Santana can't think of anything better to do with him than drink, so she drags Mom's cheap jug of vino out of the back of the fridge and passes him a cup. She tosses her own cup back, squeezing her eyes shut like she's taking a shot except she gulps, gulps, gulps until the cup's empty.
She opens her eyes and arches her brows at him impatiently when she sees he hasn't touched his wine at all. His dusty lashes sweep against his round cheeks as he glances down.
"Uh, I don't think you're supposed to drink wine like that," Sam says, rotating his cup between his big hands. They're like puppy paws, she thinks impatiently, like he's still trying to grow into them, like all those muscles and those lanky legs still aren't finished getting where they're going and she, for one, doesn't have the time to wait around.
"Who the hell cares? Just drink it, Sam."
He shrugs. "All right," he says uncertainly, and puts the cup to his crazy plump lips. (She thinks of Britt's lip gloss shining on her skinny white girl lips after she smacks them together and shuts her eyes like something just pinched her.)
"Go, go, go," she chants, like he's having a beer or something, till the cup's empty and he puts it down again and looks at her.
She looks at him.
He has those big eyes, like a fucking Bratz doll, she thinks. Huge, earnest. Green and blue, Caribbean-colored and twice as wide.
(She thinks of Britt's eyes, the way they angle like a cat's, the way Britt had laughed and nuzzled her shoulder going "meow, meow" after she'd made that observation. How blue they are, like sapphires, like skies, like cerulean crayons and robins' eggs.)
She should probably lean in and kiss him, she thinks. She is abruptly aware of how much she wants to cry; it's there in the back of her throat along with the acrid rubbing-alcohol cheapness of the red rose wine or whatever it faked being on the label, it's there stinging her eyes like paper cuts by her tear ducts.
She should pull a Sue Sylvester, she thinks, and have them torn out.
Sam licks his lips, looking unconvinced. "That's stuff's..."
"It sucks. I know," Santana says shortly. She reaches over the arm of the couch and grabs the jug on the end table. The glass bottom scrapes along the chipped wood with an uneven stuttering sound until Santana unscrews the cap and dips the bottle, wine glug-glug-glugging into her cup, pink drops splashing onto her hand like watered blood. She fills her cup, then holds out her hand for Sam's. He hands it over.
They drink, splitting the jug of cheap booze between them. Sam's big and muscley and can soak it up like a sponge, but Santana has the alcoholic fortitude of someone twice her size and weight. Even still, even with all that, by the time they finish, they're leaning on one another on the couch with their limbs gone floppy and their heads buzzing (at least, Santana's is) and Santana figures, now is the time, now she should kiss him. She straddles Sam, her knees squeaking on the plastic couch covers. She feels his breath draw in.
She kisses him, tasting the cheap wine on his lips.
He has lips like a girl's, she thinks. Big, soft lips, a wide, generous mouth. She puts her hands in his hair and feels how fried it is; homeboy needs conditioner stat. Britt's hair smells like bubblegum because her parents still buy her kids' conditioner, Britt's blonde hair is all natural, sunshine on top, sunshine below -
Her eyes open. Sam's eyes are open, too, although his big hands grip her by her slender waist, practically meeting at her spine and navel. She sits back on his lap, feeling his mound of junk against her panties, sure, but he isn't hard. His fingers barely brush the skin above her skirt.
"You always do the creepo stare when you're making out with someone?" she snaps, crossing her arms. "Didn't anyone ever show you how to kiss right?"
"I kissed Quinn plenty of -"
"Oh, Quinn," Santana snarls, bile tumbling out of her throat in the form of words, "fucking Quinn, perfect Quinn with her stupid fucking kid and her fat fucking thighs and all her hypocritical Christian girl bullshit -"
"Santana, whoa," Sam says, his brow crinkling, eyes flashing all of a sudden like his little puma cub ass is seriously going to step to her, "you don't have to go there -"
"You don't even want to be here with me right now," Santana throws at him, sick of it, sick to death of it. It. It. Whatever it is. She hates it, she loathes it, she wants to stab it in the throat and watch it bleed. It. It ruins everything. It makes her unhappy all the time, it makes her furious, it makes her bitter and cold, it makes her grit her teeth in her sleep, it makes her walk down the halls with her fingers aching from the need to be clenched into fists. It.
Sam's Adam's apple bobs in his throat as he stares at her, equal parts offended and bewildered, and she scrapes her hands back through her hair, pulling out her ponytail. She feels her lower lip wobbling and tenses her jaw, rolling off him to slump beside him instead. "You're not even hard, you dick."
"'S not you," Sam says. There's desperation in his words. She doesn't even want to look at him, but she does, meeting his gaze spitefully.
"Well?"
"It's just not you, okay?"
She shakes her head, wishing those stupid words didn't hurt so much because who the fuck is Sam, anyway? Some newcomer, some johnny-come-lately with a Bieber cut and no fucking game to speak of. (He doesn't want her either. And Britt doesn't want her either, she's happy with that robot wheelchair loser just because Santana didn't want to sing Melissa Gaytheridge's big gay song about gay ladybabies in front of everyone and she doesn't even see why that's a big deal, anyway.)
"So what is it, then? Cat got your dick?"
Sam laughs briefly. His face is flushed from the wine, and he falls against the back of the couch like someone tugged all the muscle out of him, leaving just the bones to rattle. "It isn't you. I'm sorry, Santana, I - I shouldn't even be here."
"Not the first time I've heard that," she says sourly.
Sam looks over at her, his bangs falling in his eyes. Blond, blond under the dim living room lights, a shade of blonde that shines thin and bright and curls by her shoulders, frames her beaming, angled face, that smile that lights a room, sweet and dumb and trusting, eyes that adore her, hands that slide up her narrow hips with steadiness and surety. Santana blinks, tension shooting darts along her spine, and Sam frowns a little, leaning in, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?" he says, sounding so unsure.
"Do I look okay?" She jerks her shoulder away from him, a tearless sob clawing up her throat, and puts her face in her hands. She presses her knuckles against her eyelids. She wants to scratch her eyes out, and every memory they've ever captured. Britt's Sleeping Beauty curls all long and mussed against Santana's pillow, Britt's long nose nuzzling its way up Santana's neck, her breathy little moans and murmurs in her ear. "It's not fair," Santana chokes out into the balls of her hands. "This sucks."
"I didn't mean to- we can try again," Sam says, looking alarmed and also like that's the last thing he wants to do and hasn't anyone ever taught him how to lie, how to fake it till you make it? He's holding out a hand like he's begging for alms. Part of her wants to take it and hold on just to feel the warmth of someone's hand in hers, but his fingers are so big and the hand she wants linked with hers is small and delicate and soft and he has big jock footballer hands and Santana has had so many of those before and even if his are gentler than most, they aren't the hands she wants.
"I don't want you! I want Britt, you idiot," she snaps, and just saying it feels like so much shit, it makes her feel like somebody died, and maybe somebody did, or maybe this just feels as awful as dying must feel or maybe she shouldn't have drank this much in the first place. Sam pulls her in silently, so she lets him. She's silent and shaking for a little while before the tears come, completely anticlimactically, just a few, absorbed by his plain cotton tee. It'd be easier if she could cry, she thinks. If she could just cry it out and be done with it.
With it. It. Britt. It.
"I know how you feel," comes Sam's low voice in her ear, a mumble that would have been indistinct had it not been right in her damn ear. Santana pulls her head up, wiping her damp cheeks with the backs of both hands.
"Bullshit you know how I feel," she says, before realizing that his eyes are wet, too, clear trails glistening down each round cheek. She sniffles and combs a hand through her untidy weave again. "You don't."
"Kurt," he blurts out, his voice tight and small, and when she looks up at him she sees two more big ole tears splash down those thin clear tracks on his cheeks. He swallows hard, and he reaches up a hand to wipe his eyes. He huffs out a breath like he's gasping for air after a punch. "It's Kurt." He doesn't even breathe, looking at her hairline like he can't believe the words that left his lips.
She stares back blankly, feeling numb and distant. "No wonder you and Quinn didn't work."
"I tried. I gave her a ring," he says, his voice growing a little louder like volume counts as conviction, "and I would have made it work if she'd just given me more time, but... but I..."
Santana snorts dryly as Sam trails off. "But you thought of Kurt every time you kissed her, right?"
"Not every time," Sam says with the sort of raw heartbreaking simple honesty Santana is only used to from Brittany, and maybe that's why Santana just shakes her head instead of twisting his balls for blackmail material for like forever, because this may be prime dish, but it is just so fucking sad.
It. There it is, again, that awful little it.
"I miss everything about her," Santana says flatly, inspecting her nails. Her chipped nail polish blurs in her vision. "Like, everything. Even the taste of her lip smackers. And the retarded way she turns her head back and forth when something confuses her, like a little dog, which is like, all the time. I see her with Artie and I just want to throw him into a dumpster and like, lock it."
"But you had her, though," Sam says, hesitantly. "At least you had that, and I mean, maybe they'll break up. You can try and talk to her and tell her how you feel. I just, I..."
"What, Hummel was alllll over you those first few days," Santana says, rolling her eyes. She sniffs again, knuckling away the tears still wet on her face. "You could have had him in two seconds."
Sam shakes his head without saying anything for a few moments, and when he does, it's not really in direct reply to her, his gaze pointed at the opposite wall like he can discern a silhouette there. Santana can see the muscles working away in his jaw and almost grins, darkly, because she's been there, oh yes, watching Britt whirl away in a Cheerios skirt and dance like her whole life's on the line, beauty in motion.
"He wears really tight pants," Sam manages, and Santana nods, figuring he was about to say something like that, because Santana is an expert in the ways of lust, and now that he's said Kurt's name, all of his dumb shit makes sense.
"He wears that dumb uniform now," she points out unhelpfully.
"I like his old clothes. I've never seen anybody dress like that before or since."
"Yeah, well, that's Kurt Hummel for you. Nobody even blinked when he started wearing skirts and corsets and shit, I was just like, welp, matter of time. He wore this weird bondage leather thing once, but I don't think he knew what it was."
Sam turns his entire head so he can stare at Santana, jaw dropped open just slightly. Santana chuckles a little cruelly and stands up, shaky on her feet. But she plants them on the carpet in a wide and solid stance and puts her hands on her hips.
"So?"
"So what?"
"What are we gonna do?"
"There's a we?"
"Well, we're both being pretty fucking gay right now, so yeah, there's a 'we,' Evans, Jesus Christ, keep up. You're lucky Kurt likes them dumb as the day is long," Santana swears with a roll of her shoulders, her chin jerking up.
He flinches at the word 'gay,' but doesn't even say anything about it. "Kurt's at Dalton, though," Sam says instead, and he looks so damn dispirited, his shoulders dropping, his hands twitching all limp and listless, that even Santana is roused to some tremendously minor chord of pity, if only because it sucks. This sucks, it sucks, and it hurts, and it sucks. It's written all over Sam's flushed, tired face, that fucking horrible sadness and the weight of carrying it alone, every day, alone in rooms full of people, heavier than all their textbooks put together, heavier than a dumbbell or a Cheerio. Loving somebody. Missing somebody.
"Dalton's only two hours away," Santana points out.
"Yeah? And Brittany?" Sam says, raising an eyebrow. "She sits right next to you in Chem."
Santana sucks her teeth and folds her arms across her chest, pursing her lips. Her jaw juts out. "That's different."
"Yeah. Real different." Sam presses his hands to his face, drags them down his cheeks. "I shouldn't have said anything. Look, please don't tell anybody."
"I'm not saying shit," Santana says dourly, holding up one hand before he can continue panicking. "Hey. If I talk to Britt, will you at least text Kurt or something?"
"You..." Sam blinks. "Wait, what?" His green eyes narrow slightly. "Why do you care?"
"It's not that I care," Santana corrects him right away, crossing her arms again. She shifts her weight uncomfortably, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "It's just that this really sucks, okay?"
Sam brushes his hair out of his eyes, dropping his head. "It really sucks," he echoes softly. "That's for sure."
Out of nowhere, Santana chuckles, wry and quiet. One side of her lips curls up with sharp humor. "And you're not allowed to tell anyone I cried, got it, Evans?"
He looks at her for a long moment, and it's an uncomfortable moment because she gets the feeling that he sees through her a little bit with those big Sailor Moon eyes of his, but he sees what she is trying to do, what she is trying to promise, what she is trying to offer, and he nods slowly and seriously. "I won't tell." His smile peeks out, just a little bit, a shy curve. "And hey, if you need a shoulder or whatever, I'll listen, you know."
"Whatever." She cocks her head at him, smirking. "I've got Alien vs. Predator Requiem on DVD. Let's watch."