Anonymous asked: 13. "You make me feel safe."


Because Santana kind of stranded Mercedes in Lima, she volunteers to go and pick her up at the end of the week. She's still renting the car, after all, and she does feel a little guilty for sending Mercedes to hang out with some of their old high school friends without her (not that guilty though, because aside from her mom and Mercedes, Santana would just as soon let that hellhole town fade to the oblivion of her memory).

Brittany insists on coming with her, and Santana's definitely not going to argue with that, so they pile into the car with some ridiculously priced coffee and Brittany's iPhone plugged into the speakers and they head for Lima. Santana's mom is still in Seattle with her aunt, but Santana promised to fly out and see her during the break in the tour in a couple months, so Santana's hoping that she will be able to slip in and out of Lima undetected.

They make it to Lima in good time, and before she knows it, she's narrating her childhood to Brittany; the playground where she broke her arm on, the parking lot where she drove her mom's car for the first time, the schoolyard she took her first drag of a cigarette in, the street corner where she first realized she was definitely, one-hundred precent gay, the stop sign where she failed her drivers test the first time, she even drives past the extravagant neighbourhood she used to live in back when her dad still cared about his family, and then the sketchier neighbourhood her mom raised her in, the one that actually felt like home.

They pull up to Mercedes' childhood house but Dr. Jones' car isn't out front and Santana shrugs in slight disappointment; while she won't get to see Mercedes' parents, at least, she thinks as they get out of the car, it means she doesn't have to spend anymore time in Lima than she has to. Brittany is still excitedly bouncing around at the chance to see where Mercedes and Santana are from. Santana smiles, butterflies fluttering around her when Brittany takes her hand at the front of the car and quickly kisses her on the cheek. Santana lets Brittany pull her up the driveway in a slight daze, she's pretty positive she'll never stop getting a thrill every time Brittany does something so simply affectionate.

Brittany rings the doorbell and quickly kisses Santana on the cheek again as they wait. When the door opens, Santana quickly wishes it hadn't; Quinn Fabray, one of her sort-of-friends and definitely-mortal-enemies from school, stands on the other side with a lazy smile. Her eyes dart down to Brittany's hand clasped in Santana's, and Santana's stomach twists painfully at the smirk that spreads across her face. It wasn't necessarily that Quinn was ever outright homophobic to her, it's just that being gay was something of a weakness in this town, and Quinn loved exploiting all of Santana's weaknesses back in high school to wrestle the title of head of the school away from Santana.

"Lopez," Quinn says in that haughty, snide way of hers. "I see you've graced Lima with your presence for the second time this week."

Santana stiffens; she knows Mercedes wouldn't have said anything, but small towns have a way of knowing your business, no matter how hard you hide it. "Fabray," Santana greets coldly. She feels Brittany squeeze her hands reassuringly, and when she glances up at Brittany, her normally expressive blue eyes are colder than Santana's ever seen them. "Britt, this is Quinn Fabray," Santana introduces, "we went to high school together. Quinn, this is my girlfriend, Brittany." (Despite the circumstances, warmth swells in Santana's chest at the world; Brittany is her girlfriend, something she's been secretly hoping for since just about the first time they met. Based on the thawing in Brittany's eyes and the small, adoring smile she shoots Santana, Santana's pretty sure Brittany feels the same.)

"Girlfriend?" Quinn asks, and though she laughs there's a slight, bitter edge to it. "But you're such a bitch."

Santana can feel Brittany bristle beside her, and she quickly runs her thumb over the back of Brittany's hand to soothe her.

"I can see you haven't changed at all, Quinn," Santana says quietly. Santana has been out since her senior year of high school, and despite her mom's love and support and Mercedes' friendship and the fact that she's been all over the country, she still just feels small and scared in Lima; she knows that Quinn could so easily make a her visiting girlfriend a big deal, and the last thing she wants is to the the buzz of Lima again. She's been beat down and bullied by this town enough and she desperately wants to avoid that this time.

Brittany's holding her hand and she's not ashamed of who she is, not anymore, but she's also not stupid.

Quinn stiffens and Santana can barely start to brace herself for the verbal attack she knows is coming before Mercedes pops up beside Quinn and lays a friendly but firm hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry, Quinn," Mercedes says with an easy smile, "We gotta get going if we wanna sleep before our flight tomorrow morning." Mercedes quickly hugs Quinn and ushers her out the door and to her car across the street. Once Quinn has pulled away and Santana has relaxed, Mercedes locks up her parents' house and tosses her suitcase in the back of the car rental before climbing in.

As soon as they're all in and buckled up, Mercedes shakes her head. "Lord, I love that girl," she says, "but Jesus she needs to get out of this town."

Santana chokes on a laugh as she pulls away from the Jones' house. Mercedes spends almost the entire way back to Columbia affectionately teasing Santana and Brittany, over the moon happy for two of her best friends. Mercedes tells them how glad she is that they could drag themselves out of the hotel room to pick her up and ignores their blushing protests (they spent most of the week holed up in the hotel room, only emerging for food and to prove to the other tour members that they are still alive, but they didn't spend all of their time in their room having sex, but it— they did spend a good portion of their time doing that).

They stop for a quick supper on the outskirts of Columbia before heading to their hotel by the airport. While Santana and Brittany both kind of just want to curl up in their bed, they are eventually cajoled into going out with the tour members for one last night in Columbia; though they just end up cuddling in a corner booth and nursing a couple of beers like a couple of old ladies anyways, much to everyone's amusement.

Santana is curled in Brittany's lap, one arm around her shoulders and the other clutching at where Brittany's hoodie covers her hip, her nose nuzzled in Brittany's neck. Brittany has one arm supporting Santana's lower back and she's tracing patterns along Santana's thighs, which are thrown over her lap, and making Santana even sleepier, when she suddenly pauses in her ministrations to speak.

"Everyone always calls you a bitch or says you're mean like Quinn today or whatever," Brittany says, "But I just don't get it. You've never been anything but soft since I've known you."

Santana shrugs and nuzzles into Brittany's side. "I was— I was really mean back in high school because I was so scared. And then I got outed and— Well, I laid pretty low after that. But Mercedes," Santana hesitates and smiles a little. "Well, there's a reason she's still one of my best friends even after high school."

Brittany smiles and something warm bubbles up inside her; she loves Mercedes, but now she appreciates her friend even more than before.

"Anyways," Santana continues, "as I got more comfortable with myself it got easier to not have to be scared and mean. But sometimes I still am, in new situations and stuff, old habits or whatever. That's why some people here think I'm a bitch."

Brittany chews on her bottom lip and absently runs her hand down Santana's leg, only really noting how Santana stretches slightly and curls further into her. "You've never been mean to me. Even when I accidentally shoved you to the ground the first time we met."

Santana smiles up at Brittany, all dimples and deep eyes and scrunched nose. "You make me feel safe," Santana whispers easily, "You've always made me feel safe." Santana tightens her grip on Brittany's hoodie, tugging herself even closer so she's curled over Brittany. Her eyes are bright and adoring and Brittany shakes her head, biting down on her lip so she doesn't do something insane like ask Santana to marry her right this second. Instead, she kisses Santana, quick and deep and perfect.

Santana's smile is wide when she pulls back and she presses her forehead to Brittany's, their noses bumping together; Santana's smile turns from sappy to mischievous even as it remains adoring. "Even when you make wrong turns and get us stuck in the basement," she teases.

"Hey!" Brittany laughs, still partially recovering from the butterflies that are swirling through her at Santana's words and kiss, "You said you thought the rehearsal room might be downstairs, so I took us downstairs."

"Cause we were on the forth floor and everything was locked!" Santana protests around her giggles. "There was no more up! It had to be downstairs."

"The basement is downstairs!"
"I didn't mean that far downstairs!"

Brittany just kisses Santana instead of arguing, and considering the sigh Santana releases into her mouth, she's pretty sure that, despite losing that argument, she just won something much more important.