Note:

Thanks for the interest and positive feedback so far. Means a lot! I actually wrote the first two chapters in one go so I'll put the second one up now. This deals with the events of the first episode- Mostly just the stuff that effects Santana.

Also, there won't be much mushy stuff between Britt and Santana yet, considering Santana's words in episode 4 where she asks Britt if they can talk about that thing they never talk about. So this is still Santana negotiating who exactly she wants to be.

Enjoy :)

Oh and I forgot to mention- Spoilers! Haha.

Ch 2: Political Protest

Brittany was waiting for Santana at the foot of McKinley's entrance stairs the next morning. Her hands were cupped around her red and white pom-poms, squeezing them so they wouldn't shift and shimmy when she walked.

"Hi," she chimed when she spotted Santana crossing the car park. She waved a pom-pom.

"Hey," Santana couldn't help grinning. She stepped up to Brittany and was about to reach for a hug when she caught the familiar waddling walk of Becky- her Cheerio co-captain. She chose not to stand too close to them, positioning herself several stairs above.

"Coach told me to tell you that you have to remember what you promised to do before the last Cheerios meeting. She told me she will end you if you don't comply."

Santana stared at her, her lips shrivelling in disgust as Becky turned and trotted away.

"Okay, so I know that it's bad to hate on mentally disabled kids but that little she-Shrek really, really is asking for it."

"What did you promise Coach you'd do?" Brittany was puzzled. "Aren't the monkeys coming today?"

"No they're not Britt," Santana said gently.

"Okay so what did you promise?"

"That I'd sabotage the glee club," Santana tried to sound casual so Britt would assume it was nothing big. "Burn a piano or something when we see one."

"The purple pianos that Mr Shue told us to use to recruit new people?" Brittany was frowning and teasing the strands of her pom-pom apart.

"Yeah. It's the same old story, crush the Glee club etcetera."

"But I thought seeing as we like glee club now we weren't going to do that anymore," Brittany's voice was deadpan like it always was when she was confused. Santana sighed and stepped closer, laying a hand gently over the one Brittany was using to fiddle with her pom-pom.

"Look, I still have a rep to protect." She lowered her voice. "Ever since that debacle with the Muckraker last year people are a lot more onto what is going on. And I just..." A sudden tightness in her throat made her pause. She was not going to cry.

"...I just want my last year to be good. You know? I just want to stay on top while I still can. My whole life after this is gonna be complicated and I just want this one year..." Brittany cut her off.

"I know, you told me that last year. And I know you don't want to join the golf team or cut your hair and join an alternative rock band like that group of lesbians called The Spill Canvas. But what does that have to do with what Coach Sylvester wants you to do?"

"Being the...co-captain," she said begrudgingly, "is my ticket to a breezy last year. If I want to stay at the top I have to do what Coach asks. And if that means setting fire to a stupid purple piano then fine. Besides we already did it to the first piano anyway and no one really cared. Minus the fact that I can still taste the pasta that they threw in the back of my throat."

"Wait..." Brittany was frowning again. The way it rumpled up the edges of her nose and turned her lips into a bow made Santana want to kiss her. "So, you guys planned that food fight?"

"Pretty much. Though no one took much notice of my commands to avoid hitting you and I." Brittany rolled her eyes around and Santana noticed her tongue fold into one of her cheeks- it was her thinking face.

"Do I have help do it too?" She asked after a pause.

Santana knew Brittany had half as much to lose as she did. Everyone knew she liked it both ways. She'd made her way through almost every one of the guys at the school as well as kissed a number of the girls. She was free because she didn't care. And Santana only could be free because she did care.

"No, Britt. You don't have to do it if you don't want."

"Good, because purple is my 4th favourite colour and pianos are my 2nd favourite instrument."

/

They had their first class together- history with Mrs Clearwater whose favourite subject was Nazis. Today when Santana and Brittany arrived early the teacher's seat was still empty and the board was clean. Only half the class had dawdled in, including Puck and Finn who sat together in the back row. Santana led Brittany to the two seats in the isle across from them and sat down.

"Hey Santana, hey Brittany," Finn smiled his baby fart smile at them. "How was your break?"

"Joyfully free of the sight of your face so I'm going for it was good thanks." Santana smiled sweetly. Puck snorted.

"Hey Britt, wanna see something cool?" He was swinging on his chair with a smirk on his face.

"Always," Brittany said brightly, darting off her chair and swinging her long legs around to perch on Puck's desk. Pucks hands were in his lap.

"You've gotta lean over." Finn glanced over and down at Pucks lap and Santana saw his face wrinkle in disgust.

"Aw jesus Puck put it away. That's so sick." Brittany had also pulled back, wrinkling her nose. She slid off his desk, the flaps of her Cheerios skirt flipping up briefly.

"That was gross."

"What was it?" Santana asked, her eyes narrowed at Brittany. "What did he show you and will I have to cut it off and feed it to the rabid dog that my cousin owns?"

"I got a piercing," Puck winked. "Figured I couldn't show it to you in case you told your boyfriend and it pissed him off."

"Santana doesn't have a boyfriend," Brittany said, flicking her eyes to Santana. "Do you?" Santana shook her head, wondering if there was worry in the look Brittany shot her.

"So you and Karofsky..." Finn questioned.

"Oh, him," Santana caught on. "He transferred."

"Ah, that's good. I mean, no offense Santana but that guy was a tool," Finn said.

"A total tool," Puck agreed, zipping up his pants. "You should know you can do better than him. I mean, you dated me!"

"Yes and as thrilling as that was, from the state of what I'm guessing is in your pants, I'm glad it's over."

"Santana," Finn was leaning toward her with all that overzealous earnestness that had always given her the urge to punch him in the eye. "I hope this year you make better choices about who you want to be with. You know, you've got to really be with someone who cares about you. I mean, it took me awhile to figure that out but being back with Rachel has made me..."

"Okay I'm going to stop you right there," Santana interrupted, her face flushing. "You obviously have taken one too many of those pills you must have to take to be with Rachel in the first place to have the audacity to suggest that I should want to model my next relationship after you two."

She crossed her arms, flicked her ponytail jauntily over one shoulder and tried not to pick apart the meaning in Finn's words. Her eyes bored into the blank whiteboard as her desk softly rocked back and forth from the excessive erasing Brittany was doing over her Lord Tubbington doodle.

Mrs Clearwater appeared 20 minutes late with a large box full of copies of Hitler's 'Mein Kumpf'. "For those of you who want to read Hilter's manifesto, I've managed to secure the limited release 3rd edition copies from a guy I know who knows a guy who knows a guy working in the official Nazi library in Hawaii."

"Hawaii?" Santana mouthed, shaking her head. This woman could almost give Quinn a run for her crazy coins. Several of the students trickled up to the front of the room towards the box, including Brittany. Santana's eyes magneted to the smooth backs of her thighs as her cheer skirt swung back and forth across them.

In her pocket her phone buzzed, wrenching her thoughts away from soft lines of skin that ran up the inside of those thighs, and Brittany, laying in the dark in front of her, her breathing ragged and muffled by a pillow as Santana swept her tongue along them. She pulled her phone out as Brittany sat back beside her, already frowning at the first page of the book. The text message was from Kurt.

Group text alert guys and gals! Blaine is joining New Directions! Meet in the courtyard by the stairs lunch 2 watch him perform a curtain raiser! Merc, Rach, can you help me bring one of those purple pianos there so we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone?

Santana shot a look over at Puck and Finn who both had their eyes on their phone screens.

"Sweet deal!" Puck exclaimed. "I'd rather have Blaine than that girl who sounded like pack of menopausal cats."

"Sugar?" Britt piped up, her phone also in her hands. "I thought she was great!"

"You think everything's great," Puck pointed out.

"I don't think your piercing is great," Brittany said, returning back to 'Mein Kampf'.

"Britt..." Finn paused. "You're not going to really read that are you?"

"Huh?" Brittany looked up. "Oh, no. I'm just going to look at the pictures." Finn snorted but quickly turned away when he caught Santana's glare.

"Jeez Santana you look like you want to set me on fire," He muttered, holding up his hands in surrender. Santana was about to snap back at him when a thought struck her. Well, it was more the echo of Coach Sylvester's instructions the afternoon before.

I want you to track down those pianos, take care of them, and make it look like an accident.

As if to banish the words, she shook her head. It was one thing to burn the piano, but it was another thing entirely to ruin Blaine's introduction to his new school. It would be bullying, Santana reasoned. Not normal bullying, which she supported totally. Anti-gay bullying. As much as Santana could care less about Mr Bow-Tie's feelings, she couldn't shake the wrongness of it. She couldn't shake the fact that it could be her so easily if she let it. If she stepped up and told the truth she'd be in just the same boat as Kurt and Blaine. But then Coach Sylvester's other words came to her, the ones that had been spoken more softly, with Coach's pale eyes reading Santana's face like a barcode.

Santana, you like playing both sides. Isn't that right? What team are you playing for this year? Losers or the winners?

Team Sue. Santana mouthed her own words back to the echo. Still feeling the threat all the implications, the double meanings of the questions that Santana wasn't quite sure she had imagined. The team she was playing for meant Glee Club or Cheerios, didn't it? That's what Brittany had meant when she'd said it last year. It was Santana who had read extra meanings into those words. Well, Santana and the entire student body.

When the bell rang for second period, Santana had made up her mind. As she and Brittany walked to their next class she flicked open her phone and typed a message, entering the group of contacts labelled Cheerios into the recipient box. She was careful to remove Brittany's number from the ones listed before she hit send.

Political piano protest no.2 lunch today. Bring kerosene. Be prepared 2 backup dance 1st though.

/

It struck her as funny during her walk away from the choir room that afternoon that Mr Shue's words could echo just as loudly with implied meanings as Coach Sylvester's had.

Don't come back till you can be as loyal to this club as the rest of these people in this room.

Don't come back until you choose who you want to be. Choose who you are like everyone else can. And stick with it.

It was too much for her to handle, and she'd said so. Yet the straight backed poise that she'd retained during the walk across the choir room and out of the door had dissolved as soon as she found herself alone in that hallway. She physically sank- her shoulders slumped forwards and her steps faltered. Tears, unbidden, wormed their way to the corners of her eyes. She didn't even go to her locker, she just fished out her car keys from the pocket of her skirt and drove straight home.

She took a shower and put on a tank top and undies before crawling in bed. Her Mom was working the late shift tonight at the clinic and she remembered her Dad talking about some black tie fundraiser thing for his practice so the house was looming and silent. She'd been too worn-out to dry herself properly and her clothes and sheets stuck to her shoulders and lower back uncomfortably. She huffed a sigh and stared up into the ceiling of her bedroom, her eyes focused on the gold of her light bulb for so long that when she looked away blobs of light followed her eyes around the room.

It was messy. That morning she'd only bothered to make her bed. Her dresser was littered with makeup and jewellery tangled together and half empty bottles of alcohol. Her iPod was somewhere amongst the mess too, and she almost got up to find it but she felt glued to the bed. She swam deeper into her sheets, pulling them up over her head to block out the light she was too lazy to switch off. She begged sleep to come.

When she heard her door creak she ignored it, thinking it was just her Mom home early and checking on her, though she hadn't noticed the sound of the car's engine in the drive. Santana lay still, hoping her Mom would realise she was sleeping and turn the light off for her.

It worked.

Santana heard the light click off and instantly the glow that had been ebbing through her sheet was gone. She heard the door click closed and smiled to herself.

But it faltered when she heard soft padding of footsteps coming across the carpet towards her. Santana sat up, tore the sheet off her face and blinked into the darkness.

"Hey." Brittany's voice was soft, edged with uncertainty. Santana felt the mattress sink as it took her weight. She tried to focus on Brittany's features through the dark but her face was in shadow. She blinked to adjust her eyes.

"Hey you." She reached out for Brittany's hand and felt it curl warmly around her own.

"You okay?"

"Mmm uhuh. Just tired."

"I know, you were sleeping. Sorry for waking you up." Santana could see Brittany's eyes, liquid sparks in the gloom.

"It's okay."

"Can I lie down?" Santana saw her point to the bed.

"Uhuh. Yeah."

The bed shifted again as Brittany moved under the sheets. She shuffled over until her body was flush against Santana's.

"I'm sorry Mr Shue made you leave glee club."

It wasn't as hard to hear as Santana had thought it would be. The crying she'd done lasted as far as the double doors out into the car park. Now she just felt oddly hollow about it all. Was it resignation? Santana didn't think she'd been resigned to anything in her life. She'd always fought for what she wanted. Hadn't she? But what had today been? What had she been fighting for?

She realised Brittany was still waiting for a response so she shrugged, and twisted onto her side, looking at Brittany's dark outline beside her.

"I sort've deserved it." She said quietly.

"You were just doing what Coach told you to. I've done that too."

"Yeah but we're a lot more grown up now. It was lame of me."

"So you're not going to do it again?" Brittany settled further down in the bed. Her thigh brushed against Santana's. The contact made Santana shiver.

"All three pianos are pretty much ruined. Sue got what she wanted."

"Are you going to come back to the glee club?" Santana looked up at Brittany in the dark, her eyes searching her expression.

"Do you want me to?" Her voice was soft and the question came out all wrong. Like she was scared to ask it. Brittany curved her arms around Santana's waist and she felt her head move in a nod against the pillow.

"Of course, silly." Her breath skittered across Santana's face, smelling once again of Dots. "I left a picture in your locker after glee club."

"Did you draw it for me?"

She turned her face up to Brittany's, feeling all the places where Brittany's body touched her own burn.

She only let Britt get out half her answer ("Ye-") before she reached and curled her hand up through the base of Brittany's hair, pulling her lips hard against her own.

They both inhaled sharply through their noses as their lips met- Brittany out of surprise and Santana out of the sheer hot beauty of feeling Brittany's open mouth under her own. Their bodies came together and Santana rolled on top of Brittany, pinning her hips straight with her knees. She kissed Brittany desperately, only half aware of Britt's hands catching around her shoulders and of her shifting hips as she arched her back to Santana's touch. Santana bit Britt's bottom lip, sliding her hand up the long plane of her outer thigh. Santana shivered. This is what she'd wanted to do all day. Every swish of Brittany's Cheerios skirt had brought with it the memories of the countless times she'd done just this.

"Take off your uniform," Santana murmured into Brittany's lips, moving off her. Brittany always did what she was told when Santana was this dark-eyed and solemn. Santana lay on the bed, feeling her heartbeat rise up behind her ears and down to beat between her legs simultaneously. She watched as Brittany stood up and wiggled her arm up around her back, dragging the zip of her uniform down.

Her skin stood out in the dark- milky white. When she came back to the bed in her bra and underwear Santana already felt as though she'd taken far too long. Her hands flew to Brittany's breasts, kneading her nipples through the lace of her bra. They were already hard but she whisked her tongue over them both for good measure- still over the lace. She felt Britt's body arch to her again and she heard her sharp intake of breath at the sensation. Santana rose back to Brittany's face and kissed her breath away once again.

"San..." Brittany pulled her lips away from Santana's and scrambled over her name as Santana slipped her hand underneath the cotton of her underwear and stroked the wet folds. They were soft, smooth. She shivered against Brittany and felt her insides all melt together.

"Oh god..." Santana kissed her again, wrapped one arm underneath Brittany's shoulders and dipped the fingers of her other hand between the folds. Brittany stilled against Santana, and shifted her legs further apart. That was too much, far too much for Santana. This was Brittany at her worst- when she was like this it didn't matter how hard Santana tried- the rushing and ripping and controlling couldn't chase away all the meaning behind what they were doing.

I'm angry because I have all these feelings. Feelings for you. That I'm afraid of dealing with, because I'm afraid of dealing with the consequences.

Her mouth was at Brittany's throat, her collar bone, her shoulder, her neck, her lips. Santana kissed and bit and felt every shudder of Britt's breath as though it were surging through her own lungs.

I just want you.

She slipped her fingers inside Brittany and curled them upwards. The feel of the slippery, warm length of her blinded Santana for a moment. Below her, Brittany shuddered, her hands tight around Santana's shoulders, digging her finger nails in. Through her ragged breathing Santana heard Brittany whisper her name, hug her closer and lean her head back, closing her eyes to the pleasure. Brittany knew what Santana wanted from her, what she needed. She rose her hips and Santana felt herself heave in arousal. She moved her fingers inside Brittany, swiping her thumb back and forth across Brittany's clit until her wrist was cramping and she felt Brittany still finally, her insides taunt around Santana's fingers. She felt Brittany's muscles give, watched the planes of her stomach and face twitch as the pleasure washed over her. When Britt had stopped rocking against Santana's fingers she pulled them out and slunk back up the bed, closer to Brittany's face. Her eyes were open now, searching for Santana's. She tipped her head and kissed her softly, gratefully.

"Thank you," she whispered. Santana was out of breath, her muscles loose from exertion.

From above Brittany's face she shook her head tiredly and whispered back.

"No. No, Britt. Thank you."