[I own nothing. :( ]
Brittany hurts Santana, but she can't quit her best friend.
Just seeing Brittany hurts, makes her feel angry, alone, and frightened. Being together hurts too, but Santana can't quit like it's heroin. Lying sweaty and panting on the floor, she's aware of the regressions taking place; the way that all the words and tears are ignored so both bodies there tangled together in her room can fall back into that familiar habit, their comfortable trap.
Santana's afraid she's screwed Brittany, screwed with her mind permanently. It came to her in the unending thinking of the night, that the rejection and the pain is her own fault. Does Brittany actually think where they are doesn't involve feelings, has Santana messed with Brittany's thought-process in her own feeble attempts at hiding from herself? Is it some kind of weird joke by a cruel God that Santana's alone more often than not these days?
It can't be about feelings, what they still do. It can't be. If it is it's hurting both of them like a repeated blow to the head. Santana takes some perversely sick delight in it all to remain in character. Maybe Brittany feels a tad fucked up about it all too; is sleepless at night, afraid of being alone. Perhaps she also spends her days pissed off at her best friend for making her talk. Talk about stupid feelings and then shutting her down. She gets she shouldn't be vengeful, especially not towards Brittany, but she's Santana. It proved her point anyways; feelings suck and make you feel like shit. Even if it's your best friend and theoretically is the one person who would never hurt you (She's aware of the irony post-Melissa Etheridge like another unwelcome revelation in the stars).
The worst part is she can't go back in time and her brain isn't willing to regress the way her body so ignorantly has. The feelings are still there; they were still acknowledged and made real, given form and life. The sleepless nights are broken with restless dreams, filled with replays of school hallways and teary admissions and so much hurt. She doesn't know how there's tears left in her, tears she wished she had no use for, and it all hurts despite her constant wishing for freedom. There are no shooting stars, but she wishes the pain would go away.
It's there every time she lies in bed at night imagining the smell of Brittany's perfume next to her, on her pillows and on her skin. It's there when she wants to burst into tears and hurt them both so much when she sees Brittany pushing her pet cripple down the hallway at school. It's there when she kisses someone else, tries to form a serious connection, a real connection, but can only see blonde hair and a clueless smile behind her closed eyelids. It's especially there when she's got Brittany sprawled on her bed and Santana's biting her lip until she tastes blood, her hands roaming and being far from gentle.
This hurts for her, but it's her drug, her heroin. It hurts her and she makes sure it hurts back because Brittany needs to know. Even if she never understands all of the lies and the fear and the insecurities of this love, Santana needs Brittany to understand hurt. Sprawled together like they've taken a ride in a time machine, it hurts. Being together like this hurts her, but being apart is a hurt Santana can't handle.
Every so often Brittany gets a look on her face. It's something Santana's not sure she's ever seen from the blonde before. Whatever it is, it looks like hurt but there's coherence to it that Santana finds unsettling, like Brittany actually has everything figured out the same way Santana does, but doesn't know how to use the information. Santana sees this look in Glee, the hallways, even their best attempts at actually making lady babies while they lay in an afterglow. It shows up everywhere now, even when Santana is slushied by that douche bag Karofsky. As her world turns red in fury and she loses control of her body, she sees that look on Brittany's face. The rest of school, the rest of Glee, doesn't seem to notice the look, but Santana sees it constantly. She'd swear it was pining if she knew her best friend at all, but that focus and the way it shoots from Brittany's eyes throws her off, and Santana's sure some of that is what she wishes she saw. Despite everything, Brittany's still with the short bus and no matter how their fucked up relationship seems to be directed, progression is a slow, fickle bitch.
No matter what she does, she can't get rid of the feelings and the thoughts. It seems like everything she does reinforces some twisted fact that Brittany is the only person, boy or girl, who Santana can even stand to be around for more than ten minutes without punching something. Except now Brittany makes her want to punch things too. She's alone and her bestie is off making the worst snow angels ever with some boy. Chicks before dicks was their cardinal rule, no matter what boy came, it wouldn't be between them. Boys were just boys, they were there, but Brittany and Santana was supposed to be what was important; the two of them first, and the rest of the world second. Santana's so sick and tired of always being second place, even with her best friend; but she's still around because if she's not Brittany's second, she's nothing to no one and that's scarier.
One of her new favorite pastimes is coming up with interesting ways to break up Brittany and Artie in their disgusting relationship. Often times they involve unfortunate accidents to the hospital for a certain wheelchair-bound freak, but some of them are sane comparatively. She knows they'd work, she's like the best evil genius Ohio's ever going to come across (Except possibly LeBron), but execution of the plans are a different game. Wheels' feelings are irrelevant, actually the more he hurts the better, but she can't do it to Brittany. It's not about a relationship being built on lies because that's the story of Santana's short and jaded life. She can't be Brittany's second choice forever; it would piss Santana off her entire life and probably end up dooming any future she could envision for them. Sure, she could steal the girl and be awesome at it, but she figures she can't steal a future. Brittany needs to choose by herself, without Santana's meddling hand, even if it's all the girl wants to do and she knows it would be too easy.
Maybe they'll be a one-shot again, eventually. Until then, it's all an addiction to her, her heroin. It's killing her but she can't stop and she's gotten past a point of no return, where she needs this. It's fucked up, so, so fucked up for both girls. But Santana has always convinced herself of control and now is no different. She's conscious of the slow death and she's accepted it, convinced herself that this is her breathing. She's killing herself in Brittany because the alternative is infinitely more frightening.
It's worse than heroin. At least heroin use comes with outward signs, physical signs that can call out for help and intervention or attention of any kind. The only scars this forms are on Santana's heart. Every moan, scream and contortion like a dagger in her spine at the same time as it sends lightning to her brain and turns her legs to jelly. She's forced to go through the day like the boy in the wheelchair who she hates more than anything, crippled and dreaming of a time where it didn't hurt so much and she was free. She can't tell if that dream is in the past or the future.
Does this hurt Brittany? Does she feel guilty towards Wheels, cheating on him? Perhaps towards Santana, so pissed off but still too afraid of being alone to draw the line in the sand? The blond gets everything despite the most destructive tendencies of her best friend; Brittany's always been safe from and because of Santana. Even now Santana can't hurt her when it's all she thinks she should be doing. She can only play rougher during their time together behind closed doors. The sex accurately reflects the progression of their relationship; it's rougher, more physical and with less emotion from either. It's almost sadistic, if either girl was seriously into that kind of kink. Tasting blood in their lady kisses isn't rare, and Santana consciously had to stop adding sweet in front of their cutesy nickname because their sleeping together wasn't anything she was able to consider sweet. Once upon a time they were the sweetest, but now all they do is hurt.
At night her mind refuses to shut up, a continual argument raging in her brain. It insists on withholding sleep and playing back memories like a film roll stuck on a loop. Some of the images are hazy and some cut in and out like she's fallen asleep partway through, but they're always of the same story; the story of Brittany and Santana. She can't drink the pain away at seventeen, and smoking herself so stoned that she's unable to think involves phone calls to people she has no interest in seeing, dumbass juvies with bad Mohawks and annoying smirks. So she's forced to relive their life every single night. Just like Brittany the memories hurt, and in the same way she clings to them for dear life, refusing to let everything fade into oblivion.
The first time they kiss they're about nine or ten. It isn't huge or memorable and in time both girls would come to forget it was the first, but it makes that fact no less true. Brittany pecks Santana on the lips for agreeing to play on the latter's new trampoline. There's nothing explosive about it, just one girl happy to waste an afternoon with her best friend. After that, the kisses aren't uncommon as any form of thank you, good job, or et cetera. Often times they're initiated by Brittany, but on more than one occasion Santana is guilty of launching a childish smooch on Brittany (On the cheek in public, the lips in private), before that social awareness of hers would really kick in.
The first time they see each other naked they're thirteen. A Monday preceded by a sleepover at Brittany's leaves the girls running late for school and Brittany, queen of the lack of personal space, spends no time considering the implications of hopping into an already running shower, complete with Santana in current occupation of it. A moment of shock, followed by an explanation about no time to wash separately in that Brittany-ish way of hers, leaves Santana too dumbfounded to say no and to set a boundary in their relationship. It takes time, but Santana eventually gains her coherence and her tongue back, only for the jealousy to overtake the nudity. Brittany's boobs are bigger than her own, perkier and rounder and Santana feels like less, like Brittany is a better person simply because she has something about her nicer (In Santana's thirteen-year-old opinion). She mentions it to Brittany because at this point she hasn't learned how to lie to the blonde and seeing the questioning look in her eyes as water cascades over them makes her spill. Brittany smiles that smile of hers, telling Santana her boobs are nice as well before shooting a pale hand out and cupping the left. Brittany's free hand grabs Santana's, pulling it and placing it on her own breast as she giggles and comments on how different they feel. Santana squeaks and all she can come up with, as her hand rests between her best friend's hand and her breast, is another comment about how Brittany's are bigger than her own. Again, Brittany with her ever shining happiness is quick to grin, giggle, and blow it off telling Santana that she likes hers.
And Santana pecks her on the lips whispering a thank you, before pulling away much slower then every other time, and only by inches. She's acutely aware that she's left her hand on Brittany's chest, and the blonde has done the same and it's the first time in Santana's young life that she feels loved and cared for. Her eyes travel down and back up, from eyes to breasts to lips, back to eyes and back to lips. Before she's even coherent of her actions, Santana's kissing Brittany again under the hot water of the shower and it's like no other kiss she's ever had. Santana's actually sure she's going to die if she lets go, as her tongue seeks entrance into Brittany's mouth for the first time. Neither girl understands what it means right then, but they're late for school that day either way.
The first time they have sex, they're at Brittany's, bailing on a party after taking their share of complimentary booze cruises around some kid's house. They've been making out for some time now, passionate displays for each other in their rooms after school and on weekends, their sweet lady kisses making up their 'BrittBritt and Santana' time. This time, an hour of making out locked in a bathroom at the party has led to being sprawled on Brittany's bed late on a Saturday night. Alcohol's role is not to be undersold as it's Santana who makes the first move; slowly, ever so slowly, removing Brittany's top like the girl is made of porcelain. What progresses is a vodka-induced blur that ends with Santana waking up in Brittany's bed with a massive hangover (Not uncommon by itself), but also nude with blonde hair draped across her shoulder and a soft weight nestled along her back. At this point, they're fourteen and Santana doesn't even panic. She will in only a few short months when this becomes a common thing and she can't pin it to a one-night drunken love-in. This time she smiles, throws a Spanish curse at the light shining through the curtains, and buries her head back in the pillow in search of sleep, feeling that same sensation of love and care in the pit of her stomach that she got back in that shower. It scares her, but for now, she doesn't understand why, it's just a feeling she's never gotten from anyone else and it has no gender role. All the hurt will come, but not now.
Was it an addiction so soon or was it love? She knows she's in love with Brittany, she's come that far and there's no changing that fact because her memory spends its time replaying all their images on a loop. When did her presence become something Santana needed to breathe in more than air? She tries to remember and tries to pinpoint that time when they stopped being friends and fell in love (It still hurts to say it, but less and less to think it) but she can't do it. It's like the entire time she was caught in a web spun with blonde strands built by a spider with no interest in eating her, but rather letting her starve in its eyes. She never saw it coming and now she's in her dying throes, the last struggles to escape already knowingly beyond her. From day one probably, the second they met, Santana was caught in that web even if she was too blind to realize it.
She's not sure what happens when you die, if there's a heaven, infinite nothingness, reincarnation or something entirely incomprehensible. What Santana knows more than anyone is what dying feels like, what seeing a light at the end of the darkest of tunnels truly represents. She's been dying since she had to speak, when she had to admit she was in Brittany's web, and Brittany was in her heart. She tried and she struggled to break free, once she realized she was in, but it's only made it worse. Now, she's accepted her fate and her death, she needs Brittany and the only way to get her is to lie down and accept that outcome the same way they lie together on the floor, naked, sweating, and pretending it all doesn't hurt. She can't have Brittany the way she needs her, but she'll die in her addiction and hope that she can reach the light at the end of the tunnel sooner, rather than later.
She's going to die in Brittany, but after that she hopes they can finally live.