Ship: Brittany/Santana.
Rating: NC-17/M.
Summary: Santana gets bullied because of her sexuality. The ballroom in Lima seems to offer a way to feel better. She meets a girl there. It's a lot like her but for completely different reasons.
Author's Note: This long is based on a prompt an anonymous left in my ask, telling about Santana being outted and bullied and Brittany being – spoiler – deaf. If you feel sensible towards the theme of bullying and verbal violence, I suggest you don't read this. Any mistake is my fault, and I hope you forgive it because English is not my first language.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, Brittana nor other characters, sadly.
/
Prologue
You look at yourself in the mirror of your room.
It may be afternoon, but it's always night in your heart. The darkness around you, the darkness in your life is denser than anything else.
You look in the mirror and know that there's something wrong with you. Or rather, you don't understand what it is, but you think it's there because otherwise no one will haunt you this way. You've never done anything to hurt others, so you must be the problem.
Your hair blacks down in ringlets over your shoulders, you just made up, your eyes are dark and deep. They tell a story that a seventeen-years-old girl shouldn't even know about.
You didn't want anyone to know.
You didn't want the rumor to explode, but that stupid Finn Hudson just couldn't help but scream down the hallway that you had no right to fuck Rachel Berry, because she was his girlfriend.
From that fucking day, life in McKinley is a living hell.
Everybody looks at you as if your life doesn't worth more than a few cents, just because you prefer kissing a girl's mouth rather than a boy's. Is there really something wrong with you?
Maybe there is.
If it weren't so, why would anybody hate you?
The decision you have made today is a little out of your usual plans. Every day you sit in your room to study – you usually took boys here to fuck when you were still interested in them; today is gonna be different.
You gather your hair in a ponytail at first, then you decide it's going to become a chignon. You collect them together to give it this elegant shape that highlights the features of your beautiful Latin face.
It seems incredible, but since you like girls, you feel more free and beautiful. Or rather, you'd feel like this if it wasn't like anybody is trying to make you feel like a monster.
You fix a little the black vest you are wearing. It's sporty, drawn to block the sweat and it's going to be useful today as it hasn't been for years, because Sue Sylvester doesn't tolerate that her cheerleaders wear sports underwear, anyway.
You look beautiful in the mirror, but you don't feel like it.
You give yourself one last look and try to show yourself a smile of encouragement. It's weak and thick, but it will do so.
Today you're doing something you haven't done for years.
Today you're dancing.
/
When you enter the ballroom, everything seems very different from what you remember. It's the same old room in Lima, in which you had your lesson when you were a child, but maybe something has changed in the decorations because it doesn't look familiar. You shrug anyway, almost unconsciously, while watching the other girls as they prepare and settle, and the instructor who is relaxing her muscles down, stretching right in front of you.
The woman looks a lot like your old dance teacher, and then you deduce that she must be her daughter, or something. You take a few steps forward, and she turns to face you.
Then you stare at her because wow, she's beautiful.
She has bright green eyes, a beaming proud smile. Her hair is blond and perfectly soft. She's completely dressed in black, just like you.
She walks to meet you, leaning one hand towards you while she holds her hip with the other. You probably look a bit stupid right now because you're missing out of air, trying to say something. You've just discovered your sexuality and she is really beautiful and sexy, so it's sort of a thing for you not to notice.
"Cassandra July." She's the one to break the silence and you swallow.
You've always been a classy bitch, but when you see a beautiful woman you become sweet, you stutter and smile.
You take a deep breath.
You don't want to stutter right now.
You reach out to her with one hand, and with the other you hold tightly at the bag on your shoulders. Your legs are shaking while you squeeze her hand between your fingers and you feel like you're on fire. You could blame the heat - the sun is strong through the window - but now you're being bullied every day at school. You're certainly not going to deny your reactions to yourself now.
"Santana Lopez." You say and she spreads her smile, it's almost a sneer.
Up close, you realize that it has very little to do with the kind smile of your old teacher. Now that she's nearer, you don't feel so comfortable. She's watching you from head to toe, as if she can't help but judge you. You try to think that maybe she does it with all the girls in the room; it's not about you being different, not in this room where you came to with the hope of not being judged.
Eventually, you see a happy smile on Cassandra's face and she lets go of your hand, nodding toward the room.
"You have a well-trained body." She tells you and then you realize that she was examining you. "It's pleasure to welcome you here."
You force a smile, probably because you don't love who judges, who makes you feel under scrutiny simply because you dared to cross an unexplored threshold. You walk beside her, trying to ignore the fact that you still feel her gaze focused on your back as you walk to the corner.
You begin to warm up then too, to loosen your muscles. Despite all the workouts with the Cheerios, when you were part of them, now you feel weighed down, and you have to find a new balance with physical exercises before you can really dance.
You try not to look too much at the girls who are around you, you don't really want them to start criticizing you simply because your gaze is resting too long on one leg, perhaps accidentally. It's always frustrating having to be careful about anything you do but it's also necessary.
This could be a new beginning for you, the place where you feel protected.
"Well, girls, five more minutes." Cassandra is announcing, walking around the room. "If no one else comes, we'll start like this." She explains and you nod when she looks at you, to let her know that you're listening.
Your eyes fall randomly on someone then.
She's coming from the door and she immediately attracts your attention from the way she moves.
Long strong legs support her body and your eyes lift to stare at her face.
It's the most amazing thing you've ever seen.
She's wonderful.
Her face is pale, light, marble, you also seem to notice that she has freckles but you can't tell because she's too far from you right now. Her eyes, however, regardless of the meters, are as blue as the sky and seem to tell a thousand stories. Everything is beautiful about her, you know it as she gets closer. She has golden hair, collected in two long and straight pigtails. You look at her mouth: her lips are sealed in a somehow unnatural way, as if she's afraid to speak.
When you look better, you realize she is watching Cassandra with a scared look, as if she wants to ask if she can get in. Cassandra hasn't noticed her yet: she's reading and fixing some paperwork on her desk and you're confused, you wonder why the girl doesn't just call the woman or try to get her attention, with a whistle or something.
Eventually, the coach lifts her eyes from the paper and looks up to her while showing you her shoulders. She's now looking at the girl who seems to be afraid of her gaze.
Inevitably, she reminds you a bit of yourself.
It makes you think of the frightened look that must bloom on your face when you're in the halls of McKinley, they're going to hurt you and you know that's going to happen when you don't even expect it.
It's like this mysterious and beautiful girl shares her fears with you.
Maybe you're wrong.
Maybe it's just your need to find someone like you that makes you think things like this.
Cassandra nods to the girl and she enters the room, looking down. You wonder why no one is speaking all of a sudden. You feel like you're suddenly in a strange parallel reality and this silence is starting to become disturbing.
Silence is frightening.
You know a different kind of silence - while you think, the girl walks near you, ranking ahead of you and placing his bag on the floor - and it's one you live with everyday. You've started to be afraid to denounce what you're going through when you've anonymously been threatened to death and now your silence is probably going to be your death itself.
You really hope that this classroom won't remain silent for long.
You don't want to face the same things you're trying to escape from everyday here too.
She's in front of you now, and you're distracted and you want to think about something else.
You try to think about her as innocently as possible - because it's hard, when you've recently discovered that you love girls, not to think about them this way, as if you want to recover the years you've lost staring at the boys and identify them as preys.
You want to focus on her because her entry has made you curious.
You haven't figured it out yet, but there must be something that you're missing because the pieces don't fit the puzzle. Then you stare at her simply, while she's sitting on the wood stairs and taking off her sweatshirt, revealing a perfect abdomen left exposed by a black band that only covers her breasts. She wears dark shorts and you think it's a bit strange to wear leg warmers when it's so hot in this room, really, but it's just another oddity, then maybe you should just pass on it.
"Okay, ready?" Cassandra claps her hands in the middle of the room and you're still watching, while you see her pulling a pair of comfortable and bright yellow shoes, so bright that it hurts your eyes.
You wonder if anyone else would ever wear shoes like that.
Mrs. July is waving you to position yourself in the middle of the room and you're just going to move when something happens.
You're just resting on the wooden bar with your elbow and the blonde girl gets up and casually looks at you.
Your eyes meet hers, fixed on you, and you immediately shiver. You swallow, but you have no idea why you're doing this.
All you know is that she is watching you and you're a little out of breath.
It's very hard to resist her beauty.
You watch as she gets up then, as she moves following Cassandra's directions. While she walks towards the center, she is still a little turned towards you, as if she's not able to explain your presence into her mind.
You can't even explain it to yourself: this is a fucking hot ballroom, not Heaven.
You shake your head: you don't even know why you're thinking such a thing.
All you know is that your legs are moving and you are dropping an arm off of the bar. You follow her movements and positions behind her with the hope you might get some better visual.
Your plan fails.
"Lopez …" The July snaps her fingers, attracting your attention and you raise your eyebrows, not knowing what you've done wrong (since they have written in the bathrooms that you're a total failure, you always think you did something wrong). "Come on, have a little sense of logic: if you get behind Brittany I will never see you and you won't see me either."
Your mind has a blackout for a few seconds.
You don't even know what she's saying; the only thing you can think of is that the beautiful girl in front of you is called Brittany. She must have attended these lessons for a while because Cassandra has called her by name.
If you think about it, Brittany is a name that fits her like a glove fits a hand.
Brittany, however, doesn't move toward you at these words. And as if she hasn't even heard, so she's stretching her muscles, completely indifferent to the situation.
When Cassandra snaps her fingers, to get you back on this planet, you see that she's giving strange signals to Brittany. You have no idea what this means but you just stare at the scene.
After the nod, she turns to you, looking over her shoulder, with her blue eyes, curious but also a bit intimidated. You just can't understand why you scare her so much, why is she look at you like this: you're one of those people who live in fear every day and must undergo psychological and sometimes physical violence such as being thrown against the lockers.
There's not much to fear in you.
Actually, you fear a lot of things and people instead.
You try to smile, to look a little encouraging.
You take a few steps forward, following the orders of this dance teacher who seems to be the perfect reincarnation of any representation on the harpies. You step beside the girl, and when you do, she retreats to take the place you were standing on a moment before.
It's a fast exchange and leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth.
You have wished it lasted longer for some reasons, maybe because you can't look at her now. She's behind you and you find yourself face to face with Cassandra July.
God, this lesson is going to be unbearable against all odds, you're sure.
You can pretty much guess it from the way she's looking at you.
She looks like she's ready to judge every single person in the room and you already know that you will be once again on the list.
Before you understood the truth about your sexuality, you were such a self-confident girl ... What happened to you?
When Cassandra turns around and shows you her shoulders, you take a breath and begin to parrot her movements.
/
The lesson was traumatic, but you admit that you had expected worse from it. It's been bad, but you aren't as destroyed as you thought.
You run fingers over your forehead as soon as Cassandra claps her hands. Before she did it, you knew that maybe you couldn't. The arrogant look on her face makes you think that you can't even move without her permission.
The back of your hand immediately collects the sweat and jeez, you're going die in this damn room. You'd think that it's an oven from the temperature and you turn your eyes to the ceiling. It hasn't been liberating as you thought, but at least you're distracted for an afternoon and you didn't stay at home thinking about what's wrong with you.
You're already thinking you won't come to the next lesson.
Maybe it was just an occasion and you're not coming back. It's because you know that sooner or later, Cassandra will treat you like those fucking idiots from your high school. It didn't happen today, but it's definitely going to happen next.
You try not to sigh in her face as you move from the row, ignoring the buzz in the background and the girls starting to chat at the end of the lesson. You walk up to the bar, where you've got all your stuff.
When you get up, with the bag firmly resting on your shoulder and a sudden need to go the room that begins to distress you, you just want to escape.
But something happens.
Your body collides with someone else, and there are suddenly two strong hands locking your arms to keep you from falling. You immediately feel these fingers tremble on your skin, so you image that contact has scared the other person too.
However, this awareness doesn't stop your urge to blurt out and you speak while you lift your gaze.
"What the fu-" The words die in your suddenly dry throat while two blue eyes are focused on you.
You feel like passing out.
You're in the arms of this beautiful girl, Brittany, so you've managed to set up shortly before you answered so rudely and vulgarly. Her hands are tight around your arms, fingers wrapped on your skin while she keeps you in balance and your breasts brush with her almost, without ever touching for real.
You feel strange.
You've realized that you like girls and you've already had your good opportunities to put theory into practice. Yet there is something different in the way she's touching you that you aren't able to define.
"Sorry, I-" You try to put yourself back together, but then you realize that she's watching wearing a confused expression of her face. "I didn't want to, really." You try to make it clear but you realize that her eyes are no longer fixed on yours; indeed, she's staring at your mouth.
You feel a shiver go down your spine while stuttering something incoherently and you don't really want these long fingers to loosen the pressure on your arms as they're actually are doing.
"Um ..." You press your lips together, confused by what is going on (you're a little afraid that she's thinking about kissing you in public and you don't want to suffer bullying also in this room, so you mentally pray she doesn't).
Her blue eyes go back to yours and then she smiles at you.
"Don't worry." She simply answers and she lets go of her grip.
Stupidly, you feel like your skin's cold for the lack of contact. Yet you've only touched her for a couple of seconds. It's weird and crazy, but you can't really say you're sorry about what you're feeling.
"Oh, good, because I'm nervous and I don't know if I'm making any sense at all." You mutter.
Your lips are the object of her interest as she looks at them with insistence and then she smiles at you again, returning to your eyes. You have no idea if she's playing some awkward kind of psychological game with you or something.
"It happens." She tells you and she approaches a bit to you. You can feel her breath into your ear while she's talking to you and you don't understand what's this proximity for. "Cassandra knows how to be unbearable at times."
You wonder why she has felt the need to talk to you so closely and after a few seconds, you decide that maybe she is sort of intrigued and attracted to you. Moreover, despite all the shit that has been thrown at you, you're still Santana fucking Lopez and there's no way someone could not be attracted to you only because it's about a girl and not a boy. You should attract anybody. You should stop feeling less attractive than you are.
But it gets so hard at times …
"Well, yes, I've noticed." You roll your eyes a little, trying to show her a smile.
She looks at you, on your mouth again, and you wonder if you have something on your lips because, seriously, even if it she were attracted to you, she wouldn't be so obvious while staring. Would she?
"She's not that bad though." She tells you, looking back at your eyes once again. "Sometimes she can be sweet too; she has been kind to me so many times."
You wonder how long has she been here, but you don't want to ask too many questions and seem like a stalker or something.
"Her voice is unbearable, really." You sigh and look at the ceiling for a moment, annoyed, before returning to her.
The expression on her face surprises you though: the girl has clearly raised her eyebrows, as if she is surprised by something you said.
Eventually, she laughs lightly, but there's something sad and melancholy in her voice that she doesn't manage to hide too well for some reasons.
You don't know why, but this vein of sadness suddenly breaks your heart a little.
"You have no idea what I'd give to hear it, though."
The words crash into your ears in a way that almost makes them bleed.
You feel your chest grow heavily as you begin to put all the pieces back together and you think this can't possible.
You must have definitely got it wrong.
This beautiful girl in front of you can't be deaf, she can't. You must surely have misunderstood.
Probably everything that happened to you in the last few months immediately brings you to suffer and get to uniquely tragic endings. It's one of those cases probably.
Before you can notice, your prolonged silence has already become distressing. The girl, Brittany - as Cassandra said – is now looking at you sadly, she's swallowing.
Shit, you know this fucking face.
She's looking at you because you're already treating her like she's different.
"Sorry." She says in a low voice, coming a little closer to you. Now you understand why she does it, it's because she isn't able to control her voice, because she can't hear it. "I didn't want to bother you with my problems ..."
You're feeling sick.
"No." You answer immediately and Brittany's eyes fly to your mouth as if she's used to always behave like this spontaneously. "No, really, you don't, it's not bothering."
She smiles, but her smile is forced and you don't want her to feel the way you feel because of the others. You don't want to act like a bitch to her as people do to you.
"Is it for Cassie then?" She calls her with that nickname and you feel a little twinge in your stomach. It seems stupid, buy you suddenly want her to call you 'Sanny', 'San' or something like that. Then you realize that she doesn't even know your name. "She's a bit weird and crazy at times, but I've known her since I was a child." She shrugs.
"Um ... yeah." You reply vaguely, paying little attention at her words actually. You're hypnotized by her face, her beauty, her sympathy - because she looks so sunny that she could put you in a good mood. "Name's Santana anyway."
She looks at you more attentively, raising her eyebrows.
It takes you a few seconds but when her gaze rests on your lips, then you realized than names must be harder to perceive than common words.
"San-ta-na." You repeat slowly in syllables, hoping she doesn't take it wrong, that she doesn't feel like she's been treated like a fool.
The smile that blooms on her lips makes you think that fortunately she doesn't.
"Santana?" She asks, in further confirmation and you nod.
You smile back but you're still tense.
"You're Brittany, right?" You ask and she nods. She seems happy about the fact that you've taken notes.
"I've been dancing here for so long." She says with a little shrug and she gets down to pick up the bag and put it on her shoulder. "Since I was a child. I've always loved music."
A lot of questions fill your mind at these words, even if you try not to show it.
Can she dance without hearing the music?
How does she listen to it if she's deaf?
Is she really deaf?
Maybe you've just imagined it all.
Again, you're not very good at hiding your thoughts – well, you've always been a very shameless person - because she realizes what's going through your head.
"I'm missing the last years of hits, but the ones I could hear were beautiful." She smiles and your heart breaks again.
So it was sort of an accident.
"You're not missing anything." You answer, while you feel your heartbeat fasten at the thought. "Music has become so commercial and it sucks, like seriously, everything."
You see her smiling again, she looks like she's always so cheerful.
She seems to be happy with the simple fact that you're talking about it.
"I know it's not," She tells you, placing a hand on the bar and shrugging again, "but thanks for saying it."
The pain in your chest is becoming unbearable. You step nervously from foot to foot while you begin to feel uncomfortable.
"It's true and-"
"Don't do that." Brittany stops you before you can finish the sentence. "I don't like it when people speak to me in a certain way because I can't hear."
Well, now it's a certainty.
Congratulations, Santana Lopez, you've just made her say out loud something like this.
You are a genius of sensitivity, totally.
"Well, it's a bit true though." You try to fix it up a bit however, awkwardly, and stopping for a few seconds to bite your lip. "I really like a few songs lately, good music is so rare."
"I miss Britney Spears a little though." She blurts out, wrinkling her lips and she must be a really strong girl for randomly talking about it like this. "She made me very strong at times, when I was feeling down because my cat wouldn't stop smoking."
You don't know whether she's serious or not, but you surely know she is amazing: you can barely give voice to what's bothering you. But she is quiet and she takes everything with a maturity that leaves you speechless.
"I couldn't lie about that." You tell her then, because you think she deserves the truth. "Britney is wonderful as always."
She laughs and then brings her other hand on her hip.
"I know, sometimes I look at her new videos." She explains, looking away from you as if she's about to say something embarrassing. "You know, my name is Britney Spears too." She tells you and you lift an eyebrow.
Brittany looks down to see if you're about to talk and then you do.
"What?" You ask, insecure, and she smiles at you.
"My name is Brittany Susan Pierce: Brittany S. Pierce."
You can't keep it then.
You're laughing.
You're laughing, Santana, this is real.
It's not one of those dreams in which you're happy and then you wake up upset, hoping that at least some of that joy is real. It's never real, but now you're laughing.
And she's adorable, noisy and fun.
She makes you want to hug her.
"Maybe you'll have the same success she had." You answer, hoping that the laughter doesn't make it too difficult to understand. She must have learned to read lips very well because she seems to understand.
"But then one of us would have to change her name." Brittany notices. "There can't be two stars with the same name."
You laugh spontaneously and you just can't hide the way in which this unknown girl is making you feel good. You can't call it joy, it would be too much, but at least it's a sense of lightness. It's nice, simply because you're smiling. That's already something, isn't it?
If you hadn't come to this room today, you would be definitely in yours, knees to your chest, these fake boobs boys were used to worshiped and now use they bring it on as an excuse to make fun of you because they know you're something that they can no longer have.
Standing in front Brittany, at this moment, you feel like you're in a different world.
The blonde lowers her gaze on the floor for a few seconds and you're wondering what she's thinking. You want to ask her something, but voice stops this attempt.
"Okay, let's get out, c'mon." Cassandra's voice fills the room and you sigh.
You have to say goodbye.
You don't want to do it for some reason.
You turn to her anyway, because you think it's the right thing to do. Immediately Brittany looks at your lips, because she knows you're going to talk.
"Cassandra says we must go on." You tell her, imagining that she didn't ... hear.
Shit, you feel stupid for thinking it.
"I know." Brittany answers, however, and you're smiling, as if you've made a blunder. You blink, trying to guess how she knows, but she is already explaining it to you. "I saw her shadow on the floor; she always lifts her stick when we have to go."
The stick.
You haven't even noticed that Cassandra had a fucking stick and Brittany had seen its shadow.
You wonder if it's true that people who lose a sense develop others. Brittany gives you a bold proof of her attention and how superior it is to yours.
"Oh."
It's your only comment.
She is still smiling, dangling adorably from one foot to the other.
She turns for a moment to look at the door, but you don't follow the movement; you don't want her to think that you stare at everything she does, not in this obsessive way anyway.
"I have to go." She tells you, and her smile turns strangely into a grimace.
"Me too." You reply and fantasize about it being an indirect invitation: you'd like it so much that Brittany said it to you, 'So, where do you live?' or 'Are we walking together?'.
It doesn't happen.
"See you around ... or here." She tells you and gives you a sweet wink.
You melt under her gaze, and you can only smile while you watch her go away.
What the hell, Lopez?
You should stop it.
You shouldn't do this: she's a stranger; she'll think you're a freak.
Yet you want to, so much ...
When you turn toward the door, Brittany is already far away and she's disappearing around the corner. Meanwhile Cassandra is watching you meanly, as if she doesn't understand why you're still in the room.
You sigh and then you begin to collect your things, feeling as if you're going to regret the fact that you haven't insisted on that a little more.
You don't know what's going on with Brittany right now.
You don't know who she's met as she turned into the hallway.
You don't know that you have much more in common with her than meets the eye.