Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, and any credit for characters, places, people and plot events go to their respective owners.
Warning(s): Nothing specific.
Spoilers: During Bartie, pre-Sexy (2x15).
Summary: And though she hates everything that Santana does to her, hates the need, the dependence, the heartbreak, Brittany could never hate Santana. In the end, she loves Santana, and that takes precedence over everything else.
This is number two in my musical-inspiration series, and like the other one, is based over on Tumblr. This one is based on the song I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace. This piece sort of contrasts the idea of the first, vaguely. Anyway, I'm babbling, enjoy. And don't worry, I'll get Mad World chapter 5 done and posted sometime today or tomorrow, I promise.
I Hate Everything About You
"Sex isn't dating."
"It isn't cheating because the plumbing is different."
"I'm not sleeping with you because I'm in love with you."
Brittany Pierce has known Santana Lopez almost her entire lifetime, and they have been best friends for almost as long. In those years, she has come to learn quite a lot about Santana; she knows that she likes her temples rubbed when she gets a headache, she knows that Santana hates being alone, knows that the girl is sometimes about as soft and squishy as a melted marshmellow. But more importantly, Brittany knows all the signs that tell her when Santana's lying to her.
For each time they whisper to each other, each fleeting touch, every loaded look and heated kiss. For every time that they have ever has sex—and she calls it that, because Santana refuses the term "making love"—Santana tells her a lie. They started off small at first, with words like "that will never happen again," and "that didn't mean anything." But slowly, they morphed, when neither one of them could keep their hands away from the other, and sleepovers became a common place, the lies turned into warnings, Santana's fear coming to the surface with things like the "sex isn't dating" rule between them.
And it hurt. Brittany had always been nothing but honest in her love, her affection for Santana, and she knew that Santana was more or less aware of her feelings for the other girl. She knew Santana loved her, had proved it time again in her every day actions, like linking pinkies with her or buying her lunch or just cuddling to Sweet Valley High with her. But it hurt because Santana couldn't be honest with her, continued to deny anything and everything that she felt for her, all because of social expectancies, social standing and her own fears.
Brittany may not have been able to understand why it is Santana would have wanted to hide her feelings, as she did now, but at least if she owned up to having them, they wouldn't have to lie to each other any longer. Because Brittany did tell Santana her own lies, things like "I understand," and "I'm fine." Because she wasn't, not when it all kept piling up, and Santana never once tried to take back something she had said. Brittany knew it wasn't in her nature to apologize or retract a statement, but she thought she would always be Santana's exception, the only exception to that rule. But apparently Santana didn't care about her, or herself, enough to do so.
She is not dumb, maybe Brittany is not the smartest of people and she doesn't get great grades like everyone else, but she gets high enough to be one of the three cheerleaders whose grades let her stay on the team the previous year; though nobody ever seemed to notice that. That being said, she knows that the things that Santana tells her aren't the truth, but rather, the girl's manipulation, her justification that Brittany cares too much about Santana to dispute. She couldn't last without Santana's touch, even if she is dating Artie now.
That is the thing about Santana, she is addictive. Where a simple touch from anyone else would have been something to shrug off, a little graze of Santana's fingers against her arm sent electricity spiraling through her, constricting her heart, and stuttering her breathing for a moment. Santana is her own unique drug, and she hates it, hates what Santana does to her.
For all that she loves Santana, she hates her with an equal fervor. Santana has always held her heart in the palm of her hand, and she knows that, is aware of it every time she squeezes punishingly tight, lashes at her with careless words and cruel remarks. She uses and abuses her, and her heart can barely take it some days. She hates that Santana can hurt her so easily. Brittany likes to be happy, to be as bouncy as she can be, but she just hasn't been feeling it lately, and she can't help but think bitterly of Santana every time that she cries herself to sleep into a lonely pillow.
Her heart has been heavy lately, suffering in silence. She's tried, time and again, to snatch it from Santana's hold, but she's never been brave enough to be anything but dependent on the girl that's systematically attempting to destroy her these past months. She has begun to hate Santana, hate herself, hate Artie, to hate everything because it's just become too hard to pretend that everything is just the way it has always been, that she's alright. Because she isn't.
She knows it isn't normal to feel so broken up about it, that this is what most would just call classic teenage angst, but she can't help but feel that something is wrong with her. Her steps are heavy lately, she isn't eating as much, and her dances are becoming fewer and further between. All she can think about is Santana, and how she's ripped her into pieces.
Artie, too, has noticed the change in her. And although she knows it worries him—she saw him talking to Ms. Pillsbury a few days before—she can't help but be bitter about the fact that he is also a factor in keeping her and Santana apart. Ever since they started going out, since Brittany lashed out against the carefully laid out, unspoken law that neither was to have a serious boyfriend, she had wanted to punish Santana, to open her eyes to how close she was to losing her. It had only driven a wedge deeper between them.
In public, Santana wouldn't even link pinkies with her anymore, would hardly talk to her unless she ran into her, and that wasn't a lot because the girl was also actively avoiding her; she had seen Santana in the hallways, caught glimpses of her as she hurried off in the other direction to avoid her. As much as she had come to love Artie, as much as she reveled in having someone that actually cared for her for once, she did not know if it was worth completely losing Santana over.
So she didn't know why it was that she was considering leaving this message on Santana's phone, her bottom lip pulled anxiously between her teeth as she waited. No matter how much Santana was avoiding her at school, she would never deny Brittany at home, never deny a night of cuddling and TV, no matter what.
And though she hated herself for it, hated Santana for making her so damn dependent, Brittany couldn't handle not seeing her. She would take Santana any way the girl wanted, so long as she could be in her arms, it didn't matter if it would only lead to heartbreak for her, all she wanted in that moment was Santana.
Her fingers were moving before she even knew it. Hi san, cum ovr? swt valle hi and cudles. And she hit send, and that was it.
The reply was almost instant. Be there in 5.
As much as she hated herself, hated Santana, her love for the girl overcame everything else, her need and her dependency only adding fuel to that fire.