(Author's Note: This is somewhat off-topic, but it's something you academically-inclined Brittana shippers might enjoy.
I had an epiphany today while reading some criticism on Proust's depiction of the lesbian underworld: that a code name for lesbians was tante, which translated into British slang as "auntie." So when Santana refers to herself, in 2x18, as "Auntie Tana," she's tapping into a late Victorian tradition of subversive closeted lesbianism. Cool, huh?
More on-topic... I have a very difficult time understanding the appeal of Artie on about nine levels, and not just because of my disinclination to find men attractive. This is my best shot.)
Quitting Cheerios has given Brittany a lot more free time. These days, she's less tired, and she doesn't feel as dumb and dull as she used to. She's even started to miss ballet.
"You miss that Black Swan creature from the deep?" Santana asks, sitting on her bed, when Brittany tells her about it.
"No. I mean, I just miss the way everything is so, I don't know, put together. Even though all those French words are kind of confusing sometimes, there's just something so beautiful about the way you move, you know?"
"Maybe you could teach," suggests Santana.
"I don't know if I'd be good at that," Brittany admits.
"You used to teach me," Santana reminds her.
"That was a long time ago."
"And now you know a lot more." She stands up and walks to Brittany, barefoot, pressing her belly into Brittany's back and lining their arms and legs up together. She laces her fingers through Brittany's and presses their collective hands together. "Teach me something right now." Then her lips meet the back of Brittany's neck and Brittany has a very hard time thinking of something to teach her.
"Well," she says, "how about arabesques?"
San lets Brittany go, twists up most of her hair into a messy bun that she ties with the band on her wrist, and shakes her limbs loose so Brittany can pose them. It's easier than telling San how to do it. And besides, Brittany gets to slide her hands over San's arms and ribs and thighs as she molds her into the first position. She tilts San's body forward at the waist as she lifts her leg by the thigh. She slides her hand along San's knee and calf and foot to give the leg a straight line. Then she stretches out San's arms: one to her side, the other ahead.
"A little straighter here." She smoothes the line of Santana's arm. "It's also about the way you face. So look over there." She points to San's window. "You should look like your eyes are going that way forever." She tilts San's chin. Santana does what she's told. Her look seems to cut straight through the glass of her window and look way beyond the houses on the next block. "Good. Really good. That's first arabesque."
She rotates Santana and bends her arms and legs, guiding her so San never shakes as Brittany's positioning pulls her muscles tight beneath her skin. She takes her through second, third, fourth arabesques. When she can tell San is about to lose her balance, she puts out her arm as a barre.
Finally, after Santana is stable in fourth arabesque, Brittany steps into her body and places one hand under San's solar plexus and the other under her lifted thigh.
"This one is going to be a little harder," she says. "Tell me if you need me to stop."
"Wanky," smirks Santana, but Brittany shushes her.
"Just let your body follow me. And keep that foot on the ground as steady as you can. Lean on my left hand. I'll catch you if you start to fall."
San's heart is beating hard against the stretched place where Brittany's left hand holds her up. And slowly, slowly, like a glass half-full of something she doesn't want to spill, Brittany tilts San's body forward and lifts her thigh so her legs open wider.
"Keep your leg straight," she orders. "Straighter. Good. So, this is an arabesque penchée, which means your leg is up really high." She feels a slight quiver in San's leg. "You okay?"
"Sure," says San. "I used to do splits in Cheerios, remember?"
"Yeah, but it's been, like, more than a month, and if you're not stretching all the time you can just tighten back to the way you were."
"I'm okay. Promise." She fixes her eyes on the opposite corner like Brittany told her to.
As Brittany keeps tilting her, she slides her hand down to the tendon of San's inner thigh to monitor the stretch—just in case. San lets out a soft little gasp and opens her mouth, and her heartbeat is so hard it's all Brittany can feel against the hand on San's bended chest. Santana's muscles hold strong, but she's starting to tremble, and Brittany can suddenly smell through San's underwear how wet she's getting as Brittany's hand moves so close.
"I think you like arabesques penchées," Brittany whispers into her falling hair. And she tilts San closer to upright, just enough so her leg stops quivering, before sliding her hand from her thigh to the soaked-through lace between her legs.
All that night, they can't stop touching each other. They have sex twice before falling asleep naked and wrapped in each other. In the middle of the night, Brittany wakes up to San's hot breath at her ear and her hand cupping her breast.
"You feel so good, Brittany," she whispers. "Better than anything else in the world."
It's the closest sex-Santana has ever been to best-friend-San, and Brittany doesn't move, for fear she'll stop talking. She wonders how long San had been whispering to her before she woke up.
"I never want to stop touching you."
Her voice is so soft and cloudy that Brittany wonders whether Santana is really awake. She pretends she's still asleep, since she knows Santana probably wouldn't be saying these things if she knew Brittany wasn't sleeping. Keeping her breath deep and slow, even though her body is warming up as Santana's hands move over it, she feels a little like she did that first time, when both of them were drunk and right on the edge between sleeping and waking. Only now she feels that growing thing in her again. It's hard not to breathe too much when its vines are crowding out all of the space in her lungs and pushing her heart right up against her ribs. She can smell Santana—naked Santana, with no clothes or Cheerios or boy smell on her, just those strange flowers and the darkness of her sweat. It makes Brittany want to take a deep deep breath through her nose and pull that smell in and drown in it.
Instead, she keeps quiet as San reads her whole body in the dark with her hands, almost like she's never felt it before. And San pulls Brittany's thigh over her hip so she can squeeze in close and press their breasts and bellies together. San's body is so much smoother than Artie's—softer too, especially since they quit the Cheerios. Artie's skin never burns like this, so glowing-hot.
When San's fingers dip inside her, Brittany lets herself breathe out. She didn't realize she'd stopped breathing.
Brittany wakes up buried in Santana's sheets and sees a thread of sunlight sneaking between the curtains. San's lips are pressed to her hair and she can hear her breathe. She's still asleep.
If Brittany moves, even a little, she'll wake San. So instead, she just starts thinking.
She thinks about Artie: how gentle he is, the way she never has to tiptoe around him the way she does with San, like she's teasing a tiger with a feather. The little ways he touches her like he's showing the world how proud he is to have her. Like he can't believe his own luck. The rumble of the linoleum in the school hallways under her body as Artie gives her a ride to class in his chair. The way he texts her after dates to tell her he misses her already. The fact that when he does something that hurts her, he tells her he's sorry. And he never hurts her on purpose.
Then, she thinks about Santana. The way San knows everything about her, from her favorite flavor in every kind of candy to the names of every pet she's ever had. How every time she touches Brittany, anywhere, it feels exactly right, like every part of each of them fits together with every part of the other. The smell of her that stays in Brittany's sheets for days—that smell she loves so much that she steals one of San's shirts out of her laundry hamper from time to time and cuddles with it for a few days until the Santana fades out of it.
Sometimes, she doesn't like how much sharper and quicker she feels these days. The easier it gets to think, the more she wishes she didn't have to think at all.
It's just when she's thinking about this that Santana shifts and groans. She wraps her arms around Brittany and gives her a squeeze. Brittany smiles.
"Awake, San?"
"I guess so." She sighs and burrows into Brittany's neck.
Brittany wonders if what San said last night is just going to disappear into that shut room of things they never talk about. Now that San's awake and her voice is groggy and grumpy, she starts to doubt whether she really heard San say those things in the first place. Maybe she was just dreaming.
She twists out of San's arms and sits on the edge of the bed. She's sick of thinking, but she just can't seem to stop.
"Where are you going?" San groans, reaching for Brittany's back.
"Nowhere." She slides her hand into San's and looks hard at that thin little line of light leaking in through the window. There's something she has to know, but she doesn't even know what question to ask.
They're dressed again and Santana's fixing her hair by the time Brittany makes a decision.
"I want to talk to you about something." Her heart thumps, but Santana doesn't say anything back. "I really like it when we make out—and stuff." She can't even bring herself to call what they do sweet lady kissesor sex or anything, not while she's still got Artie floating in her head with his too-sweet smile.
"Which isn't cheating because…?"
"Plumbing's different." Brittany goes a little cold at being made to repeat Santana's line, which she's feeling more and more sure is totally not true.
"Mhm." San glides over to her dresser and makes a show of looking for something in the pile of makeup she keeps on top. She won't look at Brittany except through the mirror.
"But when Artie and I are together"—she can almost feel Santana stiffen as she says his name, but she keeps talking anyway—"we talk about stuff like feelings."
Santana's eyes jump around the room. "Why?" She screws opens a stick of lip gloss. Brittany can almost feel the sweetness of Santana's first waking seconds shriveling up as she slides the wand over her lips.
"Because with feelings it's better."
She's touched a nerve or something, because Santana's voice comes out tight and too loud.
"Are you kidding? It's better when it doesn't involve feelings." She spins around and looks at Brittany. "I think it's better when it doesn't involve eye contact."
She doesn't have much time now, but Brittany knows she has to push through this, or she's going to chicken out again and not say anything for months, just like last time. And now she has Artie to make her braver. She's got less to lose.
"I don't know, I guess I just… don't know how I feel about us." She finishes the sentence and waits for Santana to say something mean, or make a joke. But to her surprise, Santana just starts picking up pillows.
"Look. Let's be clear here." Her voice is soft, almost thoughtful. "I'm not interested in any labels. Unless it's on something I shoplift." There's the joke. But nothing mean—yet.
"I don't know, Santana. I think we should talk to somebody. Like, an adult. This relationship is really confusing for me."
"Breakfast is confusing for you." And there's the mean. But it's the kind Brittany can make go away by saying something she knows Santana will find cute.
"Well, sometimes it's sweet and sometimes it's salty. Like, what if I have eggs for dinner, then… what is it?" Brittany waits for the smile, but instead, Santana looks back at her pillows. She's got nothing else to fix.
Brittany keeps waiting.
Santana finally agrees to talk to the substitute sex ed teacher. It's dark in the room, but Brittany keeps feeling Santana sneaking glances at her the second she looks away. Since they agreed to talk, she hasn't looked her in the eyes even once, which she used to do all the time, except during sex. Now it's like she's afraid of Brittany. Not mad—afraid.
"It's not about who you are attracted to, ultimately," says Miss Holiday. "It's about who you fall in love with." Brittany feels about nine feelings at once and can't begin to untangle them.
"Well, I don't know how I feel," she says, "because Santana refuses to talk about it."
So when Miss Holiday suggests that they sing a song together, Brittany's super surprised when Santana's the one to jump on it.
"I have the perfect song," she says, and looks into Brittany's eyes for the first time in two days. Brittany feels her whole chest fill up like a hot air balloon.
There's an email from San waiting for Brittany when she gets home: no subject, just a sound file of the Dixie Chicks and a quick note, no signature:
for glee. take the alto harmony on the refrain
It's a good thing Brittany kind of knows this song from that Fleetwood Mac album her dad used to play when she was little, because she's not good with lyrics, but she does remember the chorus. She listens to the sound file a few times, gets her own part in her throat, and wonders what's going to happen from here.
When Brittany has trouble figuring out what song lyrics or poetry mean, she usually asks Santana, who doesn't mind sitting down and explaining them line by line. But a lot of the time, she can't explain it exactly, or she tells Brittany two or three different ways to read a line. Sometimes, she says, words can mean a lot of things at the same time.
Brittany used to have a lot of trouble understanding that: that the same thing can also be so many different things at once. But now that something is her, and suddenly it makes sense how there can be a hundred answers to a question and not one that's exactly right.
She watches Santana sing to her, sees her ready to break down and cry in front of the whole Glee Club. With Santana's eyes never moving from hers, reaching into her deep enough to twist her heart back and forth, she forgets every other Brittany, including the one who's with Artie. She's seen Santana cry at school before, but never because of her.
"Is that really how you feel?" she asks.
"Mhm. Yeah." San's voice is as soft as it was when she said those things to Brittany in the middle of the night. Only now they're both awake.
When Santana holds her, Brittany is almost ready to kiss her right in front of everyone in New Directions. Even Artie. But then Rachel congratulates them on something called "Sapphic charm." Brittany doesn't know what that means, but those words make Santana go so cold Brittany can feel it from where their arms press together.
"Look, just because I sang a song with Brittany"—all the old harshness floods back into her voice—"doesn't mean you can put a label on me. Is that clear?" She glances back at Brittany one more time as she walks away, but her eyes aren't clear and deep with love like they were when she was singing: instead, she looks ashamed. Seeing her shame gives Brittany that same torn-chest feeling she felt when she asked Santana to sing a duet and San snapped back that she wasn't in love with her.
It's like they haven't gotten anywhere at all.
At Artie's house, they're playing Mario Kart on his little sister's Wii when he asks Brittany about the song.
"What's going on with you guys?"
"Nothing. It was like, a friends song." Her little Princess Peach car veers off a cliff when she jerks the controller too hard.
Artie pauses the game and looks at her. "Brittany."
She usually doesn't mind telling Artie about the way he feels. He never laughs at her when she can't figure out the right way to say what's on her mind, and he likes the way she thinks about different things from other people. But Santana's different. Except for that one time on the party line last year, Brittany has never told anyone about what goes on with Santana.
Besides, what does he want to hear? That she's in love with Santana? That when she took his virginity, she was heartsick and thinking of Santana the whole time?
"We had a fight," she lies. "Santana just wanted to make it up to me. That's all."
Artie raises his eyebrows. He doesn't believe her. But he doesn't ask any more questions. She's right: he doesn't want to know. Not really. He turns back to the game and unpauses.
"Girl, you know there's no way you're going to win now that your ass has gotta be helicoptered out of the abyss," he teases.
Brittany tries to smile as she watches that little guy float down on a cloud to stop her from falling deeper into the blackness. She wishes he existed in real life, and that he'd come and save her now.