Summer before junior year, and time to make some decisions. Brittany drops ballet and takes on more modern and jazz. San's happy about that. She picks her up from class the day she tells her coach, early in the summer.
"Serves her right, the bitch, the way she talked to you like you were nothing." San checks that no one is around, then pulls her around the corner so they're hidden behind a wall, pulls her in by the waist of her leotard, and kisses her. "You're such a beautiful dancer, Britt, you know that?"
"Yeah, I know."
San laughs at that. She takes Britt's pinkie and leads her back to the car.
"Why do you want a boob job, San?"
Cheerios camp is over. San tells Brittany she has an appointment next week the way she'd tell her she's going to the dentist.
"I just do, okay? Look, I'm sick of justifying this to everyone. It's my body."
Brittany does look. She looks hard at Santana, at how she's thin and pretty and soft, and she doesn't want her to change. But she nods.
"Sure. It is your body. I just… those boobs, I've known them their whole lives, you know? I'll miss them."
San smirks, even if she can't quite laugh.
"Can we at least have some nice together time before they go away?"
Now Santana really does laugh.
"They're not going anywhere," she points out. "There's just going to be more to love."
"All the same." Brittany pats her bed, and Santana moves from the desk chair she's straddling to come sit next to her. She raises her arms to let Brittany slip off her tank top. There's no bra underneath: just her soft, small, pretty breasts.
"See, this is, like, what I mean. If you get a boob job, you'll have to wear a bra all the time."
"Who says?" Santana teases. "Anyway, do you want quality time with the twins or what?" She lets her knees drift apart and points between them.
Britt settles on her knees between Santana's parted legs. She slides her hands over San's thighs, over her soft boxer shorts with the waistband rolled twice, over her waist and shoulder blades and breasts. Santana leans back slightly on her hands and tilts back her chin. Brittany draws a soft line between San's breasts, up to the pit of her throat, then zig-zags to one of her nipples, which she grazes softly with the tip of her thumb, over and over, to watch it harden.
San's mouth drifts open, and Brittany watches her chest swell and sink. She lets the weight of her belly press between San's legs as she leans forward to lick the other nipple. San's not afraid to make sounds now; she hums and twirls a piece of Brittany's hair around her finger.
"Fuck," she says, when Brittany finds a good angle with her tongue, and tugs the lock of hair a little too hard.
When Brittany has sucked both of Santana's nipples to raw, stiff points, San leans back a little more, closes her eyes, and rolls her hips against Brittany's stomach. It's clear how bad she wants it. Brittany's blood isn't exactly rushing to her head either. But Brittany takes a deep breath and stills San's hips with her hands.
"Not now."
San huffs. "Fucking tease."
"First I want you to tell me why you're really doing this."
Santana's eyes fill with tears. She rubs her nose and won't look Brittany in the face.
"It's nothing. I mean, I'm just sick of fighting to be seen." She sighs. "I just want to be someone in this stupid know?"
Brittany nods, even though she really doesn't. If Santana isn't someone, who is?
"But honey, you are. You've always been someone." She kisses San's knee.
"Britt-Britt, please." Santana tilts Brittany's chin toward her and sucks on her lower lip.
"All right," says Brittany, pulling away. "Just hold on, will you?" She slides San's shorts off, pulls her hips to the edge of the bed, and draws a line with her tongue up San's inner thigh.
Her hair is mussed from Santana's fingers by the time they finish. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand—summer doesn't give you much sleeve to work with. San falls back on the bedspread, glistening with sweat, and Brittany lifts herself from her sore knees to lie down next to her. She kisses the dark downy hairs pasted just below San's ears.
"I'm still getting it done, you know."
Brittany sighs. "I know."
They lie in silence, eyes closed, waiting to cool down.
"Can I be there?" asks Brittany, finally.
Santana rubs Brittany's knee and smiles.
"I don't think they'll let you be there," she says, "but you can drop me off and pick me up. God knows my mom doesn't want to do it."
"I want to."
San takes Brittany's hand and presses the palm to her lips.
"I'm glad it's going to be you."
San's so groggy on the way home that Brittany leaves her in the car while she fills her pain med prescriptions at the pharmacy. It's just like getting medicine for her cat at the vet's office: they do everything for you. She squints at the labels, shakes the right dosages from each bottle into her palm, and hands the pills to Santana, along with the strawberry milk she bought at the drugstore to wash them down.
"Percocet," says Santana, looking at a label. "Freaking sweet."
Britt's brought an overnight bag with stuff for a few days. She sets Santana up in her bed, propping her up with a mountain of pillows like the doctor said, and pulls out the case of DVDs she put together just for this.
"How 'bout we start with some One Tree Hill?" she asks. But Santana's already asleep, so she pops in the disc anyway and lies down next to San, listening to her breathing.
San's been sick before, of course, but she's never been so dreamy and out of it as she is for the next few days, drugged and in pain. She's more like a little girl now than she was when Brittany first met her. Mostly Brittany just watches the time and measures out her pills and strokes her.
"It hurts," she moans, laying her head on a fresh pillow on Brittany's lap.
"I know, honey." Brittany pulls all of San's hair back behind her head and rubs her temples in slow circles.
"I love you, Britt-Britt. I really really love you so much. You do know that, right?"
Brittany aches a little to hear that, since Santana never tells her this sober. Of course she knows—well, she knows in the way San means it now: that she's happy to have someone to take care of her.
"Yeah. I know. Love you too, San."
"Promise you love me more than Quinn, or Puck, or anyone?"
Brittany's not sure whether she's asking whether Brittany loves her more than she loves them, or more than they love Santana. Either way, the answer's the same.
"Yes. I promise."
The doctor says San shouldn't lift her arms to wash her hair. So Brittany sits Santana on the toilet while she gets the water not-too-hot, not-too-cold, strips San's pajamas and dressings off, and hands her into the shower. She sheds her own clothes and climbs in after her.
San's chest is still raw and red and tender. San rocks a little, watching water run down Brittany's belly and meet up between her legs. Brittany squeezes some body wash into her hands, turns San around, and begins to rub her back until it's creamy with peach-scented bubbles. She works San's hair into a soft mass of shampoo foam and combs out the strands with her fingers as she rinses it. San lets her take her time, as tame as a child.
"Feels good, Britt," she says, a little too loud, and Brittany shushes her gently.
"I don't think you want your mom to know we're taking a shower together," she whispers. And she realizes that even though she's taken plenty of showers here, this is the first one she's taken with Santana.
"Stay with me forever and ever," says San, dreamily, as Brittany washes the last of the conditioner out of her hair.
"As long as you want." She kisses Santana's warm wet cheeks and turns off the tap.
Brittany guesses she shouldn't be surprised when San jumps back into Puck's bed at the end of the summer. But lately, Santana's been acting like it's no big deal that she and Brittany sleep together. Which is great on one hand, since she doesn't cry anymore or refuse to talk about it, but Brittany kind of misses the way it used to feel when they were a secret. When it felt like something only the two of them had, in the whole world—something deeper than sex. Like something sacred.