Work Text:
[A black and white photo of a woman sleeping, she’s surrounded by big white pillows and a white down comforter that only comes to her mid-back showing off the dark haired woman’s strong shoulders. Her mouth is slightly open and her sleep tussled hair covers most of her face, but a closed eye with its long eyelashes is easily seen. Below the photo is a caption: Beauty sleeps so the world can catch its breath.]
“Babe, I don’t think I want your class seeing my tits.” Santana rubs a hand over her face and makes a half assed reach for the camera Brittany’s holding. Waking up to a camera lens isn’t on the list of first things she’d like to see in the morning, but she kind of expected this when she agreed to Brittany’s project.
“Why not? They’re amazing.” Brittany leans over and gives Santana a languid good morning kiss.
“Damn right they’re amazing,” Santana pulls Brittany closer. “You should worship them.”
“Mmmhmm, I do,” Brittany nods and kisses Santana again. The closing of a shutter sounds.
“Did you just…” Santana pulls back and follows Brittany’s arm with her eyes, coming to rest on an outstretched hand holding a camera pointed at them, “Britt.”
“It’s a day in the life, San.” Brittany giggles.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s what your professor had in mind.”
“I’m sure Professor Drummond would appreciate the break in monotony.” Brittany lies her camera down on the nightstand and leans in for another kiss with an evil grin gracing her lips, “No way someone has a girlfriend hotter than me.”
“I feel like I should help you with your definition of ‘documentary’ for when you’re doing it professionally,” Santana kisses Brittany on the nose before wrapping her arms around her girlfriend and pulling Brittany on top of her. “There’s no way I’m letting you have sex with all of your subjects.”
“I could follow you around, documenting you for the rest of my life.” Brittany’s breath hitches at the feel of Santana’s tongue on her neck.
“Hmm, you can definitely have sex with this subject,” Santana’s teeth lightly nick at a certain spot that drives Brittany crazy. “But even if I end up being the greatest architect in the world, it wouldn’t make for amazing documentaries, not multiple ones, at least.”
“You’re totally going to create buildings that are as hot as you, San.” Brittany moves Santana’s lips back to her own for a brief kiss, “they’ll totally have to censor it and everything, but not if you don’t get out of this bed and get going to class.”
“Ugh, I thought your documentary was about having sex with your really hot girlfriend?”
“I’m not supposed to be involved in the shoot, professional detachment.” Brittany shrugs, “and I’m not about to let you have sex with anyone other than me, not even Quinn or Artie.”
Santana laughs as Brittany rolls off of her and reaches for her camera, “At least let me get dressed before you take any other pictures?”
The sound of the shutter closing fills the room and Santana turns around with a wry grin and a raised eyebrow to find Brittany (and her camera) staring at her ass. Brittany looks up and shrugs, “Oops.”
[The next black and white photo is of Santana on some steps wearing a long sleeved striped rugby shirt waving a giant dark flag with Cal written in calligraphy on it. She’s yelling and there’s other people wearing similar shirts and a band behind her. The caption below it reads: Commanding crowds comes naturally, the yelling is a perk.]
Brittany looks around at the small crowd gathered in front of Sproul Hall, it’s not as big as it is before a football game, but it’s still a decent size. Most students stop and watch for a couple of minutes before continuing on to classes or the student union. She watches as Santana leads the crowd in the final cheer for the rally. Brittany loves it when Santana gets to be yell leader. Santana looks all sorts of cute in her blue and gold rugby shirt as she bounces and yells at the crowd what they should be chanting. It’s as if being on the rally committee, especially being a yell leader, were destined for Santana.
They joined the rally committee together mostly out of Cheerio nostalgia, though the amazing seats at all of the sports events certainly didn’t hurt. It’s just that cheerleading had been a part of their lives for so long that it felt weird to not be in front of a crowd. Neither one of them wanted to be cheerleaders anymore, though. (They actually spend a lot of time critiquing Cal’s cheerleaders. Sue wouldn’t approve in the slightest of Cal’s squad.) Rally committee was like being on a squad and in glee club at the same time, what with the cheering and getting the crowd to yell with them and the band. It was a small sense of familiarity in the midst of such an imposing and foreign situation. They not only got to know the campus and people better, but they also felt tied into the history of the school.
“You look so good in your outfit,” Brittany greets Santana with a hug.
“You’re wearing the same thing,” Santana returns the hug with a laugh.
“So? Wait, that might be better ‘cause it’s like you’re wearing my clothes and that’s hot.”
“Is that why you keep trying to get me to wear that panda hat of yours?” Santana laughs and starts walking west with Brittany following.
“No, that’s ‘cause I like proving to myself that I can get you to do anything I want.” Brittany intertwines her fingers with Santana’s.
“Bitch.”
“You love it,” Brittany leans over and places a kiss on Santana’s temple.
“Yeah, okay, but still,” Santana sticks her tongue out, then sighs. “I wish Claudia would’ve given us more than an hour’s notice before the rally. I hate being in the wrong shirt.”
“I don’t get why there are different shirts anyway, like, the rugby is what we’re known for.” Brittany shrugs, “We’re this bright gold and blue herd of bears and the other shirts look like little deer about to be devoured or something.”
“I guess.” Santana shrugs.
“You made that crowd your bitch, San.”
“I miss Quinn.” Santana looks at Brittany with a half smile.
“Yeah,” Brittany sighs and wraps her arm around Santana’s shoulder without letting go of their hands. “I miss Mike Chang.”
“Aww, Mikey.” Santana leans into Brittany’s shoulder.
“How much time do we have?”
“Enough.” Santana smiles as she see’s that they’ve come upon their tree. Brittany gives a squeak of joy and kisses Santana’s cheek before running towards the tree and flipping up onto a branch. The campus is full of old oaks, especially the lower campus, and they’re perfect for climbing in. This particular tree has branches that dip and rise in just the right ways for them to be easily climbed into. It was Brittany’s favorite tree. Santana usually sits on the ground, back against the trunk, while Brittany’s up in the branches, “Not too long, babe. I’ve got class.”
“I know, San. We’ll get home soon so you can change. I just needed to be a monkey for a little bit.”
“It’s okay. I know Quinn and Mike miss you too.”
“It doesn’t make it less sad.”
“Just think of them being happy, B,” Santana smiles up at Brittany. “You know Mike is dancing circles around those Julliard bitches and Quinn’s making those Ivy League spoiled brats crawl after her on their hands and knees.”
“Yeah.” Brittany gives a lopsided smile, “I’m glad I have you, San.”
“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried, Britt.” Santana stands on her tiptoes and kisses an upside down Brittany.
[Another black and white photo of Santana, black framed glasses are perched on her nose. She’s biting her lip and looking down at the textbook in her lap, holding a highlighter in her left hand. Santana is wearing a light colored button down shirt with her sleeves rolled up around her elbows and dark jeans. The wooden slats of the bench structure she’s sitting on fill the rest of the frame. The caption below it says: Studying at Wurster before the Earth starts quaking.]
Brittany places her camera down next to Santana’s worn brown leather briefcase bag and crawls up onto the section of the bench between Santana and the white stone wall of the courtyard. She props her legs straight up on the wall of wooden slats, with her back on the slight decline and her head on the flat portion of the section. Santana’s looking at her over her glasses with a slight smile.
“I love you,” Santana’s voice is soft, not because she’s worried someone will hear, but because she doesn’t want to disrupt the quiet moment they’re sharing. Brittany smiles and holds out her pinky. Santana caps her lavender highlighter and grabs Brittany’s pinky with her own.
“This place is so cool! It’s like this giant multi-surfaced bench.”
Santana smiles at Brittany and nods. “It was designed by some graduate students a couple years ago to serve as an outdoor classroom, performance platform and social space. Each section is supposedly at an angle in which someone might sit.”
“I like this angle. I get to be upside down.” Brittany grins.
“I know,” Santana leans over and gives Brittany a kiss. “This place reminds me of you.”
“I thought we were at Wurster because you have your earthquake seminar.”
“It’s design in earthquake country and we are, babe.” Santana nods and smiles at the way Brittany remembers her schedule, “the seminar ended early one day and I decided to explore the building a bit and I found this courtyard. All the different angles and surfaces of this structure remind me of you.”
“Really?” Brittany smiles.
“There’s just so much to you, you can adapt to any situation and you’re breathtaking.” Santana squeezes their entwined pinkies.
“San,” Brittany turns her head so that she’s fully looking at Santana. “How’d I get so lucky as to have you?”
“Nah, I’m the lucky one, Britt.” Santana smiles and places a kiss on Brittany’s lips.
“I love you.”
“Always.”
[The black and white photo is focused on Santana wearing the same outfit as earlier, but the glasses are gone and her hair is up in a loose ponytail. She’s pulling the tap and filling a pint glass with a dark colored liquid while smiling at the customer sitting across the bar from her. The caption below it reads: The monkeys are loose, on this Thursday at Triple Rock, but some people prefer their beer on draught.]
Brittany leans against the wall that is next to her stool at the bar and takes a couple more pictures of Santana as she moves around the bar, joking around with customers or snapping a dish towel at Manny. He’s Santana’s favorite server, customers are always asking if they’re siblings. Manny’s skin is the same beautiful tone as Santana’s, he’s got light hazel eyes that are mesmerizing and his last name is Lopez. Brittany can understand how people could think they were related, even though she knows they’re nothing alike in personality.
“Dirty fucking hippie.” Santana winks across the room at Manny who’s currently trying to fit his ‘locs beneath his red, green and gold beanie, he laughs at knowing exactly what Santana had just called him. She turns to Brittany, “you okay, Britt? Not too bored, I hope.”
“I’m good.” Brittany pops a garlic fry into her mouth, “you know I could watch you for hours.”
“Mmm, we haven’t done that in a while,” Santana grins and leans over the bar to press her lips to Brittany’s. “Maybe we can mutually watch each other tonight before my gig.”
“That was so not what I was talking about, but now it’s all I’m going to be thinking about while you work.”
“Gotta keep my customers happy,” Santana winks and moves to the other end of the bar to a customer who waved her down.
Brittany stuffs another handful of fries into her mouth and whimpers as she watches Santana wiggle her ass and wink at her. She was supposed to be reading her ‘Sanskrit: An Appreciation Without Apprehension’ textbook for her test tomorrow, but she’d much rather be studying the language of her girlfriend’s body. Brittany has Santana memorized, every little freckle, but she likes to have a refresher course fairly regularly, if only she was just as motivated about studying things that went towards her degree. Brittany sighs, opens up her book and starts reading.
“Shit, I shouldn’t have teased you earlier.” Brittany looks up and blinks owlishly when she hears Santana’s voice to find her looking at the text she’s been reading, “not on kama sutra night.”
“San,” Brittany rolls her eyes but doesn’t fight the smile. “That was just one portion of work.”
“Yeah, yeah, and it’s not just about sex, there’s stuff about love and family too.” Santana rolls her eyes, “whatever. I still know how you get when you’ve been studying this shit.”
“It’s beautiful and inspiring, and if you aren’t careful there won’t be a mutual anything when we get home.”
“Brittany.” It comes out as a whimper and Brittany knows better than to laugh at Santana for that. Brittany closes her book, she’d finished anyway, leans across the bar and kisses Santana. Brittany keeps it in mind that they’re at Santana’s job and that, even though it’s a bar, there’s only so many displays of affection that are appropriate, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to promise everything she plans on doing when they get home. Brittany knows every single one of Santana’s buttons.
“Be good,” Brittany whispers as she pulls away and sits back down on her bar stool.
“Not fair,” Santana brings her shaky hands up to fix her ponytail. “This shift needs to be over now.”
“Not too much longer, lover.” Brittany smirks as she looks at her clunky fluorescent yellow watch, “a little over an hour.”
“Bathroom?”
“Santana.” Brittany laughs.
“What? I’m all distracted now.”
“We’ve got an apartment a block away, you can wait,” Brittany runs her fingers over the back of Santana’s hand that’s resting on the bar. “’sides, Manny needs you to fill the order for table tricycle.”
“Three, babe.”
“Whatever, my way is more fun.”
“I love you.”
“Always.”
[This time the black and white photo is of Santana playing a guitar and singing. She’s sitting on a stool, the guitar resting in her lap and everyone in the audience is focused on the stage. The caption below the photo reads: No one sings like my songbird.]
“Rachel would be shitting herself if she saw you,” Brittany takes the guitar from Santana and puts it into its case. “Especially if she knew you sang regularly in front of that many people.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not competing with a million other wannabe Broadway starlets.” Santana shrugs and sips from the pint of beer that Brittany had waiting for her, “Berry would still be getting all the solos if she were here.”
“I don’t know if you noticed, but this really isn’t a Broadway crowd.” Brittany nods to the room filled with people wearing jeans and khaki’s with fleece jackets or sweatshirts, “We’d be having to visit the City to see her and she wouldn’t be filling places this large.”
“Britt.”
“Can’t a girl be proud of her unicorn?”
“Brittany.” Santana tilts her head, looks down and inhales a shaky breath, “I love you.”
“Always,” Brittany wraps her arms around Santana. She brushes some of Santana’s hair behind her ear, “babe, regularly packing the Freight is a fairly big deal, especially for someone not selling albums. You need to, like, allow yourself to enjoy this.”
“I need to remember to not plan a gig when you’ve got a Sanskrit test the next day.”
“You just want more orgasms.”
“That’s definitely a perk,” Santana chuckles. “You always get all zen-like, or whatever, when you study that stuff.”
“It’s so cool,” Brittany shrugs. “Everything has changed, but humans are just the same as they’ve ever been.”
“I like buildings, people bring complications.” Santana finishes her beer, grabs Brittany’s hand and heads towards the door. Santana smiles at people along the way. She hears the compliments on her performance, but none of them sink in.
Santana wonders when the praise of others stopped being so important to her. She appreciates it. There’s still the rush of performing in front of people, especially when they sing the songs she’s written along with her, but she no longer needs it like she did. Performing has become a hobby, a way of earning some extra cash and blowing off some steam. She doesn’t know what Rachel and Kurt are up to, but Brittany was right in saying that people weren’t coming to shows specifically to see them. Not yet, at least. Not in Manhattan, where the competition is so fierce and cutthroat. Rachel and Kurt are amazing and they totally deserve their dreams coming true. Santana’s just had a lot less competition in Berkeley and it leaves a bit of a bitter taste in her mouth to know that she sells out coffee shops and small venues easily, but she doesn’t need to perform to survive.
“It’s ‘cause you’re happy,” Brittany whispers into her ear as they step out of the coffeehouse and into the night.
“What is?”
“Why you can live without it.” Brittany swings the arm carrying Santana’s guitar case up to rest on her own shoulder as they head towards Shattuck.
“You readin’ minds now, too?” Santana arches her eyebrow.
“Just yours,” Brittany shakes her head. “I know your guilty face, it gets all squished on one side and your lips get even more pouty than usual.”
“Sounds attractive.” Santana snorts.
“Everything about you is attractive to me, everything. Even when you were being a total bitch in high school, you were still the only thing on my mind. The only thing, person…forever that I wanted.” Brittany pulls them to a stop in front of Santana’s favorite comic book store, and turns Santana to look at her, “there’s no place I’d ever ever rather be than by your side. You could be doing so many things right now, San. I’ve only got a handful of things I could do, jobs where I could be myself and not be judged for my different way of thinking, but you’ve got the world. You could be a lawyer, teacher, stockbroker, anything you want, and you’re doing exactly what you want to do without worrying about what anyone else thinks of you for, like, the first time in your life.”
“I guess,” Santana shrugs but she can’t fight the small smile that appears on her lips.
“You’re fulfilling your potential, babe.” Brittany leans in and gives a brief kiss to Santana’s lips, “which means you’re happy. You don’t need anything else. So, like, could you please enjoy your moments instead of feeling guilty about things out of your control?”
“Seriously, what’s in those texts you’ve been reading.” Santana deflects, but wraps Brittany in a snug embrace.
“I told you, the meaning of life.” Brittany nods as they start walking again, “You should totally take some of these classes.”
“Right, ‘cause ancient Sumerian comes up in designing multi-million dollar houses all the time.”
“I love you, babe, but modern structures kinda suck.”
“What are you getting at, Britt?”
“I don’t know, like, maybe if you shifted your focus to, like, ancient architecture or something, you could be my Lara Croft.” Brittany shrugs, “we could travel the world seeing things that hardly anyone ever sees and I can document everything we do. I’ll protect us from gryphons and tigers and you can keep us from getting cursed by mummies.”
“You’ve been sneaking the Guardian of Light again, haven’t you?” Santana chuckles.
“I mean, sometimes you’re in class and I miss you. So, I play a game and picture it’s you running in those short shorts and bulging tank top,” Brittany shrugs. “You’re really hot when you’re sweating, San. Besides, you already know how to do flips and acrobatics and stuff. It’s, like, perfect.”
“Britt, real life isn’t like video games, but I definitely know what I’m wearing to our next costume party.”
“You’re way better than a videogame, Santana.” Brittany suddenly moves and pins Santana against the brick wall of their apartment building, “I can touch your breasts anytime I want, for one thing. Another reason is,” Brittany cuts off and kisses Santana.
“That’s a wonderful reason.” Santana smiles as Brittany pulls away.
“I don’t know, I just sometimes think it’d be cool to travel the world with you. You’re totally, like, my hero, San. You can do anything.”
“I feel the same about you, Britt.” Santana leans in and rests her forehead against Brittany’s, “we can travel the world together as much as you want, but we don’t need to put our lives in danger to do it. We’ve already beaten the odds, babe. We’re still together.”
“Forver.”
“And ever.”
“I love you.”
“Always.” Santana alights her lips against Brittany’s, “but can we go inside? ‘Cause it’s kinda freezing and I’ve got a Lit test in the morning.”
“Yeah. Just let me take one last picture first.”
“Of the both of us?” Santana pretends it’s a question and not a request, but Brittany knows better. She aims the camera at the two of them before placing her forehead back on Santana’s . She squeezes the button. The flash goes off, but they barely notice it. Brittany smiles and stands back so Santana can unlock the door. They’re halfway up the stairs to their apartment when Santana speaks, “I can’t believe you’re pervin’ on Croft. Wanky.”
[The final black and white photograph is of two overlapping rings on a white note card that has the word ‘Always’ written below.]