Chapter 1
"Watch it!" she snapped in frustration. Hints of her high school bitch seeping through the cracks that she had promised to keep closed once they left Lima. "It says fragile for a reason you know!" she'd been at this for at least two hours and couldn't wait to just curl up on the sofa and watch 'Friends' with Brittany. The noise of the New York traffic blared all around her; hazy rain soaked her clothes and hair as it poured down from the grey sky above.
"Sorry." The bulky man grunted as he hauled the brown box in through the door, and up the winding stairs to the third floor. She couldn't help but picture Coach Beiste as she watched the man lift the heavy boxes up the stairs. "Beiste would have been able to carry three of those boxes at a time." She thought to herself.
Santana couldn't believe how quick this day had come. It seemed like only yesterday she was just starting high school and now here she was outside of her apartment building, carrying boxes that could have easily been twice her weight. She slung a duffle bag over her shoulder lazily and carried it up to her new home.
A small ache began to form in her lower back from carrying boxes all afternoon but she smiled at the pain that reminded her of all the times Coach Sue would make them train for hours on end without a break, she hated to say it but she could actually say that she missed it.
The smell of freshly painted walls swamped her senses as she opened the door to piles of boxes stacked high in the living room. "Home sweet home…" she mumbled to herself. The three men that were helping to unload the van left behind her and slammed the door shut, leaving her in a comfortable silence.
She headed straight towards the kitchen area and plugged in the kettle. Her hands shook slightly from being caffeine deprived all day. She hated the cheap coffee hotels served and there was a Starbucks anywhere near their hotel so she'd done without for the past six hours.
She gazed around at her new home. Bare white walls, a single black sofa in the centre of the room, a small coffee table just in front of it and of course, the most important thing in the room, the fifty inch plasma TV that Brittany's parents had bought them as a house warming gift.
She held the steaming cup towards her face revelling in the feel of the heat against her hands and cheeks. The freezing air outside had turned her nose a bright red colour, she was glad she had come in side when she had as she looked out the window to see heavy rain and sleet fall onto passers-by. The apartment was still cold, however, so she walked over to a switch next to the front door and flicked it on, hoping it was the one for the heating. She smiled to herself when the room began to get the slightest bit warmer. "I could get used to this." She said to herself and smiled again.
She pulled out her phone and called the first contact that came up. It rang three times before Brittany answered. "Hi." She heard a voice whisper down the phone.
"Hi, why are you whispering?" she asked.
"I'm in class." She whispered again.
"Oh. Shit sorry, I forgot. Should I hang up?"
"No. Don't, we're taking a break from dancing. What did you want?"
"I was going to ask you if you wanted me to come and meet you in a cab since the weather is getting bad?" she asked slowly, not wanting to get rejected by her best friend.
"What about the apartment? I don't want to pull you away from your duties." She teased.
"Hey! I'll leave all the boxes for you to unpack if you carry on like that." She could hear Brittany giggle down the phone.
"I'm sorry." She was still giggling. "You can come and meet me in half an hour. Wait outside…"
"Brittany Pierce!" a voice interrupted their conversation. She snapped her phone shut to look up at the teacher. "What do you think you are doing?" the teacher pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she glared coldly at Brittany.
She flicked the blonde hair out of her face and slid her phone slowly back into her pocket. "Nothing. Sorry." She stuttered out. It was her first day at college and she was already getting into trouble. She ducked her head to avoid eye contact with her teacher and started to stretch out her muscles in her body. She could hear the quiet droning of the teacher's voice but tried as hard as she could to block that noise out.
She was so glad to be going home to Santana rather than her parents. She had nothing against her parents, really she never, but when it came to just wanting to relax and be herself, her parents weren't the ones she wanted to be around. They were the type of people that would host dinner parties every week and expect you to act like the perfect little daughter, and who thought of themselves as the perfect human beings who walked around silently judging people. To be honest, they were horrible, and come to think of it, they were a lot like Quinn's parents except Brittany's parents didn't wear those silver cross necklaces like Quinn's did - she still didn't understand what they meant - but they were her parents none the less and she loved them.
The bell echoed through the halls of the school bringing her out of her thoughts. She grabbed her things, shoved them into her bag and all but sprinted out of her class, disappearing down the corridor to meet Santana.
Santana sat in a cab just across the road from the building waiting patiently for Brittany to appear. She hadn't wanted to drive her car to pick her up partly because the building was only three blocks away but mainly because she really hadn't got the hang of navigating the streets of New York and didn't want to admit that she was slightly terrified by the whole idea of it.
She pulled out her phone ready to call and see where she was when a body slammed against the window making her lurch forward in her seat, her hands pressed hard to her chest. Her head spun round to see a mess of blond hair, a beaming smile and bright blue eyes peering back at her.
"What the hell are you doing?" she screamed as she leaned over and opened the door for her best friend to get in.
"The cab looked like it needed a hug, with the bad weather and all being so miserable..." She said with a straight face and a serious voice.
Santana grinned widely unable to hold in her happiness around the woman sitting next to her. She gave Brittany a smile that she only ever wore around the taller blonde.
"How's the apartment coming along?" Brittany asked excitement laced her words at the thought of their home.
"Piled with boxes, I unpacked a few of them and moved your boxes into your room." Brittany began to bounce up and down in her seat. "It looks pretty good so far. I can help you unpack your things if you like?"
"This is our place San! I'm so happy to be away from Lima. Seriously, that place was a dump. I'm glad we don't have to go back." Brittany threw her arms around her neck and giggled quietly. Santana tightened her grip around the blonde's waist, totally oblivious of her actions. Happiness radiated off the blonde and into Santana who immediately relaxed into the strong arms around her.
They sat like that for god knows how long before the cab driver coughed loudly braking the two apart.
"Twenty bucks love." He arched his eyebrow at Santana as she pulled out the money and passed it to him.
Brittany grabbed her hand, heaved her out of the cab and ran up the stairs, Santana in tow, the pair giggled all the way up. She burst into their apartment and nearly screamed the place down. "This. Is. Amazing!"
"You've seen it all before Britt…" Santana said in between laughs.
"I know… but this time it's ours!" she ran around in between the towers of boxes like a toddler, giggling and skipping.
"Coffee?" Santana shouted from the kitchen. Before she could even turn round to face the living room, Brittany was by her side bouncing on the balls of her feet.
"Yes please!" she stretched her arms out in front of her, opening and closing her hands over and over. "Gimmie!"
"Why are you so hyper?" Santana's brows furrowed in confusion at the sight, she'd seen Brittany hyper before, hell, that's the only emotion the girl seemed to feel but for some reason Santana questioned her today.
"I have no idea! It's weird! I've been so tired all day but then when you called me I just went crazy!" she jumped up onto the counter and drank her coffee slowly and began to fill Santana in on how her day had gone. The brunette smiled inwardly at the thought of making the blonde feel so happy.
Brittany had just started her first semester at NYU on the schools dance program and so far she was enjoying every bit of it. It was tough competition considering they only accept around thirty freshmen each year but she was an unbelievably good dancer and she knew it. She loved to dance, she felt free and when she danced she could be in her own little world. Her parents never really understood why but they knew it made her happy and that's all they really wanted for their daughter.
The piles of boxes had slowly disappeared as they unpacked their things. Santana's back was throbbing with pain and Brittany had passed out on the sofa half an hour ago from the fall from the caffeine she had downed. Santana couldn't help but smile at how peaceful she looked, her lips twitched into a smile every so often and she would mumble incoherent words followed by her arm waving around randomly.
She staggered into her room to get changed into shorts and a t-shirt before she collapsed face down into her covers on her bed and let out a long groan. It had been a long day and it was beginning to show. All of her muscles ached, her brain pounded against the walls of her skull and her feet were numb.
There was a sudden knock on her door. She craned her neck to peek over her shoulder. "Someone's tired." Brittany giggled at the body collapsed on the bed. She'd pulled her hair out of her high pony tail and had let her long blonde hair cascade over her shoulders.
"Yeah… it's been a long day." She pressed her head onto her pillow.
"I know." Brittany sighed as she sat at the head of the bed next to where Santana had her arms sprawled out. She began to slowly rake her fingers through the raven hair that flowed down her back.
Santana lifted her head up to rest in her best friends lap as she felt herself slowly falling asleep. "I need to go and find a job tomorrow… we can't live off our parent's money for much longer…" she murmured. Both their parents had offered to pay for their first month in New York, as long as one or both of them started bringing in their own money by the end of the month.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"No you have school, it's okay. I'll find one. Do you want me to pick up some groceries while I'm out?"
"It's okay; I'll do it on the way back from school." She stood up and walked towards the door, "I'm going to order a pizza and watch 'friends', you want to join me?" Santana felt her face go cold as the body she had been resting on disappeared.
"Hell yeah!" Santana jumped up from the bed and followed her through to the living room. The sound of rain tapping against the window could be heard from across the way, giving the room a cosy, warm feeling. She stared out of the window, the realisation of where she was and how far away from her family finally sunk in.
She couldn't have been happier. She was one hundred per cent positive she had made the right decision coming to New York with Brittany rather than go to California with her parents after her father had been offered a new job at a hospital in Oakland California. Yes, California had sun, beaches and boys but it didn't have Brittany, and that's what Santana needed more than anything. Her best friend.
"San?" Brittany asked as she placed her hand on Santana's shoulder pulling her out of her thoughts. "Are you listening? What kind of pizza do you want?" she smiled sweetly down at the brunette.
Santana stood frozen at the bolt of electricity she felt surge through her skin at the contact. She stared down at Brittany's hand like it could burn a hole in her arm. "I… I err… jalapeno…" She muttered out trying to act as normal as possible but she could feel the blush creeping up her neck. She spun on her heel and lunged for the sofa, landing flat on her stomach. "Ow…"
"What was that about?" she thought to herself. She had no idea what she had felt when Brittany had touched her arm but she pushed it to the back of her mind for another day. All she knew was that it was new and not entirely unwelcomed.
She switched on the TV that was stuck to the wall; the bright blue glow filled the room and lit up her face and casted shadows along the fabric of the sofa.
Brittany gave her a cautious look before turning towards her phone to call for the pizza. She took in a steady breath, she hoped to hell that Santana hadn't just freaked out about her touching her arm. She'd felt that weird shock as well and could see the look in Santana's face when it happened. Brittany wasn't going to deny that she hadn't liked that feeling because she did, god she liked that feeling a lot but what was it?
The pizza finally arrived; Brittany sprinted towards the sofa with the box above her head and hurled herself forward, and landed on top of Santana who let out a soft grunt as the air was pushed out of her lungs. "Jesus B, calm down!" Santana teased with a beaming smile across her face.
"First meal all day! Can't blame me for getting excited." She said in between bights of her slice. A string of cheese hung off of her chin, she grinned ridiculously wide and arched her eyebrow as she attempted to look down.
"Britt, you look like a spaz." Santana giggled and leant forward to pull it away slowly, their eyes glued to each other's as a thick tension built up in the room. Brittany drowned in the deep brown of Santana's eyes. When she finally pulled away she coughed awkwardly. They'd just shared a look that was far too intimate for either of them to be comfortable with and Santana looked around the room awkwardly.
"Should… should I err put the DVD on?" Santana stuttered out. She didn't wait for an answer, instead the crawled across the floor to where a pile of DVD's had been stacked, and put the first one in.
They'd been curled up in one corner of the sofa for the past three episodes of 'Friends' even though there was another three feet of empty sofa left, they were happy enough where they were. No one was complaining as Santana slowly fell asleep with Brittany's head on her chest drawing lazy circles on her forearm, their limbs were entwined and it would have been near impossible to figure out where one started and the other ended.
Brittany breathed in the smell of strawberries as she shuffled up closer to rest her head against Santana's shoulder, her hair was tied up into a messy bun but she could still smell the shampoo she used. Tingles ran down her spine when Santana unconsciously wrapped her arms around her waist and buried her face into the top of her head.
The shorter girl began to snore softly and Brittany tried hard to stifle her laugh, she bit down hard on the back of her hand to keep the noises locked behind her lips. Santana always denied being a snorer and would get all defensive and red when Brittany or Quinn would bring it up. If only Brittany could be bothered to pull out her phone and record it. She giggled at the thought of having proof to embarrass Santana with.
The Pizza box fell onto the floor but she didn't want to get up and put it in the bin. Instead she chose to stay where she was, warm and happy. But there was one thing bugging her, she couldn't get it out of her head. She tried so hard to push it to the back of her mind but it wanted to stay at the front and torment her.
She wanted to know what that look had meant. She knew for certain it wasn't nothing. And she definitely knew she wouldn't be getting any sleep as long as she didn't have an answer for the questions that were swarming her mind.
She just lay there in silence, listening to the sounds of Santana's breathing and the steady beating of her heart against her ear as she unknowingly fell asleep and let her thoughts turn into dreams.