Work Text:
for we go to a wedding: and surely
you know this, but as soon as possible
send the girls away, may gods
have
road to great Olympos
for men
- Sappho, Fragment 27
I.
It sucks to be loved by Santana Lopez. Even after all this time she’s so prickly. She’s kind to Brittany, yes, but to Brittany only, and while it’s nice that sometimes Santana’s almost like an attack dog, snarling at the first hint of a threat to Britt’s integrity, it gets to be a little much sometimes. Embarrassing. Like when the woman at the Dunkin’ Donuts got Brittany’s order wrong and Santana almost bashed her head in. Or, for example, like now.
They’re getting ready to go to Tina and Artie’s wedding and Santana’s already bitching about everything.
“D’you think she’s gonna be wearing those horrible streaks she used to have in her hair in high school?” Santana cackles, not waiting for a response. Brittany just hums noncommittally, putting on lipgloss. Cherry-flavored, because she knows Santana likes it.
“Like, what was she? Emo? Goth? And God help them if there isn’t an open bar because I didn’t travel all the way here to not get fucking wasted by the end of the night. Honestly, how do people tolerate straight weddings.”
Brittany hums again, now leaning into the counter, seeing if the wing in her eyeliner is drawn on correctly. She never does much in the way of makeup in her day-to-day life; she’s also never had much of a steady hand. Except, of course, when she’s dancing.
Santana’s still going on. “And Hot Wheels over there thinking he’s hot shit just because his films are in Slamdance. I can get into Slamdance, too, if I flash my tits and bat my eyes.”
“Santana,” Brittany warns her. “He was our wedding planner.”
“Yeah,” Santana says, from the hotel room itself, and rustling sounds tell Brittany she’s rummaging in her suitcase or in the closet for something to wear; something clinks; it’s a hanger, “but that doesn’t mean I want to go to his wedding.”
“What is with you today,” Brittany asks, stepping out after looking at herself in the mirror one final time.
She stares. Santana’s half-naked, only wearing a bra and lacy underwear. There’s a red dress, bright like blood, slightly wrinkled, carelessly splayed out on the bed.
Santana looks back at Brittany.
“Maybe I don’t really wanna go,” Santana says. She breathes in, thinks about it for a minute more. “Maybe I wanna stay here with you.”
“They’re our friends, though.”
“High school friends.”
“We were high school sweethearts.”
“That’s different.”
“How? No, it’s not.”
“Of course it is. You’re perfect and they suck.”
“I’m not and they don’t.”
“Can’t you let me bitch, for once? God. You’re always so good. Be less good for once in your life.”
“Well, can’t you be less of a bitch for once.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Brittany, furious and God knows why, slaps Santana right across the cheek. Leaves a mark.
II.
In all her youthful and older years of being loved by Brittany, she’s never felt this angry. Or worse, this unmoored.
“Oh, that’s it,” Santana says, imbued with an ancestral anger she’s rarely felt since moving away from Lima Heights Adjacent. She holds back the you bitch she’d say otherwise, if it were anyone else. Her opponent is still Brittany, her Britt, after all.
But she pounces on her like a cat and begins pulling on her hair hard, like a merciless god. Like she learned to do when she was little, fighting for the fun of it. She’s always been good at fighting; Brittany, though still just as tall and almost as athletic as they were ten years ago, is no match for her. She’s always shielded Britt from the rougher aspects of how she grew up, only letting out bits and pieces when she’s really upset. Did you know she tried to sell me? And it wasn’t until I got to kindergarten that I learned my name wasn’t Garbage Face. And though she plays it for laughs she knows it’s fucked up, how violence begets violence, a cycle she’s powerless to stop right now as she screams in her beloved Britt’s face and hurts her because that’s what she’s always done when she’s upset.
But when she looks at Britt’s face, her poorly done eyeliner, her perfect blossoming cheeks, that beguiling mouth—when she looks at her face, standing on top of Brittany’s still-toned body, feeling the curves of her abs, she thinks, what the hell am I doing.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, and gets off Brittany.
Brittany, on the bed, next to her, says it clearly. “I’m sorry too.”
Santana’s learning to be sorry. She hates being weak. But she’s learning the strongest people in her youth weren’t the ones who thought everything could be solved with punches and barbs.
“Maybe it’s difficult,” she says, still half-naked, one strap of her beige bra—that she knows cups her tits so well—hanging off her chest.
“What is?”
Santana doesn’t respond.
Brittany perches herself on one elbow. Tentatively caresses Santana’s exposed, bruised shoulder. Santana doesn’t brush her off.
“Santana, you can tell me anything.”
Sometimes, though, Santana still wishes she could solve all her problems with punches and barbs.
“I know that,” she says, and it comes off more dismissive than she meant it to. She turns to Brittany, who’s looking at her still through those guileless blue eyes. Santana wants to get lost in them like she always does; she wants to distract her with a kiss, which used to work much better way back when; she wants to cry at how she’s hurt her.
She does none of those things. Guess she really is more mature now, huh? She instead takes a breath. Lets it out. Britt waits patiently, like she always has. Always will.
“I’m jealous,” she says.
“Of Artie and Tina?” Brittany sounds incredulous. And she should be. Santana loves her for that. “But you’re already married. And you’re so much hotter than them.”
“No, I mean, I know that,” Santana says. “And I’m so lucky to be with you, by the way.” She doesn’t say what she really thinks, which is: no one else would tolerate me. And yet you go beyond that. You love me for the mess I am. What the fuck is wrong with you for it, but also, thank you, and I love you, always. “But I mean, I’m back here. In Ohio. Sure, not Lima Heights Adjacent, but Cleveland. Hardly a bastion of culture. And they’ve both been so successful. And after all this time, I’m still stuck here.”
Brittany says nothing immediately. Instead, she sits next to Santana on the still-pristine bed. Looks at her. Sees her. Brushes her cheek, lightly, with two fingers, an index and a middle. On her other hand, her wedding ring gleams.
Santana loves Brittany for many reasons: one of which is her undying admiration for Santana, the way she’d follow her to the ends of the earth even at great risk to her personal bodily integrity; another one is, of course, how Britt is the only one who will call her out on her bullshit, the only one who’s not terrified of her, who doesn’t step on eggshells like she isn’t just a mean chihuahua who’s all bark no bite; but the main one, the one that lies at the core of her stupid petty little beating heart, is that Britt never demands her to be anything else other than what she is. Britt loves her, warts and all, and it’s so cheesy she’ll gag if Artie or Tina say it tonight. But when it comes to Brittany, all cheese is still real and delicious.
“Well, maybe I want to dance with you. Maybe I don’t care about anyone else. Maybe I just want to go so we can eat good food and get sloppy drunk and have a great time and you can stun in your sexy red dress—” Brittany looks her up and down, and Santana feels blushy, bubbly, hot all over, like she’s still sixteen and they’re playing at having sex, awkwardly scissoring—”and I will get to dance with you.”
For a moment, Santana stops. Britt’s always so perceptive. Her sweet tough wife doesn’t mince words, and doesn’t say a lot of words, usually, but her monologue’s brought Santana to tears.
“Okay,” Santana says, and wipes the slight hint of running mascara discreetly from her undereye.
“Okay,” Brittany says, and smiles. “Get dressed. We have a dance to get to.”
She’s getting up when Santana takes the opportunity to pin her down with her thighs, again. Brittany makes a soft sound, but not one of protest; she doesn’t fight back.
“But first, I’ll fix your eyeliner.”
“Oh,” says Brittany, and now her face is bright and mouth is wide. “Please, do the honors, my lady.”
So Santana does. It's wonderful to be loved by Brittany S. Pierce.