Bring Me Home
Disclaimer: I don't own it
Chapter 7: And Everybody Bleeds This Way
This fic started out as a Brittana story but Faberry has quickly taken over, so I've decided to post it under Rachel/Quinn on . And for those of you who have inquired, yes I have relocated Detective Jane Rizzoli for this story, she is awesome and rounds out the top three 'Hot Cops' hall of fame with Detectives Kate Beckett and Olivia Benson. But alas, Jane is merely on loan and will be returned to Dr. Isles shortly.
The thing that sucks most about the Summer, besides Lima's unbearable heat waves, who the hell knew it could actually break 100 degrees in fucking Ohio?, is that there is always someone hanging around her house. Sure her parents both work full time jobs so they're gone most of the day but Santana's ass-wipe brother Pedro, has magically acquired like a dozen friends and the little demons have designated the Lopez's residence their summer party hub.
Santana had big plans to spend Brittany's day off lounging in bed, only getting up to do pesky things like use the bathroom or make peanut butter and fluff sandwiches to refuel their lovemaking. Leave it to Pedro to toss a wrench in her carefully thought out plans. By the fourth time Pedro knocked on her closed bedroom door, Santana was contemplating fratricide, had it not been for Brittany's quick thinking and tying the Latina to her bedpost, she's almost certain that they would be sharing a cell in the county lockup.
When Carlotta Lopez finally arrived home at 3:32 pm, Santana had her overnight bag already packed and practically sprinted across the room to get to the exit, dragging an amused Brittany behind her.
Brittany's house was always so much better suited to have sex at anyway. Her parents were almost always gone and even when they were home, Brittany's bedroom is on the third floor, far removed from her parents room so they could generally be as loud as they wanted.
Picking up right where the pair left off, Santana wastes no time stripping Brittany down and climbing under the colorful unicorn sheets. They continue to kiss, desire spreading through her body like wild fire. Santana's mouth tracing a torturous path down the blonde's trembling body. Digging her heels deeper into the plush pillow top mattress, Brittany throws her head back emitting a low growl as Santana's tongue ruthlessly swipes at her core. Her hips are thrusting off of the bed so Santana wraps a hand around her milky thigh to hold the girl in place. Brittany threads her fingers into luxurious black tresses, her nails scraping against Santana's scalp urging her tongue in as far as it can go.
Even though they are safely tucked away in Brittany's refurbished attic bedroom, Santana's grateful that Brittany's folks are staying overnight in Cleveland visiting relatives. She knows she should at least try to quiet her girl's moaning so as not to alert Brittany's thirteen year old sister to what they're doing, but Brittany's calling out her name, begging for more and Santana loses any and all thoughts that don't include getting the blond off.
Two hours later, they collapse in an exhausted boneless heap of limbs, gasping for breath and waiting for the room to stop spinning. Santana smiles, brushing a strand of hair off of Brittany's sweaty forehead and decides that now it the perfect moment.
"I have a surprise for you." reaching over the side of the bed, Santana rummages through her purse and produces a small bright blue box with a shiny silver bow.
Brittany cautiously accepts the box at Santana's insistence, tugging at the bow she lifts the lid off to reveal two metal objects carefully perched on a cushion of cotton.
"They're um…keys?" Brittany scrunches her nose in confusion.
"Not just any keys. Rachel mailed me the keys to our apartment yesterday and the first thing I did was go to Home Depot to make a copy." Santana grins at her girl.
"Oh, well that's a good idea, do you remember when I used to lose my keys all of the time. My dad even found them on top of the roof once," she shakes her head, laughing at her sometimes ditzy behavior, "I still don't know how they got up there."
"Idiot Puck threw them up there to try to scare your cat down but no, these aren't a spare set. These are your keys to our apartment in New York." Santana carefully enounces, putting a heavy emphasis on those particular pronouns. "I already talked with Rach and she said it was cool, actually she gave some long winded speech about maintaining a healthy monogamous relationship, that I stopped listening to halfway through but she's cool with you moving in."
"You want me to move to New York with you? S…" Brittany sighs dolefully.
"This is what I wanted before, back in high school." Santana earnestly pushes forward. She never got the chance to have this talk with Brittany before and all of the feelings that had been building up inside of her since that day in the library were finally seeping through. "When I applied to Columbia you were suppose to go to college there too. Well not Columbia but I checked out a bunch of schools in the area, I had it all figured out but then…"
"But then we broke up because you didn't want to tell people we were dating."
"Things are different now Britt, Rachel and I have our own apartment, you can move in with us. You're gonna love New York, it's big and noisy, there's plenty of clothing stores and funky little boutiques, you'll find a job in no time. The best part about it is that we can be together, really together walking down the streets holding hands, kissing in the middle of Washington Square Park and nobody cares. No one really gives a shit Brittany it's like…like being free. We can finally live the life we always wanted, far away from fucking Lima."
It's a beautiful picture she's painting and it's almost enough to convince Brittany to pack her bags right this second but then reality sneaks back in and she's forced to face the veracity of her existence.
"I never said that, it was you and Quinn and Puck and Rachel that was always so desperate to leave Lima, not me. This is where we grew up San, this is where my family lives, it's where I'm gonna raise a family one day."
"How can you possibly…Brittany, Everyone wants to leave Lima." Santana stresses.
"If that were true then no one would live here, would they?"
"Don't do that weird Brittany philosophical shit with me! I know you, I've always known you Britt, you don't really want to stay here, I mean really. This town is so…you're scared okay. I get that I was scared too when I first left, I was alone and missing you like crazy and New York was just this huge cold city but then I met up with Rachel and we became tight and I found my footing after awhile." She closes her eyes, stamping down the awful memories of her first month at Columbia. "But you won't have to go through all of that cause you'll already have me. And Rachel lives there too and Puck thinks he lives there and I even got Quinn to agree to visit, so you see it'll be great. You just have to give us a try Britt, please you gotta try, for me baby. You didn't even give us a chance last time."
"Babe…I…my parents…" Brittany haltingly tries to explain but Santana plows on in her pitch.
"Is it money you're worried about? Well don't, Rachel and I both have part time work lined up for the fall and like I said, you'll find a job in no time and if you want, there are a ton of dance schools in the city. You can take a few classes or Hell maybe even teach a dance class, you're an amazing dancer. As a matter of fact, Rachel's grandmother was talking about the dance instructor at the Jewish Community Center in our neighborhood who was planning to leave soon. Bubby Tovah has pull with that crowd, she can get you a job, granted it'll be teaching a bunch of geezers how to do the foxtrot without breaking a hip but it's still work, right?"
"Stop! Stop planning my life for me, you always do that Santana." Brittany throws her hands up, completely exasperated with where this discussion is headed. "I'm not stupid, I won't get lost if you're not holding my hand when we cross the street, so just stop!"
"I'm …I've never thought or treated you like you're stupid, Brittany." Santana recoils, slightly hurt that Brittany would ever accuse her of such a thing. Maybe she has sheltered Britt too much from their peers hateful taunts over the years but not once has she ever thought those things about her friend. "I just…we had plans!"
"No S, you had plans, you decided we were leaving our home. You decided that Lima wasn't good enough for you. Did you ever stop to think that maybe this is where I'm suppose to be? Did you even ask me if I wanted to leave?"
"Brittany, I can't stay here, we can be together, anywhere but here." clasping Brittany's hands in her own, Santana stares into teary blue eyes, seeing the answer before the other girl speaks it. "I really can't believe you're pulling this shit again. I can't believe I…" she trails off, dropping Brittany's hand and rising from the bed to pace the room.
"We're not kids anymore, San. And anyway it's like you always said, 'Sex isn't dating'."
"Haha," Santana laughs bitterly as those words were carelessly tossed back in her face. She angrily stalks to the other side of Brittany's bed, snatching her clothes up off of the floor and pulling them on with jerky movements. She stumbles, almost taking a nosedive as she tries to cram her foot into her sneaker, the shoe's tongue impeding her foot from sliding in all the way. It's a little uncomfortable but it'll have to do for now, she'll fix it once she gets to her car. "you know what? Fuck it, I'm through! You can rot in this bum-fuck town for the rest of your life if that's what you really want. Just don't expect me to do the same," she's halfway out of the door then spins around to face a crestfallen looking Brittany for what may be the last time. Brittany looks at her with those sad wounded eyes that used to make Santana's chest ache and her temper explode when someone else caused the blond pain. But now, there's just this hollow throbbing where her heart used to be. "I tried to help you, now I'm just…I'm done."
Those final parting words and the deaden look in Santana's dark eyes are something that will relentlessly haunt Brittany for many years to come.
Signing the last autograph with a happy exclamation point and a parting wave, Rachel reaches into her purse for her phone. She gives goodbye kisses to the guys playing 'Moist' and 'Bad Horse' and just as she's about to text Jane to ask where they're meeting for a late dinner, the object in her hands begins to ring.
"Hey San, how…"
"My flight gets in at 2:15 a.m." Santana says without preamble. "can you pick me up from JFK?"
The sheer devastation in her friend's voice immediately has warning signals blaring in Rachel's head. Whatever is upsetting Santana, Rachel instinctively knows it has to do with the one thing in this world that brings the Latina so much joy as well as enough pain to crush her soul; Brittany. She hesitates for a minute, wanting to ask for the details so she can assess the damage and form a battle plan to help rebuild their broken relationship but then she hears the hitch in Santana's breathing through the phone and knows that the Latina is barely holding it together.
"Sure, I'll get my grandmother's car. Meet you at baggage claim?"
"Thanks Rach."
"Britt, what's going on?" Quinn asks in a stage whisper. The second Brittany opens the door she barges straight into the house gently depositing Sophia onto the couch so as not to wake the sleeping toddler. "I just got a call from Rachel, she said Santana is taking the red-eye back to New York. What the hell?"
"We broke up…again." Brittany quietly admits. Her puffy red eyes are planted firmly on the floor so she doesn't have to see the exasperated look on Quinn's face. "For good this time."
"But why, I mean I thought you two had worked everything out, S said she was fully committed to making it work this time so…"
"She wanted me to move with her to New York."
"Yeah, so…?"
"I can't just leave home Quinn." Brittany turns and heads into the kitchen with a very confused Quinn hot on her heels.
"No offense Britt but what exactly is tying you down here in Lima?"
"I thought you of all people would understand Q, I mean what would you do if Rachel asked you to drop everything and move to another state with her?"
"Wha," Quinn sputters in complete shock and an equal amount of excited fear, "why would Rachel ask me to move in with her. That's ridiculous!"
Brittany just rolls her eyes, if Quinn was happy playing the dumb blonde role when it came to her real feelings for the burgeoning Broadway star, then who was she to pull the curtains back and make Quinn face the truth?
"Look everyone knows that you and Santana are like made for each other. If I ever thought that true love existed then it would be what you guys have, as destructive and co-dependant as it may often appear." she mutters that last past under her breath but Brittany still heard her clearly. "Whatever, it works for you and it's worth fighting for Britt, so give me one good reason why you can't be together?"
"My mom is sick," the words bring on a fresh batch of tears and Brittany takes several deep breathes before plowing ahead, "there's something wrong with her heart. The doctors are talking about surgeries and she won't be able to work for a while. My dad needs me here, Quinn."
"Oh God Britt, why didn't you say anything sooner," Quinn immediately engulfs her friend in a hug, feeling like a total jackass for chewing the girl out over relationship issues when Brittany has real problems to deal with, "and why didn't you just tell S?"
"Cause she would have stayed, Santana hates it here. She would give up Columbia if I asked her to and I can't…" her voice finally cracks under all of this strain and she let's Quinn rub soothing circles on her back, desperately wishing that she were in someone else's comforting embrace.
"Whatever you need Britt, I'm right here, always."
I need Santana.
Rachel barely pulls her grandmother's Buick onto the 278 expressway before the first in a long line of gut wrenching sobs escape from Santana's throat. She's seen the Latina cry before, once when Sue Sylvester was so depressed that she cancelled Cheerleading right before Nationals. Once when glee club sang 'To Sir, With Love' to Schue and once when Brittany's cat died and the quirky blond made the club attend Mr. Mostly Mittens' funeral. But those tears were miniscule in comparison to what Rachel was now witnessing.
She nearly side-swipes three cars in her haste to make it to the highway's shoulder and after throwing the car in park, leans over to offer comfort to her friend. Seventeen minutes later and with no end to the wretched sobbing in sight, Rachel does the only thing she knows for certain that could possibly calm the miserable girl; singing.
Breathe in, breathe out,
Tell me all of your doubts,
And everybody bleeds this way,
Just the same
Breathe in, breathe out,
Move on and break down,
If everyone goes away I will stay
We push and pull,
And I fall down sometimes,
I'm not letting go,
You hold the other line.
Cause there is a light, in your eyes, in your eyes
Breathe in and Breathe out
Breathe in and Breathe out
Breathe in and Breathe out
A/N: sad I know, and it'll probably get worst before it gets better. The song is 'Breathe In, Breathe Out' by Mat Kearney. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, story alerted and just simply read this, sorry it's taken so long to post but I moved last week and between school starting and unpacking, I've been super exhausted!