A/N: So I've been dying to explore Santana's reaction to this 'Lady Music Week' plan of Finn's, and I wanted to avoid the stereotypical happy-happy, hugs-and-forgiveness approach. I toyed with the idea of using Kurt as the second player in the story, but in the end I figured Blaine was a better fit. I also demand a Blaine/Santana duet sooner rather than later...
If you are averse to the use of the f-bomb, I'd avoid reading this story. It'll also involve a quite a lot of angst. You have been warned.
Please read and, if you feel so inclined, review!
Ciara xxx
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Santana wasn't sure why she had ended up in the choir room two hours after school let out. Two hours after she had had to endure some ridiculously peppy song-and-dance courtesy of... well, of everyone.
It wasn't like she had much cause to spend time here anymore, not since she'd upped and left New Directions in favour of the Troubletones. She should be sitting in her own practice room right now, or the gym, or the bleachers out by the football field. She'd told herself that she left New Directions because it was her senior year and she wanted a chance to shine, and maybe that was partially true, but now she was beginning to realise that it was mostly just so that she could be alone with Brittany more often. She had sufficiently severed her ties with Mr Schue and the New Directions for the love of a girl who maybe didn't love her back, and after she had freaked out at them for their pathetic little 'Lady Music Week' idea and almost punched Lumps the Clown again, she was pretty sure it was permanent. They couldn't want her back now, even if she wanted to go back. She didn't even blame them really- Finn maybe, but not the rest of them. They weren't intentionally making her life hell, they were just managing it by thinking preppy, poppy, happy songs would make it better. Except maybe Berry. She was pretty sure Berry just hated her.
And yet here she was, still standing in the same place where she'd yelled and screamed at them until they left with downcast eyes and awkward sideways glances. Maybe she'd stayed because nobody would look for her here. Maybe because it was quiet. Or...
Or maybe it was because she felt safe here.
She perched on the bench in front of the baby grand, fingers trailing the keys absently. Somebody- Puck maybe, since he seemed to have developed an affinity for the piano lately- had left their sheet music behind: 'Moves Like Jagger'. A rueful smile played on Santana's lips as she imagined the scene playing out. Hummel's hobbit would probably be singing lead, or maybe Artie, with Quinn mauling the Christina parts Santana could nail in her sleep. Mr Schue would be doing that way-too-excited-to-be-appropriate grin he pulled when they were onto a winner. Kurt would be doing that godawful trademark shimmy of his, while Mike and Tina rocked some seriously sweet Asian moves that made everyone else in the room want to upchuck all over the new kid trying to copy Finn. Both of them would look like they were throwing epileptic fits and Berry would be throwing her hands in the air and trying to manoeuvre them into something resembling synchronisation while Puck sniggered in the background. Berry would slap him playfully upside the head and Artie would bop away in his chair and the hobbit would pull out those adorkable moves of his and at the end of the song Schuester would stand and clap and exclaim, "That was awesome guys!" and Santana would laugh and roll her eyes at the familiarity of it all and-
And she wouldn't. Because she wasn't one of them anymore. Wasn't really one of anyone. She'd pushed them away, like she always did when anyone came close to seeing her true self, like she had when Britt had invited her to appear on Fondue for Two. It was what she did, what she'd always done, because in Lima Heights being vulnerable was a cardinal sin. It was easier to keep people at arm's length because people could drop you at any minute and being dropped hurt. Better not to have anyone to drop you, to be the one doing the dropping whenever it was most convenient.
Only now, with that goddamn promo video and the feeling of guilt and dirt and not wanting to go home in case somebody had seen the tape, it'd be nice to have somebody look at her without pity or disgust or judgement.
"Fuck," she growled as tears prickled in the corner of her eyes. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
And she swiped at the sheet music, that stupid happy song, sending the pages flying every which way. She kicked out the bench from under her, fists clenched and face red, and grabbed the mic stand in the middle of the floor, firing it against the wall. Everything inside her- anger, pain, loathing- crowed in approval as the rampage continued. With every chair she kicked, every drape that came tumbling down, every trophy she sent crashing to the floor, it became harder to see as silvery guilt flooded her tear ducts and Finn's words echoed and that damn promo ad swam in her peripherals until eventually she flopped exhaustedly to the floor and buried her face in her hands. Ashamed.
She didn't know how long she sat there, sobbing to herself where nobody else could see- it could have been minutes or hours- when she became aware of quiet footsteps. A furious swipe at her eyes, bleeding mascara and shame in equal measure, showed her the scene in brilliant but bemusing clarity.
The hobbit, Hummel's new boy toy, was calmly picking up the sheet music and organising it. He paid Santana no mind, simply moving from the bench to the trophies to the chairs before taking one look at the height of the windows, sighing and settling for folding up the faux-velvet drapes into one neat pile. Then he came to sit next to her on the floor, legs stretched out with a two-inch strip of ankle on show between the hem of his chinos and his deck shoes. His face was a mask of calm and he didn't look at her, instead focusing all his attention on rubbing his thumb along his left wrist methodically and rhythmically.
Santana stared at him a moment before blurting out frustrated, "What are you doing here hobbit? Come to preach about how I'm perfect the way I am and should just join your rainbow parade and ride a freakin' unicorn around McKinley barfing cupcakes and sunshine?"
The boy finally turned his gaze on her for the first time, his hazel eyes burning with something indefinable. "Actually, Tina and I were studying for a Trig test down the hall, she's been helping me catch up on the coursework here, and I remembered that I forgot my jacket after glee club."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Look, what you saw... That- that was..."
"None of my business," Blaine finished coolly, the ghost of a sad smile playing on his lips. "You do what you have to do to deal. I get it."
"Do you?" Santana countered, her tone back to its usual blunt aggressiveness. "Because it seems to me that you thought singing that dumb Pink song would make everything better, and while I'm sure everyone enjoyed seeing you eyefuck Kurt the Christmas elf, funnily enough I still feel like the dirty little piece of crap someone stepped in."
Blaine chuckled knowingly, and Santana hated him for being able to laugh. "For the record, the song was Kurt's idea. He's a little... sentimental."
"Easy to be when everyone just accepts the fact that you're a flaming homosexual without batting an eyelid," she snapped, and Blaine's eyes flashed dangerously dark.
"I understand that you're hurting right now," he said in a quiet voice. "Believe me, I do. But it's not fair to resent Kurt. Regardless of how easy you think he's had it, I can assure you that coming out was just as hard for him as-"
"Oh you can assure me, can you, prep school boy? You might live in some happy, perfect bubble where the biggest hardship you face is deciding which fabulous outfit to wear, but where I'm from it doesn't work that way. I'm from Lima Heights, hobbit, you have any idea what they'll do to me in Lima Heights when this gets out? What my family will do? I was going to tell them, I was, in my own time but now- poof! That's gone down the drain. That was the one thing I had on my side, and now I don't even get to sit my mom and mi abuela down and tell them what I am! No, instead they'll hear it from Mrs Ramírez down the street or some mouthy little perra in my sister's class or that asshole's advert and one that happens you can kiss goodbye to this sweet little ass because I'll probably be shipped off to military school or have the gay beaten out of me or be chopped up into little pieces, sold to a blackmarket butcher and replaced with a pretty, straight little orphan from México. So don't you dare try to tell me that you or Kurt or any of your fancy private school buddies have gone through anything like what I'm going through, because you've all got perfect, shiny, happy families who welcomed you happily into their shiny, happy bosoms when you told them you preferred penis and-"
Her rant was cut off, however, by Blaine clambering abruptly to his feet wearing an expression that reminded Santana irresistibly of Coach Sylvester when some random Cheerio had bad-mouthed Madonna. The short boy scuttled across the floor away from her, hands twisting nervously and even white teeth gnawing on his full lower lip. Santana stared at him, half-wondering if he was about to go all creepy serial killer on her ass, until he took a deep breath and turned his gaze back to her. There was a deadened look in those hazel eyes that Santana had only ever seen once before, in Kurt's eyes the day he'd told them he was leaving McKinley, and that made her sit up straighter and swipe at those goddamn tears again.
"You're right," Blaine said quietly, his gaze flickering from Santana to floor and back again. "Kurt and the others- just Jeff, Trent, and now Sebastian I guess- they don't get it. Yeah, it was a huge struggle for them to come out, and yeah their families took a while to come around to the idea, but once they did things changed for the better for them. They're happy being themselves, and so am I. To an extent."
"To an extent?"
He flinched a little as though Santana's echoing of his words brought their reality back to him. He took another deep breath and lifted up the left sleeve of his shirt, rolling it up above his elbow. He beckoned Santana closer, and despite herself she crawled across the expanse between them. Blaine turned his head away as he crouched down to her level and she turned her eyes on his exposed arm. For a moment, she stared blankly at the apparent ordinariness of it. And then she shifted slightly, throwing more light on Blaine's body, and she saw it.
If she wasn't looking for it, she wouldn't have picked up on it. But there it was against the sallow skin, a mottled white web of scarring that started just below the elbow. She saw his Adam's apple ripple as he peeled off his cardigan and then unbuttoned his shirt with fumbling fingers. He pushed it back, revealing his shoulders and chest, and Santana's stomach lurched. The skin on his chest was leathery and raw-looking, tugging upward into more of those ugly spidery scars. Santana's fingers clasped the warped skin and she swore under her breath, eyes finally locking on Blaine's again.
"I know, right?" he joked half-heartedly, eyes shining. "I sat my parents down in the living room to tell them I was... you know. And my dad, he... uh, he wasn't best pleased, to put it mildly. Open fire."
"Jesus," Santana breathed, and Blaine made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob.
"He didn't mean to do it," he said hastily, his voice thick. "At least, I don't think so. He... uh, let's just say the idea of having a gay son doesn't sit well in a family like mine. It's an image thing."
"I had no idea, I-"
"Neither does anyone, except Kurt. Everyone thinks I'm this privileged private school golden boy, and to an extent I guess I am. But the reason I loved Dalton so much, the reason I spend so much time at Kurt's place after school, is that I don't want to go back to that place. You think I need Tina's help with Trig after Dalton? I just wanted a few more hours of not feeling like the big fat family disappointment. I don't want to go home to a mother who's managed to convince herself that I'm 'just going through a faze' and a father who thinks ignoring me or shoving me under a car engine will miraculously turn me straight. I love Kurt, I do, but I envy him just as much. You think I've got a perfect life just because I'm from Westerville and not Lima Heights, but you know what I think? I think we're the same."
"I- but you... I had no idea," Santana said quietly, not looking at Blaine as he hurriedly redressed. "You're always so... so confident! So goddamn proud."
Blaine shrugged sadly. "What other way should I be? My friends, sure they don't know how it feels to go through dinner without speaking a word or what I hear my parents say when they think I've gone to bed, but they support me. And they want to support you, but you won't let them because you're the one who's too proud. They care Santana- Britt, even though she might not love you the way you want, she cares. We all do, and if you're so sure your life is going to hell once people find out that you're in love with that beautiful, odd, wonderful girl, the one thing you should do is hold onto us. Because I know from experience that if you don't have the support at home you're gonna need damn good friends to stop you going crazy. I'm not saying it'll be easy- hell, I know for a fact that it'll be the hardest thing you'll ever do. All I'm saying is that you have about three times more good friends to be there for the fallout than I had, and you need to stop resenting them for not empathising and start appreciating that they're at least sympathising. You need to remember that you're not the only one for whom coming out isn't a perfect, shiny relief."
And without another word he hurried to the back of the room, retrieved his forgotten navy pea coat and walked swiftly and erectly to the door. He was about to leave when Santana allowed words to spill from her mouth, uninhibited and unguarded for once.
"Blaine!" she blurted, and she realised that it was the first time she'd ever used his name as anything other than an insult or a derogatory sneer. The broken boy with the golden facade turned to face her again, and she could see tears swimming in his hazel eyes. "Thanks for the pep talk. And I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have judged you. I had no idea."
"Don't sweat it," he smiled kindly. "I've dealt with worse."
It was Santana's turn to smile at that, a smile of sadness and insider knowledge. "I'll stop being so hard on Frankenteen and the rest of the misfits," she conceded. "But maybe some night, if I'm not braiding Britt's hair and Kurt's not braiding yours, and it gets a little... fiery, I could make a late-night call? For some empathy?"
Blaine smiled. "Of course. Who knows, maybe my dad'll convince himself I've got myself a beautiful Latina girlfriend."
Santana snorted. "Honey, please, have you heard nothing of my reputation? Have daddy dearest spend a half hour with me and he'll be begging you to marry Kurt."
The handsome boy beamed and stretched his hand out towards her. "I might just have to take you up on that offer. Come on, Mike, Tina and I are going for coffee at the Lima Bean. There's always room for one more."
Santana sighed, heaved herself upright and joined Blaine in the doorway with an attempt at a long-suffering eye-roll that was betrayed by a slightly tearful upward twitch of the lips.
"Time to start appreciating some sympathy I guess."
FIN