A/N: Yea, so this is pretty random, but when it wouldn't leave me alone, I had to write this short little one shot to leave it behind. I feel like Britt as a character is deceptively complex. And I would love to see her explored more in fics.

She struggled to explain them away. But it was futile. The gasp, the wideness of her eyes, the stuttering that followed. She tryed to explain to Rachel that it was all the doing of Lord Tubbington because she'd taken away his cigarettes and he'd flipped out, scratching her deeply with the claws she'd forgotten to file. The singer wouldn't let it go, wouldn't take the out Brittany tried to give her via her usual route of sudden and exagerated lack of understanding.

"Brittany, please. Just be honest with me. Tell me whats been going on, why you're doing this to yourself." The blonde stood from the bed, escalating things.

"I am being honest! And it hurts my feelings when you don't believe me. I've never lied to you, Rach." Rachel shook her head, the tears already sliding over the skin of her cheeks.

"And you don't think it hurts mine when you lie to me? Let's not pretend I don't know what it looks like when Tubbington claws either of us extra deep because you forget to take care of it. And yea, I guess you have lied to me. Because when I ask you if you're okay and you say 'Of course, i'm more than okay, i'm great!'...I believe you. I trust that if something were wrong you would tell me the way I always tell you. Because that's what this is. This relationship is about trust and love and being able to talk to each other when we can't talk to anyone else. If you don't want to do that anymore, maybe we shouldn't." Rachel got up and grabbed her books and notes, quickly stuffing them in her bag before slinging it over her shoulder and stalking towards the door Britt was standing in the way of.

"Rachel don't do this. I...I'll explain everything." Brittany extended her limbs to block her girlfriend who tried to duck and slip around her.

"Move." She wouldn't even look at her. And she understood her anger, but more than that, how much it must hurt that Britt felt she couldn't just tell her. Rachel had told her everything there was to know about herself. From being born to a surrogate to the abuse she recieved from the parents she was given to. Being rescued by a police officer who'd finally adopted her herself until she was killed and then finally being taken in by Hiram and Leroy Berry. She hadn't had to explain the severe bullying she'd been subject to in highschool, Brittany had been there. But she did have to tell her about the deep and scarring depression she battled. About the attempts she had made on her own life during those four years.

"My mom called to tell me that she's pregnant. How glad she was that she would get to have a daughter who wasn't so fucking stupid because she got a donor with a genius iq. That she didn't need me anymore. That I wasn't her daughter. How Alicia will be all she needs. I just wondered if it would help." Rachel dropped her messenger bag on the floor by her feet, pulling Brittany to cuddle into her much smaller body.

"I'm so sorry, Britt. I'm sorry. Did it help? I wouldn't really know right? the only time I took a blade to my skin it was more like slicing open a vein and less like just pressing it to my skin until I bled." She was just curious. She wouldn't try it. One of them had to be responsible in that particular way. Rachel didn't mind it being her.

"Yea. It was like...you know how you call someone but their already on the phone so you get the busy tone?"

"Yea..." She didn't get the comparison.

"It's like that. Like she can't hurt me if I'm already hurting myself. So she gets the busy tone. Or, i don't know something like that. Thinking of it in that way helped a lot. And I decided that you're right, and I should stop taking her calls. She doesn't talk to dad anymore, so there's no reason for her to talk to me, right?"

"Right, baby. You know you could have just told me all of this?"

"You already told me that it isn't a good idea to keep answering when she calls. I didn't want you to think i was just being stupid." She pouted, tucked into Rachel's side.

"I'll never think you're stupid. And I've never said that to you. I don't plan on it. Alright? I love you, Britt. Just...if you feel like you have to hurt yourself let me be there so I can take care of you okay? Pinky promise?" She held up her smallest digit, smiling when Brittany curled them together.

"Pinky promise, Rach."