Hi, Thank you for the reviews. The girls will eventually grow up and the man's motives will be further explained as well.
I don't think I mentioned this before but I do not own Glee or the characters, apart from Quackers :) just in case anyone was under a false impression.
Talk of physical abuse in this chapter. Please keep reading the notes as the warnings change based on the chapter.
Brittany stared at the door with wide eyes and burst into tears again.
"I'm sorry! He hurt you because of me," she manages to get out before Santana shakes her head at her.
"No, he just surprised me and forgot my arms still hurt. He didn't hurt me it's okay really!"
Brittany looks down miserably, "He is gonna hurt you more! I'm bad at membering things. I mess up with the ABC's. I don't want him to," she trails off the crying getting the better of her once more.
Santana wrings her hands together; she never really had to comfort someone else before and last night all she had to do was sing. She also really did not want to get punished.
"Did you go to school?" she blurts out, surprising herself and Brittany.
"Ye-yes. I'm seven. I started first grade al-already," she says as her breath hitches a bit more.
"I'm seven too! We could have been in the same class! If we had gone to the same school," Santana beams but quickly gets back to what she was trying to ask before. "So how did you remember things?"
Brittany looks at her blankly so Santana tries again, "My teacher always made us sing songs like the ABC's? I always remember better if I sing it! Or, or stories! Like how my Abuela told me stories about this cool maginery person called Jesus!" Santana picks up happily when she sees Brittany start to understand.
"Like the clean up song? And the story my Mommy taught me about the winter spring and summer so I'd know when to wear warm clothes?!"
"Umm exactly! We can do the same thing! We can do songs and stories for the ones you don't remember well. Then we wont get punished," Santana says as she tries to think about all the rules that she learned. Though she was a bit nervous, the ABC's was a song and if Brittany forgot those then it might be harder than she thought.
"Do you get punished a lot?"
"Not so much anymore. He didn't tell me the rules at first he just got mad. Like angry bear mad it's really scary, so I tried not making him mad, like by not hiding when he calls me. I tried really hard and got less punishments."
"But, that's not fair! In school the teacher told us all the rules on the first day! She even got us to think of some good ones. I added no hair gel cuz it's so icky!"
"Maybe we can ask Daddy for a list? See you're smart! I still sometimes don't know all the rules and maybe that way," she pauses before continuing hopefully, "maybe he won't punish us if we break a rule we didn't learn yet?"
"Yeah!" Brittany cheers happily. "What's the first rule?"
"First rule is we gots to eat breakfast! I'm hungry!"
Santana and Brittany finish off the breakfast. Brittany scrunches her nose a bit at the soggy cereal but her hunger wins out and she finishes the whole bowl. Santana looks up at Brittany, "Daddy doesn't always punish. I get surprises too. Like when he heard me singing before he opened the door one time? He asked me to sing for him and I sang him a song. The next day he brought the art corner in!"
Brittany smiles, "Art is fun, you draw pretty picture I saw them earlier and you sing really good."
Santana beams at her.
They settle down on the bed leaving the empty bowls on the tray. Santana thinks hard and decides to go over the rules as she figured them out herself. She makes Brittany repeat the rules each time from the start after every new rule and gets creative when Brittany gets confused or forgets.
Brittany pauses every now and then, trying to figure out how Santana connected which behavior caused her to get a punishment. She was still confused as to what each punishment was. Santana got really quiet each time she asked and would try to talk about something else right away.
One thing was clear, the punishments hurt Santana and frightened her. Brittany could still feel the small welt that had formed on her own bottom when she was caught trying to run away and that was from only one punishment. So she tried hard to remember everything Santana taught her, Brittany wanted to make sure that Santana did not get hurt anymore. To Brittany that included understanding exactly how Santana had been figuring things out.
"Okay we're almost done. I think this is the last rule that I have figured out. You always haveta call him Daddy, just Daddy."
"Oh you already taught me that one about only calling him Daddy, " Brittany says proudly, "but he isn't my Daddy! Why does he want us to call him that, why won't he let me go home?" Brittany throws out getting progressively angrier.
"I don't know," Ssantan replies busying herself by playing with the bed sheet. "I guess he likes us to play pretend? It's easier for me to play pretend a lot of the time. There were always rules when I played at school. Like with Daddy, there are just rules."
"But how did you learn that he wants you to only call him Daddy?"
"He told me to call him Daddy like he told you," Santana evades.
"Well yeah, but he never told me I can't call him Dad, or sometimes my Dad likes when my little sister calls him Dada, that's actually all she can say right now." Brittany looks confused, as Santana seems to get sad.
"I, I called him Papa on accident," Santana finally blurts out. "Daddy woke me up and I was so confused at first I thought that I was back at home with my Papa."
"What punishment did you get?" Brittany asks hoping that this time Santana might answer her.
"He got angry bear mad and," Santana holds out her arms showing her bruises again.
"That's not fair! You did it by accident," Brittany pouts, "wait this isn't home?" Brittany thought Santana always lived here all her stuff was here and she knew all the rules.
Santana shakes her head and mutters sullenly, "I used to live with my Mama and Papa."
"Then why did you come live here? Did you fall off your bike too?"
"No," Santana whispers pulling her knees up a bit. "Mama and Papa didn't want me anymore," She pauses, "Didn't yours not want you either?"
Brittany's eyes widen in surprise as she starts to shake her head, "Of course they want me! Your Mama and Papa want you too!"
"No they don't!" Santana suddenly yells promptly turning away. Brittany looks stunned at Santana's back watching as it shakes. Brittany's throat tightens up when she realizes how upset she made her new friend.
"I'm sorry," she whispers as Santana sniffles. Santana turns back around partly facing Brittany. She fiddles with her nightgown while stealing glances at Brittany. Brittany can see her body tense up and she wonders what is about to happen. It looks as if Santana is about to bolt up and run away, but there really is no other place to run to. Brittany jumps a bit when Santana finally speaks.
"They don't want me anymore, they even had a big party when, when Daddy brought me here." Santana admits, trying to make Brittany really understand that her parents didn't like her, that nobody did.
"A party? That not true!" Brittany states automatically. She can't wrap her mind around what Santana is telling her. Nothing makes sense, she isn't allowed to go home anymore, some strange man wants her to call him Daddy, and Santana always seems to get hurt.
"Uh huh!" Santana insists, "There were lots of people standing around holding candles. Daddy splained it was like a birthday party but, but everyone got to hold a candle instead of it being on a cake." The pictures were fresh in her mind of her father and mother hugging each other holding a candle each. The rest of the people were blurry but all of them had candles.
"No, it's not true!" Brittany repeats again.
"He showed me pictures! They took me to my first ballet class and then told Daddy they didn't want me anymore. They told him I was bugging them and never left them alone. Daddy said they couldn't just leave me at the ballet class like that and took me here. They don't want me anymore, Daddy's the only one that wants me now!" Santana wails before she turns around and scoots away from Brittany too heartbroken to explain again.
Brittany looks at the crying girl and her stomach sinks as she grasps how bad she made Santana feel. Especially now that Santana was really crying. She looks around and spotting the best comfort she can think of she jumps off the bed grabbing Quackers off the floor and sitting back down next to Santana.
"Go way," Santana mumbles around her thumb.
Brittany stays quiet and simply leans over and places Quackers in Santana's arms. Santana grabs on to Quackers and after a moment scoots over a bit. Brittany stares at the empty space then lies down next to Santana and sneaks an arm around her giving her a hug before letting her go. Santana cries a bit more until her eyes eventually droop, Brittany watches as the other girl stops moving apart from the occasional shiver.
A little girl sits on the bench all dressed up in her red tutu. She was looking intently at her feet working on her foot points, though every time a car drove by she glanced up hopefully. It was her first ballet class and she had put on a huge fight about the dressy tutu. But the dancing was really fun, the girl even managed to kick the other annoying girl and make it seem like an accident.
But now her parents seemed to have forgotten all about her. So she sat pouting and waiting. It must have been almost an hour of waiting before a man came up to her. He didn't seem smelly or creepy so she decided not to put up a fuss when he sat down at the end of the bench. "Hi Santana," the man said giving her a big smile.
"How'd you know my name?" she asked looking up surprised.
"You've been sitting here a long time Santana. Do you know why?" She shook her head and perked up a bit "Did my Mama and Papa talk to you?" The man nodded, "They told me to pick you up. Come on, my car is this way."
The little girl looked around a bit confused because her parents had not told her anything about this. But reasoning that her parents were not there and factoring in that the man knew her name she followed without a fuss. She climbed into the back seat allowing the man to buckle her into the booster seat waiting for her in the car.
She didn't start crying until the man told her exactly what her parents had told him. She cried so much until her breaths came in gasps and her body contorted. She no longer controlled her body anymore and the tension pooled up in her body until she vomited in the car. She cringed at the mess she made but the man just helped her out of the car picking her up despite the mess.
"It's okay. I will be your Daddy now. I'm going to take care of you and I'll never give you up like your parents did." The man assured using a tissue to clean her face up.
"Lets go inside and I'll show you your new special room. How does that sound?"
Santana looked up at her new Daddy and nodded miserably putting her head on his shoulder in exhaustion.