Not Only You and Me
CHAPTER TWO
The next day, Santana spends the morning trying not to think about Brittany. Not about Brittany's hair, or her eyes, or her breasts, or her clone or the threesome or any of that. Nope, not thinking about it at all. Then she spends the better part of the afternoon repeating do not booty call Brittany for more sexy lady action, do not, do not, do not. Then around 4:00, she sees a commercial for cat food on the tv and the cat looks a vaguelylike Lord Tubbington (like, they're both cats), so Santana takes that as a sign and reaches for her phone.
"Hey," she says, trying to sound casual. "Whatcha up to? Do you wanna hang out?" She's totally not nervous, not at all, never mind the fact that yesterday was the first time her and Brittany had hooked up since the beginning of summer. They had mostly been focusing on being best friends, and Santana knew that she would have to come out to take the next step with Brittany, and really, she had been trying to ignore that all summer. Brittany acts like nothing's different though, and invites her over.
Santana rings the doorbell, and once again gets no answer. Letting herself into the Pierce residence, she can see why: Lady Gaga is playing loudly, coming from the direction of Brittany's room.
Santana heads up the stairs and pushes the door to Britt's room open, not bothering to knock. Whatever Brittany's doing, she's seen before, she thinks, but then proves herself wrong the second she gets the door fully open.
It's like a repeat of the other day, except there are even more Brittanies. Six, to be exact. At least nobody is naked this time. One of the blonds looks up and notices Santana standing uncertainly in the doorway.
"Oh, hey!" She calls. "I didn't hear you, come on in!"
The music is so loud, Santana can barely hear. She enters the chaotic room slowly, looking around. There's a Brittany over by the closet, twirling around in Britt's Cheerios uniform. Clothes and hats and shoes are strewn all over the floor. Two more Brittanies sit on the bed, one braiding the other's hair. The Brittany who called her into the room – Santana's pretty sure that's the original Brittany, but she wouldn't bet her life on it – is dancing with two more Brittanies, showing them choreography that they are copying easily.
Santana wanders over to the stereo and turns it down, then sits down on the bed, pushing some furry hats out of the way. "Brittany, what happened here?"
"Oh, well." The dancing Brittany stops and looks around, seeming to notice the mess for the first time. "We were having a fashion show! And stuff."
"Yeah, no." Santana shakes her head. "I mean – why are there six of you?"
Brittany looks around the room, lips moving silently, and Santana knows she's counting in her head. She waits.
"Hey, yeah, six!" Brittany grins. "That's a good number."
Santana raises an eyebrow, and Brittany shrugs.
"We had so much fun yesterday with one clone, that I thought it would be even better if there was another!"
"Uh huh," Santana nods skeptically. Sex with Brittany is always great, and their threesome yesterday had been super hot, but Santana doesn't think that even she is enough of a pro to handle six hot ladies and all their lady kisses. Brittany's probably not even thinking of sex, though; for all Santana knows, six girls could be the perfect number to start a lacrosse team. Brittany's brain is a mystery to her sometimes.
"And then one of them, her I think," Brittany continues, pointing to the blond in the Cheerios uniform, "got into the machine and made a bunch more."
The Cheerios Brittany looks up and nods happily. "I got lonely!" She explains. "And now I'm not lonely."
Brittany shrugs. "I only left her for like, a second, to go get some snacks."
Cheerios Brittany comes and sits next to Santana on the bed. "I had a really fun time yesterday," she whispers, linking her pinky with Santana's. Okay, so she's the original clone.
"Uh, me too," Santana says awkwardly, taking her hand back. The clone looks a little hurt.
"Hey Brittany?" Santana asks, and six blonde heads whip around to look at her.
"Okay, that's going to get old really fast," she says, and Brittany nods.
"I know, it's pretty confusing. It's super unfortunate that they're all named Brittany."
Santana has a brilliant idea. She jumps up and goes to Brittany's closet. Pulling out various tops and skirts, she announces, "Come help me, we need to color coordinate them!"
Brittany looks at her blankly.
"Oh, um. We need to...dress them like they're a rainbow?" Santana tries to explain in a way Brittany will understand. "Like, okay." She sorts through some clothes and throws them to the Brittany in the Cheerios uniform. "You are now Pink Brittany," she says.
Ten minutes later, and Santana and Brittany step back to admire their handywork. Santana's never been so glad that Brittany likes to dress in all the colors that exist. There's Pink Brittany, and the Brittanies on the bed are now Purple Brittany and Blue Brittany, and the two who were dancing are now Green Brittany and Red Brittany. Everybody seems pretty content with their new clothes.
"What about me?" Brittany asks.
"You can wear whatever you want," Santana says.
Brittany considers that and nods. "Oh, okay."
Pink Brittany frowns. "Can I put the Cheerios uniform back on? I liked it."
"No!" Santana says.
"What if I dye it pink?"
"Oh, that would be cool," says Brittany, her eyes widening.
"No way, not happening." Santana says firmly. She's about to suggest that they, like, dismantle the cloning machine before they end up with hundreds of Brittanies, when she gets interrupted.
"I'm hungry," Green Brittany says.
"Let's go to the mall!" Calls Red Brittany, and all the Brittanies chime in, yelling their approval.
"NO! No mall, no leaving the house, jesus." Santana presses a hand to her forehead. All these blonds are giving her a headache.
"I'll go make us some food," Brittany says, and heads towards the door.
Santana panics for a second. "Don't leave me!" Brittany looks at her. "Not with them," she hisses, looking around at all the blonds. Santana knows she's supposed to be bad ass, but nothing she's seen in Lima Heights Adjacent could prepare her for this.
"Oh, you'll be fine," Brittany grins, and leaves.
Alone with the clones, Santana surveys the room. Five identical blonds stare back at her. Santana controls her panic – handling five Brittanies couldn't be any worse than managing the Cheerios. Like, a room full of hungry girls? Exactly the same as the cheerleaders. Also, Santana has a tiny bit of babysitting experience from watching her neighbor's kids in seventh grade, she can totally handle this.
The blonds are looking at her suspiciously. Santana tries to make her voice as calming as possible. "So," she asks. "What do you guys wanna do? We could, um, color?"
Pink Brittany scoffs. "San, we're not children."
"No, wait," Red Brittany pipes up. "I want to color, that sounds fun!"
Santana finds some markers and paper in Brittany's desk and hands them over.
Then, suddenly having a flashback to babysitting, she warns, "Only on the paper, okay? Not the walls...or yourself." Red Brittany pouts, but nods.
Triumphant, Santana turns to the other girls. "What about you guys?"
Pink Brittany is staring at her, eyes narrowed. "I think we need to talk." She says.
Brittanies Pink, Green, Purple and Blue come over and seriously join Santana on the bed, so they're sitting in a circle. (Red Brittany continues to color, cross legged on the floor.)
Santana raises an eyebrow, waiting.
"You need to figure your shit out," Pink Brittany says bluntly.
Green Brittany nods in agreement. "You're hurting Britt," she says, "and we know you don't mean to, but you are."
"You should probably stop having sex with her until you're ready to talk about your feelings," Pink Brittany says, and wow, she's a lot meaner than the original Brittany.
Santana protests, "Hey, I did notplan yesterday, that was all you two!" She's totally innocent, here.
"Well, fine," says Pink Brittany. "But why did you come over today?" Busted. Santana tries not to blush, but does anyway, and Purple Brittany smirks. "Told you!" She says.
They're all looking at her with amused blue eyes, and Santana glares at them. She looks over at Blue Brittany, who's been silent this whole time. "What about you? Do you have anything to add?"
"Oh, I don't know," she says. "Just...what they said. Don't make Brittany sad."
Santana nods. That really is the last thing she wants.
Then the door opens, and the clones shut up abruptly. Brittany's back, carrying a tray of messy sandwiches and some bottles of water. "Okay, I didn't know what everybody liked," she says, "so I made a bunch of sandwiches with all the stuff we had in the fridge. The mustard-banana-cheese ones are actually pretty good."
"That's disgusting," Santana says, but Green Brittany skips over and grabs one excitedly.
They all sit on the floor like a picnic, and Brittany passes out the water and sets the tray of sandwiches in the middle. "This is fun!" she beams at all of them.
Santana picks at one that looks like it has marshmallows in it.
Pink Brittany meets Santana's eyes, and clears her throat discretely. Santana nods, but Pink Brittany keeps going, coughing louder and louder and tilting her head towards Brittany, eyes comically wide.
Brittany looks alarmed. "Are...you okay?"
"She's fine," Santana jumps in quickly, and shoots Pink Brittany a sharp look. "Look, I wanted to talk to you. About yesterday."
"Oh, okay!" Brittany nods.
"It was...really fun," Santana says hesitantly and Brittany grins back at her. "I'm sorry I freaked out a bit afterwards."
"Nah, that's okay," Brittany says. "I get it, I think." And then she frowns thoughtfully and says, "I get why you don't wanna be gay at school, but why can't we be gay here any more? Or at your house? Nobody will know."
Santana shakes her head. "I just can't," she says, "It's not fair to you, having to sneak around for me." Pink Brittany meets her eyes and nods approvingly.
"I really want for us to be together, like at school and stuff, but I'm so scared, Britt. You get that right?" Santana sighs, feeling so shitty, and like none of this is coming out right.
But Brittany reaches over and grabs her hand and smiles gently at her. "It's okay, I get it." She says. "I can wait until you're ready. I can help you."
The sandwiches are mostly all gone, and then clones seem to be getting restless. Red Brittany has gone back to coloring, and Pink Brittany has gotten up and is looking through the closet again. Thank god, Santana couldn't stand the glares she was shooting at her.
"Hey, Santana, you wanna make out?" Santana looks over, and Green Brittany is looking at her expectantly.
"No thanks?" she says, and Brittany giggles.
Green Brittany pouts, and then turns to Blue Brittany beside her. "Do you wanna make out?"
Blue Brittany grins and says, "Sure!" and then leans in and soon the two clones are cuddled together, kissing softly.
"Aw," says Brittany, "that's so cute."
Cute and super distracting, Santana thinks. She had more to say to Britts, she's pretty sure, but who can think of that when there's a free show going on right next to them? She was saying something about taking the next step at school, right? Green Brittany is slipping a hand up and under Blue Brittany's shirt, revealing a strip of pale skin. Yeah, Santana's lost her train of thought.
"I should probably get going," Santana says, "but I'll see you tomorrow at school? Or are you staying home with them?"
"No, I'll be there," Brittany says. "I have a test."
Santana gets up and heads toward the door, but before she leaves, something occurs to her. "Britts?" she asks.
Brittany looks up at her expectantly.
"You need to take apart the cloning machine. Or turn it off, or something. No more clones, okay?"
"No, no more," Brittany agrees. "Six of me is confusing enough."
One of you is confusing enough, Santana thinks, and slips out the door.
NEXT CHAPTER: the clones go to schooooool! McKinley High will never be the same.