to school. To Glee Club. And as time staggered on, blood was mixed in, and more and more petals were coughed out in one go.
Santana hides it from everyone. She doesn’t want to be weak… especially not in front of Brittany but after Parker finds out, Rachel and Quinn walk in on her retching in the toilet.
(“There’s got to be a reasonable explanation for this,” Quinn fussed. “Nobody coughs out bloody sunflower petals.”
Oh, Santana thought. So that was what those were.
Her mind was too focused on the pain and the nausea and heartache to really rebut anything right there and then.
Then to everyone’s surprise, Rachel is the one who has the answer.
“Is it Hanahaki?”)
It feels like there’s a weight on her chest, something curling and growing around her lungs and heart, a suffocating pressure that makes her gasp for air and clutch onto the toilet bowl further, her body rejecting clump after bloody clump of sunflower petals, retching and coughing. She could barely hear Rachel and Quinn talking in the background, the feel of Quinn’s hand rubbing her back, trying to soothe the ache but she’s just- not-
It passes. She drinks in the air like there’s not enough oxygen in the room, and she wheezes out a breath, forcing herself to just breathe normally but her mind was screaming that she just couldn’t-
“Easy,” Quinn warned. “You were coughing for a good ten minutes.”
Ten minutes? God, it feels like longer.
Her mouth was opening and closing like a fish, trying to rasp out a sound to speak to Quinn and Rachel, anything, it was just that her vocal cords were not working and Santana could feel a stab of panic when nothing, absolutely nothing would come out. She clawed at her throat, feeling like as if something maybe was crawling or growing up it and she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t talk-
“Hey, hey, hey no!” Rachel shouted, prying Santana’s hands off of her own throat. “No no. It’s okay. Kurt’s on his way with some stuff for you, Parker’s just distracting Brittany, okay?”
Brittany. Brittany, Brittany, Brittany. The name forced Santana to relax, nodding limply as Quinn and Rachel, through joint effort, sat Santana properly against the wall.
She felt like crying.
Blankly, she realizes that Quinn and Rachel are gently dabbing at her face with tissues- oh.
She is crying.
The tears mix with the blood on her face and drip onto the floor in a watery red as she sniffs, trying to pull herself together after this coughing fit… after seeing Brittany kiss Artie in the hallway.
It felt like something lodged itself in her throat.
Finn had figured it out with surprising accuracy after Quinn and Rachel found out, even going so far as to not so subtly nudge her into confessing to Brittany because, “dude, she likes you too!”
Of course, he stopped ever since Artie and Brittany got together. Instead, he looked thoughtful, looking like he was conspiring with the other three in the know. Kurt pushed the door open, carefully peeking in and then sighing when he saw the bloodstained, tearful and messy Santana sitting on the floor frowning petulantly. He turned his head to address somebody outside the door.
“Yeah, they’re here Finn… looks pretty bad this time… hand me that. Yeah, no. It’s okay. Just stall Mr. Schue for a bit. If he asks say it’s her period.” A pause. “Yes, well, I don’t care if you don’t want to say that, do you want people to find out? No? Good. Yes, see you later Finn… love you too, big bro- no, don’t record that, you heathen! Ugh.” Kurt fully steps into the girls’ bathroom, careful to only open the door just wide enough for him and a bag to slip through.
“Finn’s distracting Mr. Schue?” Rachel asked hopefully.
“For as long as he can.” Kurt crouched in front of Santana and sighed, reaching into his bag for a set of moist towelettes. “How long has this been going on for?”
Santana shook her head, motioning uselessly to Kurt’s water bottle peeking out of her bag. Quinn’s movements were automatic, grabbing the water bottle and cracking it open, allowing Santana to drink from it greedily, letting it sooth her parched throat. She could still taste the blood on her tongue as the pain in her chest recedes a little. Just a little.
“A few months,” Santana rasped when she finished the whole bottle.
Kurt looked downright horrified, having about to start wiping her face himself.
He was the last to know, blabbed out by Finn himself. He shared his own experience with Hanahaki and had come to Santana’s aid when nobody else could or whenever Finn was being a blustering oaf and Rachel and Quinn had to do damage control.
“Have you thrown up any whole sunflowers?” Kurt asked, wiping her face now, aided by Quinn and Rachel.
She shook her head, smearing her face and hindering the progress Kurt was making, causing him to huff in quiet concern.
“Santana…” he said gently. “Are you going to confess to Brittany anytime soon?”
She shook her head. She refuses to be the reason why Brittany becomes unhappy in her relationship, even if it killed her. But… judging by the look of the contents of the toilet bowl, it just might. There was enough blood in there for a murder scene. The blood loss was probably why Santana felt so woozy, since Kurt, Rachel and Quinn’s faces were swimming in and out of focus.
Plus, it wasn’t a secret to everybody in the know that Santana was in love with Brittany, considering that sunflowers were declared by Brittany to be her flower persona and Quinn just so happened to identify the petals as sunflower petals.
In and out. She could do this.
“We should go to the hospital,” Rachel said, as she always did whenever it got particularly bad.
“No,” Santana rasped, protesting. “I’m fine. Not whole flowers yet.”
“She’s right,” Kurt said. “We’re not at that point yet.”
Hanahaki, Santana and Kurt had read together in a quiet corner of the library, was about unrequited love. It was said that when you realize subconsciously that you were in love with someone but there was no chance of you both getting together and no chance of the feelings ever just going away on their own, flowers would start growing in your lungs and heart, carefully constricting and suffocating you. The longer you pined, the more it grew. Your body tries to expel it bit by bit. First it’s tiny bits of petals. Then it becomes petals. After that it’s more petals mixed with blood clumped together as your body forcefully rejects the flowers. Then it becomes whole flowers.
That’s when the effects become worse.
Your body is trying so hard to expel the flowers that you lose more and more blood. Many people who leave the disease unchecked die an untimely death, choking on their own blood and the flowers clogging up their airways, slowly suffocating to death. When the flowers grow faster than the body can get rid of them, it will succumb. The worst part was that the rate of flowers growing was directly proportionate to the duration of time you had it.
Most don’t make a year.
There are a few cases, some who fight the disease and still hope. Some cases have them suffering for years… three at the most, before their body gives out on them.
Santana’s hoping she’s one of them… but at the same time, she hopes she’s not.
The constricting, stabbing pain… the suffocation… how could someone put up with this for three years?
She remembers Britt and her smile and she stops complaining.
“There is a way to get rid of Hanahaki,” Kurt said gently. “It’s surgery to remove the flowers.”
Santana looked up at him. Quinn leaned forward. “There’s a catch, isn’t there?”
“You’ll never romantically love Brittany again. Sometimes it completely wipes your memories, which is a blessing. But no matter what, you will never love her ever agai-”
“No,” Santana growled. Kurt doesn’t look surprised at her declaration. Neither does Rachel. Quinn, however, looks like she wants to smack Santana. “I’m not giving up loving Brittany.”
“You’ll die!” Quinn almost shouted.
“I love Brittany.” It was such a simple statement. So simple. “I’m not going to give that up. I’m not going to give her up.”
Quinn looked stunned for a moment. “But she doesn’t love you back.”
“And that’s okay.”
Santana can’t bear to not love Brittany anymore. It’s a fate worse than death, she knows.
“You can love others after the surgery…” Kurt continued gently. “Just not her. Are you sure-?”
“I’m sure.”
Rachel remained quiet throughout the whole ordeal, only stepping up now when Quinn makes a motion to actually smack Santana.
“Quinn… there is a reason why Hanahaki has such a high fatality rate and why people would rather die than not feel love. You’re essentially telling Santana to give up on Brittany.”
“Tubbers…” Santana laughed weakly. “You and I both know that I’m not the kind of girl to give up just like that.”
“But by doing nothing you’re essentially dying!” Quinn argued back.
“At least she’s happy. And if she’s happy… I am too.”
None of them knew what to say to that.
“Just consider it…” Quinn finally spoke up. “Especially when you start coughing up whole flowers.”
Santana chuckled. “I make no promises.”
…
The flowers get worse.
Santana sees them everywhere now, holding hands, Brittany wheeling him down the hallway. She coughs up sunflower petals into her bag, her books, her locker, just barely hiding it from Brittany, who seems to pull away more and more. Or maybe it was just Santana finding more and more excuses not to catch Brittany with Artie.
(She’s not jealous, she’s not. She’s happy for Brittany, she is.
She just wishes that she’s the one who makes Brittany happy, not him.)
So, it catches her by surprise on the week where they’re supposed to be sexy that Brittany wants to talk to her in private.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Ah, so it was Santana avoiding Brittany.
“No, no!” Santana rasped, before clearing her throat. “No… sorry I’ve just been… I’ve been pretty sick lately.”
“You smell of sunflowers,” Brittany comments, and Santana felt her heartrate speed up, mind racing a million miles per hour. “Do you have a sunflower allergy?”
“What? Oh no, no, no no…” Santana shook her head. “I mean, yes. I mean… maybe. I’ve just been…” Why is talking to Brittany so hard? She can’t remember the last time her tongue went up in knots like this. “I’ve just been really sick and uhm… my mom… gives me sunflowers. To cheer me up.” Brittany looks at her and she feels like she might die from the embarrassment if the damn sunflowers don’t kill her first. “That’s… probably why… I… smell… of sunflowers!”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have totally come over to take care of you!” Brittany protested, and almost stamped her foot at the fact that Santana was dealing with an illness without her.
“Because, Britt, I’m dealing with a lot right now,” Santana said shortly, then instantly felt bad at how Brittany’s face fell at the tone. “Sorry. I’ve been… I’ve been thinking about something. Something big and important.”
“You can tell me.”
“It’s… it’s complicated,” Santana started, seeing Artie go down the hallway and a panicked Finn chasing him down. “I- I’m sorry. It’s just been hard lately.”
“Oh…” Brittany’s face fell further and Santana panicked. “I just wanted to help…”
She could feel the flowers crawling up her throat, but she swallowed it down, not wanting to upset Brittany anymore than she should. “It’s okay Britt. Tell you what… let’s sing a song together later, okay?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” She was running out of air. “Hey, look, it’s McCripplepants!”
Brittany stared at her suspiciously then frowned at the nickname, turning to see Artie going down the hallway just long enough for Santana try to gasp in as much air as she could… it was turning more painful rather than scratchy this time around though, as if something was fighting to release itself from her airway. She could already taste the copper of her blood.
“Don’t be so mean to him, he’s nice.” Brittany turned back to her and she schooled her face into the expression she hoped she was wearing before Brittany turned back. “Just give him a chance, okay?”
Santana rolled her eyes, but inwardly she was panicking. Her body was shaking with the amount of effort she was using to not cough bloody petals onto Brittany’s face.
“Fine,” she murmured when Brittany turned to look at Artie again.
Her face broke out into a smile when Artie reached them and Santana could feel her body protesting, lungs complaining of the lack of air and pain, pain, pain, pain. She clapped a hand over her mouth, forcing Brittany and Artie to look at her in worry.
“Santana? Are you-”
“EXCUSE ME!” she ended her yell with a violent cough, feeling the blood splatter over her palm as she quickly ran away.
Shecan’tknowshecan’tknowshecan’tknowshecan’tknow-
She ignored Finn calling for her or Parker walking in with her bows and arrows and bag and staring in puzzlement, then realization, then fear- She ignored Finn yelling for Brittany to stop and Artie exclaiming what the hell was going on as the world spun around her over and over and over-
Parker yanked her into the faculty bathroom and shut the door behind her.
The blood spilled out from her hands and onto the floor, barely missing her clothes and shoes as she quickly stumbled over to the toilet and vomited harder. This time, it felt like something bigger was scraping through her throat and she felt instant relief when it hit the toilet bowl.
And then utter terror.
It was a whole sunflower.
Santana was doomed.
Just faintly, she could hear Brittany’s voice outside the door.
“Parker, where is she?”
“I have… no idea. She ran this way and then poof!”
“You’re a very bad liar.”
“No, seriously Brittany. I don’t know where she is-”
“I’m worried.” The absolute concern in Brittany’s voice makes Santana sit up straighter. “She hasn’t been herself for a long time. I’m just wondering if it’s… me? Or something that I did?”
“No, no, no… she’s just been sick for a while-”
“But she didn’t tell me!” The pain shone through in her voice here. “She tells me everything… are we… is she not my friend anymore?”
“Hey, hey, Britt, it’s okay. She’s going to be okay.”
“How do I know that? She won’t even tell me what’s been bothering her! She always tells me whenever she needs to bitch about somebody! I care about her… and I hope that she knows no matter what she tells me I will always care about her.”
“... she knows. She’s just a little scared right now, Britt. Being upset might not help-”
“I’m upset that she’s suffering. I just want to help her feel okay. I just…” Brittany trails off here, sniffing. “I just want her to know that I’m here no matter what as a friend.”
And that was why, dear Brittany, Santana refused to tell her her feelings.
Santana to Brittany was nothing more than a friend. Her best friend.
She bends over the toilet bowl and heaves out another flower.
…
Finn and Rachel bring about Holly Holliday, who takes one look at the blood staining the floors and the toilet bowls and about a dozen whole sunflowers clogging the toilet bowl, as well as Santana hunched over it looking dazed, is enough for her to order Finn and Rachel to find a cleaner and crouch by Santana.
“You’re not going to take the surgery, are you?”
Santana shakes her head.
Holly takes her hand.
“Who is it?”
And using her own blood, she spells it out on the toilet seat.
“Do you love her enough to die?”
Santana nods.
“But you aren’t going to tell her.”
The silence gives Holly the answer she needs.
“She’ll know when you die,” Holly said quietly. “Do you really want to go without letting her know until you’re gone? She’ll be more hurt and upset by that. And maybe, you would have had a chance but you didn’t know.”
Santana looked away.
“She won’t want to be with me. A gay relationship.”
“Please that girl slept with almost every girl and boy in the school.” Holly rolled her eyes, then her tone softened. “But if homophobic people are what you’re worried about, then honey, you have the whole world at your feet with her. For every person that shuts you down there’s a hundred more supporters.”
“Does she love me back?”
“You won’t know if you don’t ask her.”
Santana closed her eyes, making a decision on her own.
“Let’s sing Landslide with her,” she rasped.
…
As soon as Santana finished singing, she chanced a glance at Brittany.
“Is that… really how you feel?”
She could nod, she would, but something is suffocating her, as if it had abruptly cut off her air.
She wheezed, falling off of the stool and hitting the ground hard.
The red liquid splattered all over the floor as she harshly vomited, Brittany fighting tooth and nail to get to her. She vomits out more sunflowers in pain, pain, pain.
She’s choking. She’s choking and she’s dying.
They get someone (Parker) trained in first aid to clear her throat… but all she can feel is the suffocation, the pain of something so deeply rooted in her lungs and heart ripping the organs apart. She can feel the pain. None of the books said anything like that… funny. Maybe it was only present upon death.
Her friends only buy her time as Brittany screams and cries.
She freezes when she sees the sunflowers.
Artie looks at her and she could feel the question in his gaze.
It’s one she has the answer to, one that she was merely too late to say.
…
Without the surgery, Santana would die within the next 30 minutes.
Quinn is angrily pacing, muttering about how Santana should have just taken the surgery and let herself live, Finn and Rachel are quiet. Kurt is staring at her.
“Do you love her?”
Yes, without a doubt.
She can’t believe it took her this long to realize.
“Then do it,” Artie smiled sadly, wheeling up to her. “Because you and I both know who you love more.”
“Artie, I-”
“It’s in the way you always talk about her, look at her when she’s not looking, the way you light up whenever she walks in. I never could stand a chance.” Artie beamed at her. “But thanks for giving me one anyways.”
She hugs him. It’s a quick one, because Artie is still there with more hugs in the future.
With Santana… none of them get a goodbye. Only her family.
So she runs to her.
And with every person that stops her, Artie is the one that rams into their legs, Finn football tackling them, Rachel quickly pulling them into a complaint. Quinn too steals one of Parker’s bows and archery tag arrows and nails a nurse in the face.
“I LOVE YOU!” Brittany shouted into the hallway. “I LOVE YOU!”
Don’t leave me.
…
Santana wasn’t expecting to wake up.
She definitely wasn’t expecting to wake up to Brittany lying on her bed with her, cuddling her with her arms wrapped around Santana’s middle and legs tangled together.
She basks in the warmth of Brittany for a bit, before startling at the sight of Kurt.
“Am I in heaven?”
“No, if you see me in heaven then they must have made a big mistake,” Kurt said simply. “The rest of the New Directions and your parents have gone to a police station to try and justify the violence everyone did when trying to get Brittany to your room. I elected to stay since, well, I wasn’t part of the violence, and Brittany’s here because, well… she is the reason why you’re better.”
She stares at him in amazement.
“She loves me?”
“I’m pretty sure half the hospital heard it.” Kurt took a sip out of his thermos which was there. “You were lucky. You were almost dead.”
“So I…” She realized with a jolt that her lungs were clear. “I’m alive.”
“Enjoy the perks of being gay,” Kurt raised his thermos in a toast. “I think you have to convince your parents to bail out Quinn from possible charges though. She shot someone in the face.”
“I thought she…”
“We all wanted you happy.” Kurt laughed a little at the next sentence. “But you guys so owe them for taking the fall for them.”
“Why am I not surprised…” she glanced at him. “Do you think I would have made it?”
“Yes, without a doubt.” Kurt smiled. “She loves you. More than you’ll ever know. In fact even Artie saw it. He was the one who told her to stop hesitating and helped her realize it.”
Hm. Maybe she should be nicer to Artie.
And when Brittany wakes up, sleepy eyes looking up at Santana and turning watery at the sight of her, a beaming smile from ear to ear… she finally feels like she could take a breath of air again.
And when Brittany’s lips press onto hers, it’s a far cry from the blood and petals and flowers that got them to that point.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”