You're ten, and it's SO hot. Even for Lima, it's hot, so hot that even Santana swears she's getting sunburnt, and she NEVER burns.
You're all on the slope thats not quite a hill behind the park- by all, you mean you, Quinn (who has started riding her bike to your house when she sleeps over, instead of waiting for her mom to drive her over, which your Dad says is a good thing, since Quinns mom can barely drive even when she's sober, let alone drunk), and Brittany (who doesn't need to rely on drawings to talk to everyone anymore, and is sweeter than the lollipops her grandmother brings her from Holland in the holidays) and Santana (who is more like a sour candy than a lollipop, because however nice she is to you and Quinn and espeacially Brittany, she can be super-mean to anyone she doesnt like).
Its late afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and even under the trees its hot. You have your homework with you, and you started out studying...but really, its too hot to study, too hot to move, too hot to do ANYTHING except look up at the sky and daydream about being grown up and being on broadway.
If you close your eyes, you can NEARLY believe that the sun on your face is really the glare of stage lights...
There's a small thud- you gather that Brittany has finally given up studying, like the rest of you and thrown her book down- and she sighs as she stretches out on the grass.
"Finished, already?"
"No..." Her voice is muffled in the grass "Too hot..."
"I know..."
"Tell me something, San..."
Its like a routine or a tradition: you'll all be together somewhere, and in the winding- down time the morning after a sleepover, or the bored silence of a long study-period or a rainy car journey, Brittany will ask Santana to tell her something. Anything.
It varies, depending on whatever Santana feels like talking about at that particular moment; you hear Santana-stories a few times a week, and you like them and everything, but not as much as Brittany, who seems to live off them. They're not always stories- sometimes they're riddles (Hey, B, what disappears the minute you say it's name?"), or bits of gossip ("Did you hear that Puck is saying that Kurt Hummel heard Matt Rutherford say that he thought that Tina is really pretty?"), or sometimes weird trivia ("In Kentucky, its illegal to carry icecream in your back pocket").
It's funny, because Brittany never even tries to solve the riddles, she doesn't really gossip because she says its mean to talk about your friends like that, and you bet she doesn't remember the trivia either.
Maybe its just hearing Santana talk that she likes.
She does like the stories, though (you all do) because Santana knows a bunch of folk stories from her aunt in Peurto Rico, and when she can be botherd, she tells them so that they're interesting and leave you begging to hear the ending- but sometimes she just says its too much effort to think of a story now, and why do you all care, anyway, these stories are for babies.
(Whenever she says this, you have to bite your tongue to stop yourself saying that if she's so grown up all of a sudden, why does she have Sleeping Beauty pajamas? And if you're on the subject, why does she sleep with a stuffed giraffe? But you don't bring that stuff up because it would be mean. And you're pretty sure that only the four of you know about the stuffed giraffe)
"Go on, San-"
"Can't think, Britt. Too hot."
"Pleasepleasseplease?"
"Ok...um..." Pause "Seriously, I can't think of anything..."
"Anything, San-"
"Um...ok, once upon a time there was a princess. And she lived in a tower because a witch kept her there. She was totally pretty, and, and really fun and everything. And she was really nice to everyone. Even, like bugs and spiders and stuff. So, one day, she heard this guy calling out 'Rapunzel, let down your hair!'..."
Santana sat up and pushed her hair away from her face, concentrating a bit more on the story.
"...and so the princess did. And the prince said now he was going to rescue her and take her away from the witch, because the princess was way too nice to have just the witch as a friend all her life, and she could live with the prince instead. And the princess-"
"The princess said 'no way!' "
Why has Brittany started telling the story? She never interrupts stories...
"The princess said she'd hate to go and live with the stupid prince, and she'd never asked him to save her. She said she'd rather stay in the tower, because she could see the birds and the sky and everything was much prettier so high up, and she liked living there."
"And the prince said 'what about the witch? She's way to mean and weird to like' " Santana's interrupted Bittany now; but Brittany just carries on the story.
"And so the princess explained that the witch was actually her best friend. And she wasn't really a bad witch, she was a good witch. She just faked being a bad witch so people wouldnt bother her. And she'd fly in the tower window, and she and the princess would play games and have sleepovers and that was way more fun than going out into the real world, where you'd find stupid jerks like the prince, who always want to rescue you and climb up your hair. She said she'd rather stay in the tower, and she told the prince to go home. So he jumped out of the window, landed on his horse and went home. And the princess and the witch stayed best friends forever and ever. And they lived happily ever after. The end"
Brittany ends her story, and collapses dramatically back onto the grass as you and Quinn clap and laugh.
She looks over at Santana, who isn't saying anything.
"Did you like the story, San?"
Santana smiles slowly.
"It was the best..." is all she says.
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A/N thanks for my lovely reviews, guys, for all my other stories! A levels are killing my holidays, so my writing is a little slow, but it should perk up soon.
I wanted to give you fluff to make up for my depressing faberry chapter update of Water yesterday :) xx
