AN: For those of you who've read my HP stuff, this will be business as normal. For those of you who've only read my Artina (and other Glee) stuff—well. "And now for something completely different" sums this up pretty well.
Warning: Brittana, as in Brittany/Santana, and a lesbian relationship.
For Maggie. Hearts to you, bb.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
It is a Monday the first time it happens and Santana cannot remember the month or the day or the hour or even the location (she does know she has her pressed against a brick wall, the grainy stone digging into her fingers as she grips Brittany's shoulders hard enough to bruise, starchy polyester against her palms, fingernails scrabbling at peaches and cream skin). But she knows it is a Monday.
Santana knows she's a little harder to love sometimes, but Brittany's sweet dumb loyalty makes up for the dirty looks in the hallway. Mondays especially make Santana feel more like a person than a machine, a monster. (Because Santana holds no illusions about who she is, how she acts. She is a bitch, a monster, a machine and she thrives on cruelty.)
Santana is dusty desert skin and crow's feather hair and dark dark brown eyes that never smile and a voice like Norah Jones wrapped in leather. (She never sings lead in Glee, because it's Glee and she'll never never admit that she likes it, but her voice isn't bad—husky and lovely and Kurt once called her an 'angrier Corinne Bailey Rae' and Santana rolled her eyes but secretly—she was pleased.)
Brittany is creamy peaches skin and sunshine hair and sky blue eyes and a sweet bird-like voice, not the greatest, but it's good for a Glee club, and innocence so perfect and pure and bright it hurts to look at her.
The first time she kisses Brittany it is a Monday and the anger is burning in the back of her throat, bitter like bile, and she presses her lips hard and fierce and angry against Brittany's and Brittany—makes a sound in the back of her throat—maybe surprise maybe something else, but Santana can't stand it anymore and somewhere on a Monday, pressed up a brick wall, Santana kisses the watermelon candy lips hard enough to bruise.
"Don't say anything about it," she says harshly after she breaks it and Brittany looks at her with wide round blue eyed innocence and tilts her head and why? "I-It'll be our secret," Santana says, smoothing desert sand fingers against cream and peaches skin, fingers tracing over red cherry lips, red red red from Santana's angry kiss.
Sometimes Santana will just look at her.
Just take it all in—porcelain skin and sunshine soul and innocence so pure it hurts sometimes. Sometimes Santana needs the pain—needs the slow burn of shame in the pit of her stomach, or the sharp bite of guilt in her side, or the bitter sting of tears at the corners of her eyes. Sometimes she needs to feel the pain to feel anything at all.
Sometimes Santana will just look at her and sometimes Brittany is too bright and the pain is too much and Santana has to turn her face away before the sunshine streaming out of Brittany's soul blinds her.
Mondays bleed slowly into Wednesdays, which drift to Fridays and then Saturdays and before long, Brittany and Santana are making out almost every day and then doing more almost every day.
And Brittany is different than Puck, or any of the other guys Santana's fucked. (It's not really fucking when they do it, Santana thinks. There is something sweet and innocent about soft gentle Brittany with her dumb loyal love and the sky in her eyes, something about her hair that smells like something fruity and soft and sweet, sweeping around Santana's face and spread out on the pillows. It's not fucking when Brittany is so sweet and soft and trusting.)
"Do I love you?" the blonde girl asks dreamily one lazy Sunday morning. (Brittany's family is at church and Santana feels—dirty, unclean, wrong, heathen—to sneak into their house and steal away their daughter's innocence, piece by piece while they're at church.)
Santana isn't sure what to say to that. She's always had the answers for Brittany before, but now—"I don't know," she says, her words sharp like glass. "And neither do you. You don't fucking know what love is," she snaps, and then rolls over and presses her lips to Brittany's to keep the sharp, sharp words inside. "Just—fuck. Stop thinking. You're no good at it."
"What would I do without you?" Brittany wonders aloud even as Santana's hands press into her. "You're so smart. Where would I be without you?"
Sometimes Santana would like to tell Brittany to run away from her and from this town, but she likes feeling needed.
Likes it when Brittany says things like "where would I be without you" and even though Santana knows Brittany would probably be better off without her, she is selfish. (Santana is the one who needs Brittany, needs the sunshine streaming out of her soul, needs the pain sometimes.)
It is a Monday when Santana leaves for college.
She kisses Brittany one last time and runs desert fingers down cream skin and rolls her eyes when she cries.
"Dumb bitch," she says quietly. "You'll be fine."
Brittany looks at Santana with big blue eyes filled with tears and shakes her head, brow furrowed. "But—what will I do without you?" she asks, and Santana shakes her head.
"You'll be fine," Santana repeats and she kisses her on the cheek, getting in her car and driving away.
She watches her in the rear view mirror for a long time, soaking up all the sunshine she can, until the little blonde girl against the red brick wall is just a bright spot, a glare on the silver and Santana turns her eyes back toward the road.