(Author's Note: My perpetual gratitude to terriblemuriel, as well as major thanks to JJ at themostrandomfandom.)
It never takes much to convince San to make cookies. San loves to bake, and she's good at it. Better than anyone else Brittany knows. It's why Santana was the first to sneer at the idea of a bake sale for Glee last year, and it's why Brittany backed her up—back when she was willing to protect Santana from her own passions.
She can't believe she didn't think of it before. It must be the millionth time she's asked San to come over in the last month, and she folded so easy it was almost funny.
"Let's go up to my room," says Brittany, tugging San's sleeve, as soon as San has pulled out the last sheet and clicked off the oven. San swallows.
"You can go," she says, grabbing the sheet to steady it as she slides the spatula under the first cookie. "I'll just finish this and bring up a plate."
Brittany does as she's told. She curls up on her bed and squeezes her legs to her chest, trying to ignore how hard her heart is pounding. It seems like so long since San's been up here. She hears through the open door the sounds of metal hitting metal, the sink running, ceramic sliding against the kitchen counter. Then, a stillness.
Finally—the creaking stairs.
When San steps through the door, the smell of the cookies in her hands, fresh and buttery and hot, can't hide the scent of Santana. It's like Brittany is a shark and can pick up a single drop of it in gallons of air—and go crazy from it.
San is nervous. She holds the plate of cookies out to Brittany, watching as she takes one, and then sets the rest down on the desk. She pauses like a spooked deer, eyes flicking around the surfaces of Brittany's room, before she settles down far from Brittany, in the desk chair.
Brittany loosens a little as San pulls her own knees to her chin. She worries apart each bite of cookie with her tongue.
"I missed having you here," she says. She starts to tell Santana how much she missed the way she smells, but realizes, watching San's face growing miserable, that she's about to scare her away. They're quiet again.
"Why won't you come sit with me here?"
"You know why, Britt." Her face flickers the way it did at the mall fountain, the way it did every time this whole month that Brittany asked her to come over. Brittany considers keeping her mouth shut. But this is important.
"Are you still punishing me?" she asks, finally.
"I'm not punishing you." She finally looks at Brittany: soft, honest, open. Brittany can see it's true, and that makes her being so far away feel even worse.
She finally begs. She knows San won't—can't—say no to her when she makes her need so bare. And San doesn't. She gives in and lies down on the other side of the bed. Her body settles, warm and rich with the Santana smell Brittany misses so bad she aches. She's almost forgotten the topnotes layered over her core smell. The sweetness of her laundry soap. Her shampoo. The musk of her sweat.
Brittany closes the gap, works herself into the pocket of Santana, into the soft spots of her body. It's home. She forgets everything else: Artie, Karofsky, the lockers, her bursts of anger, this last terrible month that she's only now realizing has been so terrible. Her ear is pressed to San's chest, and she can feel the swells of the breath San is trying to keep even and slow, and the too-quick too-hard heartbeat that gives her away.
"It's okay, San," Brittany whispers. She swallows, trying not to ask what everything in her is dying to ask. It would be wrong. Brittany knows that. It's not fair to Santana. But she wants it so badly. She feels her own heart speeding up to match Santana's, spreading into the pit of her throat and between her thighs. In the end, she can't stop herself.
"What we do isn't cheating, remember?"
San's lips part. A voiceless sigh cracks her throat, and her heartbeat is suddenly so crazy fast and hard in Brittany's ear that Brittany is afraid she's going to have a heart attack.
"It isn't, right?" she pushes. Say something, she begs Santana, silently, waiting. Just say something.
"Right." San's voice is hoarse, tight, wet.
Brittany tilts to press her lips to San's breast. She can't remember the last time she wanted her this bad. San is shaking as Brittany covers her chest in light kisses, kisses that spread and get damper as Brittany's mouth reaches the bare skin of Santana's neck.
When Brittany fits her mouth to Santana's, she realizes, this is what a kiss is supposed to feel like. She hardly tastes the cookies: just San, and the rightness of her. San's thighs drift open and Brittany's body takes the hint. Santana opens and softens as Brittany's body settles into hers. Once their jeans are grinding together, Brittany can smell how wet Santana is. San moans. Brittany can feel San squeezing her eyes shut as they kiss, as they move, locked together, on the bed. Santana is still shaking like she can't get warm. It scares Brittany.
"Santana." She calls San back to her. "Open your eyes."
"I can't—I—"
Then something cracks. San gives out under her with a cry so desperate Brittany is afraid she's broken her. But instead, her hips are driving into Brittany's, and once she realizes what's happening, Brittany clings to her, kisses her, helps her ride out her climax. Keeps her in that sweet safe place as long as possible. Because she knows what's about to happen, and it does, as soon as their hips slow and settle: Santana breaks into tears.
Everything rushes back then, everything that had vanished. Artie. Karofsky's fingers laced in San's. The image of his dirty meaty hands on her: on this body that belongs here, against Brittany's. She feels her throat tightening as she presses herself close to San, kisses her, touches her, comforts her. She'd been wrong to start this. Unfair. Not just to Artie—to Santana.
But she can't let her go now. Not tonight, not like this.
"Stay the night," she begs, knowing again that San won't refuse her.
And San doesn't.
The whole night is kind of unreal: like a dream. Brittany thinks about taking care of Santana after her summer surgery. The way she did the same things she is doing now. Taking off San's clothes and working her helpless limbs into pajamas. Stroking her hair behind her ears. Kissing her forehead. It's not quite the same, though. Now San's body is whole and her heart is broken.
Turning off the lights, Brittany climbs into bed, pulls the sheets over both of them, and wraps her body around Santana's, just holding her. San stiffens and twitches for a minute before finally relaxing into Brittany's arms. Their breathing slows from syncopated to synchronized.
"San?" she whispers. "You still awake?"
"Yeah. Course I am."
Brittany pulls her body in tighter and presses a hard kiss to San's shoulder. San's body feels so small all of a sudden. She imagines how much smaller Santana must feel to Karofsky. Then the rage and unhappiness at the thought of him touching her charge Brittany's heartbeat against her ribs.
"What is it, Britt?" San presses Brittany's palm to her lips and closes Brittany's fingers around the kiss to hold it in, exactly the way that when they were younger, just before Santana dropped Brittany at her door after school, she'd give Brittany a spare kiss to hold onto.
"Are you sleeping with him?" Brittany forces out his name. "Karofsky?"
San's pulse beats back against Brittany's body, but she shakes her head.
"No. Of course not. We—I mean, he—doesn't want…" She trails off, and Brittany doesn't push: she just waits. "Well," she finishes, "that's not what it's about."
Brittany has no idea what that means. But she thinks of Karofsky, stuck stiffly at Santana's side in the auditorium as she looked down at her Lebanese shirt. She knows San is telling her the truth: he hasn't touched her.
Thank you, Brittany sighs super-quiet into San's neck, without quite knowing why she says it. Brittany kisses the down of San's neck and the rims of her ears. She licks the sweat from the crazy soft patch of skin at the hinge of her jaw, the way a mama cat might lick her baby. San doesn't react like a kitten. Her breath catches. She rolls over in Brittany's arms and slides a knee between Brittany's thighs. She kisses Brittany's nose and cheeks and sighs between kisses like she can't get a deep enough breath.
"Santana, are you sure you want to do this?" Brittany whispers, setting a hand on San's cheek.
"Yes." It's so soft it's almost a sigh.
With that yes, Brittany lets herself sink into wanting Santana. She can't hear herself breathe for the noise of her heartbeat in her ears, thudding in the pit of her as San's mouth fits to hers. They slide and lock into their old position: that first position, and like the first time, they're too feverish with nerves and longing even to take off their pajamas. San's a mess: she's soaked through the soft shorts Brittany loaned her. Brittany's hand slides under her waistband and between her legs and she bites down on the fabric covering Brittany's shoulder as if it hurts. The hot stale air trapped under the blankets smells sharp, like frustration.
"Inside me," she begs Brittany. Her voice is tight, close to tears again.
"Look at me first." She lifts her other hand from San's bare ribs and tilts her chin so their faces are an inch apart and she can feel San's breath on her lips.
San obeys: she opens her eyes. They're strange: darker and deeper than Brittany's ever seen them. Brittany feels dizzy, unanchored, like she's just been dropped into an endless hole. Then, as Brittany slides two fingers inside her, San's eyes turn liquid, and suddenly it's like Brittany can see all of her. It's nothing like with Artie. Brittany feels like she's being swallowed whole. She's never felt closer to anyone, ever.
But it's hardly a second before San loses her nerve and buries her nose in Brittany's neck. She kisses the same place over and over and slips her hand under Brittany's shorts, curling two fingers up inside her with no warning and pulling her hips closer by the inner hook. Brittany wants so badly to bring San's eyes back to her, but she knows that moment is gone.
It never takes them long like this. Santana comes first. Brittany is seconds behind. After the first time, they keep moving, struggling, knowing that the moment they stop they'll have to start thinking again. They cling hard to each other and to the edge—even as their grip fails and they fall, again, together, they can't look down.