Santana sat in silence as the car moved through the street. She was too nervous to even look through the window this morning, so it was nice seeing what Lima really looked like. She didn't really go out the house in the first couple weeks she was here, so it was definitely a change of perspective.
"Santana, are you Alright?" Her Tia asks, breaking the silence in the car. No one had spoken, and the only noise that was in the car was the slight humming of the engine.
She didn't even try to answer, not even a nod, or her signing off to Jake or Mercedes. Santana wanted to be alone. She wanted to forget what happened. She wanted to forget how uncomfy she felt, and most of all she wanted to forget how much the words they said to her stung. It felt like she repeatedly getting pinched, but after each pinch it hurt more and more, and when it got too much she cried, like the blood was finally rushing out the wounds.
Jake was concerned, he looked over at Mercedes and could tell that she was too. Maybe when they got home he could get something out of Santana. He knew it would take a very long time for her to get comfortable with Tia and Tio, but her not even trying to sign to him or Mercedes definitely was a problem.
He started tapping the windows in frustration. Who would try to harm Santana? She was the sweetest, most caring person in the world. Jake loves Santana so much, more than he thinks she knows. She had been his protector since birth, fighting off everyone for him.
And now it was his turn to be hers.
Brittany lays on the couch as The Parent Trap whirs on in the background. Sam's sound asleep on her shoulder as drool drips from his mouth on to her shoulder, gross. She doesn't wanna wake him though, he looks too peaceful, plus the soft snores coming from him are sort of mesmerizing. Sam thinks he doesn't snore, but he DEFINETLY does.
Brittany tries to pull out her phone without waking him but as soon as she acquires it from her pockets, Sam shifts yawns. She looks down at him and sees his green eyes look back at her.
"Sorry for waking you, I just wanted to catch you snoring because you seem to always deny the fact that you DO snore."
"But B, I don't snore, you must be dreaming or something because I don't." Sam groggily states with a smirk. Brittany smacks him right dab on the head.
"Hey! What was that for?"
"Admit it Sammy! You SNORE." Brittany says as she wraps her arms around his shoulder, locking him in his place.
"Never!"
"Well since you don't want to, I guess I'll have to get it out of you."
"NO, Britt not th-" Brittany starts giving him what she calls, the destroyer special. It's Sam's weakness, her ruffling his hair (his head is oddly ticklish, plus he hates getting his hair messy), and her locking him in place so he can't move. Sam totally thinks it would have been a torture method back in 13th century England or whatever.
"Britt….let….go.. please!" Sam barely gets out in-between his loud laughter.
"Say you snore….say you snore like an old man NOW Sam." Brittany shrieks, she's having too much fun with this.
"I….Samuel…Evans…snorelikeanoldman." Brittany lets him free as he pants heavily. "I thought you were a football player, what happened to your stamina big guy!"
"I'm a quarterback, it's not like I get tackled and attacked frequently, especially not by experienced tickle torturists." Sam says with a smile.
"Oh so I'm a tickle torturist now?" Brittany asks as she throws a pillow at Sam, hitting him directly in the face. "Maybe if you just admitted that you snore loud enough to wake up the whole of Lima sometimes maybe we would have had this problem." She sticks his tongue out at him as she gets up to go change, she teaching a new teen dance class today with Mike. Brittany's excited to be able to teach kids her age and a couple years younger. Sure, she gets to do it sometimes on the Cheerios, but Sue supervises everything she teaches the girls. But this class, it's just her and Mike running it for free to all the 14-18 year olds in Lima. Maybe they'll have showcases with a bunch of the other dance programs around, maybe she could perform original stuff she makes in her head too? Anything is possible and it makes Brittany excited, dancing and choreographing are really the only time she's confident and sure of herself.
"Sam!" She shouts from her room, "You wanna come to the dance class today?" Brittany hopes he says yes, sometimes Sam goes to the classes to help teach the younger kids with her when Mike can't. He insists dancing helps him get his stamina and coordination up for football, but she doesn't know if it's fully true. Brittany thinks he just likes the kids for the most part.
"What class is it today?"
"It's a new one, teenager class, you wouldn't teach but it'll be easy since it's only the introductory course."
Sam thinks for a second, it couldn't be that bad, and he sort of likes dancing anyways. Maybe they'll be nice people there, he needed some more friends."
"Yeah B, let me get ready."
They get to the studio, a bit later than Brittany wanted to, since Sam took so long to get ready, even though he only had on a tank top and shorts on.
The room is packed with a good 30 kids, she was expecting a good 15 but 30? She was stunned.
As she gets to the front of the room, she scans around to see if she can recognize anyone from school. She sees some random faces from homeroom, some cheerios, and Mercedes, with someone who looks like her brother or another family member. Brittany starts thinking about Santana once again, who wasn't there. She's gonna try and talk to her tomorrow to see how she is, she's still concerned about her and what happened. The whole situation still has her a bit pissed off now that she thinks about it.
Mike taps her on her shoulder, breaking her out of her trance and tells her that they should start soon. Brittany just nods in response, her and Mike have been dancing together for so long, they don't even need to really speak to each other to figure out what the other is saying. They're just like that. (Sam thinks they have telepathy even though Britt and Mike have both denied it.)
The beginning of the class went well, but when Brittany mentioned doing solos off of choreography they had to make, that's when people started to panic.
Jake though, was excited. He found out about the classes off Facebook and he couldn't help but tell Mercedes so they could go. He really loved to dance, it helped him blow off steam when he was mad, or when he needs a distraction he just puts some music on and dances. He was built off of ballet from when he was younger, but as he grew older Jake found out about Hip Hop, and it became his new favorite type of dance. The song that was picked was Rolling in the Deep, so whatever Jake did had to convey emotion. He had a lot of it from earlier today, and now. He really wishes Santana would have come, but she isn't ready to dance yet, he understands, he always does with Santana.
Mercedes was equally excited, from what she could see, Brittany was very talented, when she danced it She was really magical, almost mesmerizing even. She was glad that Jake told her about this, it felt really good to be free and dance again, especially since it been so long since she's been to a class. She was having some trouble thinking of choreo though, Jake was always the better sibling when it came to that, then Santana.
Brittany walks to Sam as the kids choreograph something simple, she let him sit out for that, mostly because Sam was whining in her ear about it. At least he did 30 minutes of warm ups.
"You having fun?" She asks, smoothing out the stray hairs of her pony.
"It wasn't bad, maybe I'll come back every so often, I've never felt so loose in my life." Sam exclaims, a smile on his face.
"Have you ever even stretched ever at football Sam?" She inquires, Sam just looks at her with an even bigger grin than before. Brittany just shakes her head and walks away, it's definitely time to see what these kids can do.
Wow. All she could say was wow.
The majority of kids could dance, but when Jake and Mercedes went, it was no competition. The way they both moved was more advanced than anyone in the room. Their moves conveyed emotion and told a story, a powerful story. She could see exactly what they were trying to say, and it was beautiful. The raw talent between the both of them was clearly evident.
The class wrapped up shortly after, and Brittany just had to go talk to them.
"Hey, Jake, Mercedes." The two look at her with questioning eyes.
"You're Brittany, right?" Mercedes asked, Brittany nods in her direction. "Thanks for earlier today, Jake and I appreciate it a lot."
"It's no problem, really I mean it. I came over to just to tell you both how talent you are. Mercedes I know you're a senior but Jake, what grade are you?"
"I'm a freshman." Brittany's eyes widened.
"You're a freshman with that much talent? You both need to go dance on a team or somewhere, the talent you have is unbelievable. By far, y'all are the best dancers in the room. I would love if you kept coming back every week."
"We both really like it here, and we definitely will be coming back. Thanks Brittany, we appreciate what you said." Mercedes states with a big smile, they head to the door or the studio, where Brittany sees Santana waiting for them, with keys in her hand. She wants to go over to her so bad, but something stopping her, not here, not now.
"Sam! You ready to head out." Sam grabs his stuff and goes over to her. She waves in Mike's direction before heading out the studio, content.
The drive home was silent, mostly because Santana was so focused on the road. Even though she only has her permit, which she got a couple weeks back, she's been trying to drive more.
As soon as she parks, she runs to her room, she doesn't wanna speak to anyone right now still.
Jake watches as she runs upstairs, then he looks at Mercedes, she has the same look of concern as him.
"I'll go talk to her." She nods at him as he heads upstairs.
"Santana?" He knocks at the door, no answer. "Tana?" Still no answer, so he opens the door. The room is almost completely dark, but he can see Santana's silhouette in the moonlight, curled into a ball.
"Jake?" Santana rasps out, her voice quiet from little use. "Am I normal?" Jake eyes widen in shock before he answers.
"Sa-"
"I don't feel it." Santana sniffles.
"Is it because of what happened today?" Santana turns around shrugs her shoulders.
"Sorta. I never feel truly normal. It depends on the day."
"Who would want to be "normal" though, San? You're unique, you're you. I love you, and I always will, you're perfect to ME."
Santana looks at him and buries herself into his arms, she couldn't wish for a better brother. It's weird how he could say one word and it would make her feel better.
"They won't hurt you again Tana, I promise. I won't let it happen." A tear drops from Jake's eye, but he swiftly wipes it away.
"Love you Jay-Jumpy." Jake smiles at his childhood nickname, which he got from Mercedes, he never wanted to sit down when he was little.
"You haven't called me that in ages Tana the Tigger." Santana smiles at him, her mom called her that, since she was always doing something around the house and was sweet to everyone, or at least tried to be.
"Can I join in?" Mercedes says with a smile. Both of them nod at her and go in an attack her with hugs, Santana starts to tickle her.
"Can we….not have a nice moment where you don't tickle? SANTANA STOP TICKLING" Jake and Santana giggle.
"Cedes c'mon let loose, at least you don't have an embarrassing nickname." Jake states. Mercedes was lucky, she's been called Cedes as long as she could remember, unlike the other two.
"Well, Jay Jumpy maybe I'm just better than you guys." Mercedes smirks. Santana and Jake look at each other before pouncing on her.
"Take it back!" Santana says, laughing softly.
"No! Never!" Mercedes exclaims, trying to push the two of them off of her, both of them are bigger than her though, especially Jake.
The lights in the room flicker on, and their Tia walks in the room.
"What is going on in here? She asks with a smile.
Jake looks and Santana, then Santana looks at Mercedes, then they all bust out laughing.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! It was more focused on the family aspect as it's a big factor in Santana and Brittany's lives. I hope you guys have a good day or evening or a good whatever time you're reading this.