I watched Sexy today. Thiat's why ths happened.

There's always been something odd about her. Something off, something out of its intended alignment, something wrong, something indisputably awful.

She's damaged. Broken. From the inside. She's always known that. And there's always been this mute understanding on Brittany's eyes that told her that she also knew. That she could see; that it was out there, that nobody needed to broach the subject because it was clear and done and something to just ignore.

And Brittany did, she did, she got that from Santana in the same natural way she got everything else. Everything rude, raw, dark; and even everything more than that; everything hidden and sweet. Just everything.

She did, she does. And Santana loves her, loves her, loves her. Loves her so much that when they touch she bleeds it all over that soft pale skin, so unbearably much that it jumps out of her and falls all over the place, in invisible colors, and with silent voices. So much that she has to break her own heart and tell the truth. Because it's either that or have it asphyxiating her until the day she dies.

I love you, but i can't. i'm sorry, i just can't.

All the wrong words (the only ones she knows how to use) get said too late, and everything she can put her eyes on is the sum of their mistakes; the huge mountain made of thousands of things that have been terrible and idiotic, and harmful.

Days and weeks, and months. She doesn't want to say it.

(Years.)

Brittany walks away. She kisses Santana on the cheek, soft and feathery and letting her nose brush the skin there in that way that always makes her think that maybe she's just sore and stupid and a bit sadistic and that yes, fuck her, but love exists.

And after that innocent caress she drops a lingering kiss on her lips and is gone. Gone in the worst way. Gone and taking everything wholesome, worthy, beautiful away; taking everything nice and right in this shitty place with her.

All she's got left when Brittany leaves is a long list of would've beens might've beens could've beens, and those stupid regrets that sit beside her on the empty chairs on her house; all of them like clones to her fears, looking young and apathetic. Closing their eyes, opening them, smiling belittling smiles; sardonic little fuckers whose only joy is standing there telling her that she's better off anyway because that relationship (would've could've might've) was only going to bring her down from her throne and make her into some sort of pariah.

She would do anything. Anything in the most horrid senses of the word, anything in the most gruesome ways to just cut all of this out of her (all of these old wounds, all of this fear, all of this) and make herself a new, better person.

Brittany walks down the halls pushing Artie's chair and looking glossy. She's all long legs and long arms, and the craning neck that never ceased to make Santana's palms sweat, never stopped making her mouth water.

They are talking about something she can't listen to, but she looks happy and sunny. A bit dazzled, the way she always looks. A little lost (waiting for someone to grab her hand and walk her through a life of concepts that she doesn't get).

She just stands there and stares. There's a revolting need to bend over one of the giant trash cans and be sick all over it, a despondent coldness that makes her hands heavy at her sides, and her feet unable to move.

She stares, and that frightful knot of tension in her chest that sighs anything at her tightens itself around her lungs and her throat.

Before taking a turn to the left, Brittany turns to look at her and smiles sadly.

Santana stays there for a while, and then walks to the nurse's office. In hopes that maybe there is something (anything) that she can do to feel less like shit, less like she's going to start gasping and turn blue and just drop dead at any given point.

(And if there is nothing, then she will just fake a headache and say fuck it to her math class.)