#also we've Officially passed the halfway mark I'm screaming this is Wild lmao

[echoes-of-realities]

be my fire in the cold (and I'll be waiting by the mistletoe) - 13/25

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[From the Start] // [Fanfiction] // [ao3]

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Chapter Summary: Brittany brings Santana a picnic brunch; Santana marvels at how exactly someone as amazing as Brittany even exists.

Chapter 13: but no one is leaving presents tonight

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Santana wakes up feeling exhausted and heavy.

Her apartment is empty and cold as she stumbles out of bed, wrapping the knitted afghan on her couch around her shoulders as she heads to the kitchen to fumble with the Keurig. The scent of coffee fills her tiny apartment, the Keurig gurgling as it chugs away. The time on the stove reads 7:17 and, despite the fact that usually she would never be awake this early unless absolutely necessary, she dreads the thought of trying to go back to sleep. While her coffee brews she heads to the bathroom and quickly brushes her teeth, staring at her reflection for a long moment after she spits the toothpaste out. Her hair is limp and tangled and the bags under her eyes have only grown darker from tossing and turning all night. She avoids looking in the mirror while she washes her face and brushes her hair out until she can pull it into a slightly lopsided bun.

Her coffee is finished by the time she makes it back to the kitchen, the cold tile freezing on her bare feet, and she mechanically stirs in some creamer and sugar before making her way to the living room and curling into her favourite corner of her couch. She aimlessly flips through television channels, resolutely avoiding anything that is only playing cheesy Christmas movies, too tired to get the other remote and turn on Netflix. She sips her coffee and only watches shows in two minute intervals before she gets bored, nothing able to hold her attention for too long.

It’s only barely eight when her phone buzzes against her thigh and sends a jolt through her whole body in shock.

It’s Brittany, because of course it’s Brittany, and despite everything, a smile tugs at her lips as she takes in the contact photo of Brittany making a goofy face at the camera, her blue eyes sparkling and her smile wide and her freckles in stark contrast to her creamy skin. Hi, the text reads.

Santana carefully balances her coffee mug on her stomach and thighs, her knees drawn up towards her chest, creating a small and precarious shelf for her drink. Hi, she responds, You’re up early.

Well Mercedes started her serenading of xmas songs early so, Brittany answers, and Santana can practically see her slightly sheepish shrug and grin in the words, How are you?

Santana stares blankly at her phone for a long moment, because that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

Surprisingly, she doesn’t feel as lonely or empty as she usually does the day before the fourteenth, and she kind of has a feeling that it might be because of Brittany. Mike and Tina have always been there for her in whatever way she needed, but Santana has always struggled with actually letting them be there for her, and yet somehow Brittany had squeezed past walls Santana hadn’t even really realized were there, creeping into her heart until she was breaking down in Brittany’s arms without a hint of embarrassment.

Yesterday night after the show was surprisingly cathartic, and she hadn’t felt nearly as drained and forlorn and embarrassed and alone as she usually did after breaking down. She felt tired, sure, but something about Brittany’s arms around her and her steady heartbeat against her cheek made Santana feel so safe and protected that it had soothed her almost instantly; the fact that she stayed cuddled into Brittany, letting her rub comforting circles into the tension in her back, until the security guard was clearing the building later that night certainly didn’t hurt.

She should probably feel embarrassed, but she wasn’t lying when she told Tina that she likes who she is around Brittany. And she’s also kind of really grateful that she didn’t scare Brittany away or anything, that Brittany seems to want to be around her even when she’s at her worst, if the fact that Brittany refused to leave her side until they were in an Uber and Santana was insisting that she would be fine by herself for the night is anything to go by.

Her phone buzzes in her hands and startles her out of her thoughts. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, Brittany texts, I totally get that.

Sorry no it’s fine, Santana answers, just got distracted. I feel better than yesterday but I just want this week to be over.

That really sucks, but glad you’re feeling a little better. Santana watches Brittany type for long time, the three dots appearing and disappearing, until she finally asks, Do you wanna get breakfast somewhere?

Despite the fact that she’s had no appetite since Tuesday evening, her stomach gurgles a little at the thought of food; but the idea of showering and leaving the apartment before she has to go to the theatre is not appealing at all. I’d love to but I don’t really wanna go out in public tbh.

There’s another long stretch of Brittany typing, and Santana patiently waits, sipping on her long-cold coffee. Brunch picnic at your apartment? Brittany finally asks, I’ll bring the food and coffee if you manage to find a blanket? She adds a smiley face at the end and Santana finds one curling her lips in response.

That sounds fun, Santana answers.

Awesome! Brittany responds, and Santana so wishes she could see what is probably an adorably excited smile on her face, See you around 11?

Santana agrees and finishes the last sip of her coffee, wincing as the combination of the cold and the coffee grinds from her dying Keurig makes it taste weirdly sharp, almost alcoholic. She putters around her apartment for a while, tidying up even though there’s not much of a mess; she’s not necessarily a neat person, but being at the theatre for the majority of her waking hours leaves less time for her to make a mess at home. She finds an old throw blanket in the linen closet that smells stale and vaguely of moth balls despite the fact that she’s pretty she’s never had moth balls in this apartment before, and takes it to the living room. She turns the coffee table on a ninety degree angle from where it usually sits so it rests flush against the couch on its short end before she spreads the blanket over the carpet in front of the couch, flipping the corners back flat against the floor with her toe. It’s only nine thirty by the time she’s done, so she finally convinces herself to have a hot shower because, despite her lack of energy or desire to do so, she knows it will make her feel better.

She debates by her closet for a long while before shrugging and settling on some sweats and a hoodie from her college days; it’s not like she’s trying to impress Brittany right now, because not only has Brittany held her while she kinda fell apart, but also because Brittany usually sees her frazzled and dressed in old ratty jeans and a black t-shirt basically every day of the week, so this is barely even a step down from that.

It’s 10:42 when someone buzzes her apartment, and she quickly crosses her living room to answer it and let Brittany in. It feels like minutes rather than seconds until there’s a knock on her door, and she opens it to find Brittany with her hands full of food and drinks. She’s dressed in sweats too, her thicker winter jacket zipped up to her chin and her knitted hut tugged a little too low over her forehead like always, a soft smile playing on her lips.

“Hi,” she breathes.

“Hey,” Santana quickly reaches forwards to grab the tray of drinks from Brittany so she doesn’t look as off balanced, stepping back to let her in, “You’re early.”

Brittany flusters for a moment before she manages to recover and smirk at Santana. “And you’re ready anyways.”

Santana grins and shrugs, waiting a moment for Brittany to kick off her sneakers by the door before leading Brittany back through her apartment and into her living room. She sets the tray of warm drinks down on the coffee table before lowering herself with a small groan; there’s already napkins and cutlery on the table because she was too antsy to sit still earlier.

Brittany drops the bags on the coffee table before lowering herself down too. There’s far more than a couple feet of space on the blanket, but she elects to sit close enough to Santana that that their shoulders press together. Santana smiles at her lap for a moment before glancing at Brittany out of the corner of her eye, finding her smiling softly as pink splotches her cheeks a little. She’s so cute that it takes a moment for Santana to snap out of her daze enough to realize she’s kind of been staring at Brittany for a while, and so she quickly turns to the coffee table to distribute the drinks and napkins and cutlery and ignores the warm flush that starts in her stomach and curls up to her cheeks.

“Where’d you go?” she asks.

Brittany shrugs a little and ducks her head down, and when Santana glances at her, her cheeks are more pink than creamy and, this close, Santana can see how her blush almost completely obscures her freckles. “Just that place you and Mike and Tina always go to.”

Santana furrows her brow, but now that Brittany mentions it, she realizes that the scent filling her apartment is achingly familiar. “They don’t do takeout or delivery though,” she says in confusion.

Brittany bobs her head in a slight nod and smiles a little. “I may have sweet talked that waitress who always teases you guys, just a little bit,” she says, holding her hand up until her thumb and forefinger are barely a millimetre apart.

“Britt,” Santana sighs, and not for the first time she wonders how someone as amazing as Brittany even exists, “you didn’t have to.”

“I know but—” Brittany shrugs again and fidgets with a slightly unraveled string on the right knee of her sweats, “I wanted to.”

Santana just smiles at her for a long moment before she reaches out and takes Brittany’s free hand, gently squeezing it until Brittany’s blue eyes meet hers. “Thank you,” she murmurs.

Brittany’s face creases in a bright smile, her cheeks scrunching her eyes up until they’re catlike and sparkling and the most beautiful thing Santana’s ever seen. “You’re welcome,” she whispers. “I got the Sunshine Special for us, like usual, but I had to get coffee somewhere else since, you know, they don’t do takeout so they didn’t have any disposable coffee cups.”

Santana shakes her head a little and gives Brittany a slightly lopsided smile. “I know I’ve said it before but you’re something else, Britt.”

Brittany shrugs and twists her wrist just a little until her fingers catch around Santana’s and tangle. “I just like making you smile,” she says easily.

Santana sucks in a sharp breath and has to fight every nerve in her body from leaning forward and kissing the hell out of Brittany. It’s not that she doesn’t want to, it’s just bad timing; she doesn’t want to kiss Brittany with the anniversary of her mom’s death hanging over her head. She wants it to be something that’s just theirs, so instead she just squeezes Brittany’s hand in hers before moving to stand. “I should grab some plates too.”

Brittany lets out a slow breath and nods easily. Santana smiles at Brittany making herself at home, leaned against the couch and stuck in place by the spread of their picnic around her. She quickly escapes to the kitchen before she is completely frozen by how endearing Brittany is, and grabs a couple plates from her cupboard. She also grabs the peanut butter from the next cupboard, debating how well she can carry everything for a moment before relenting and grabbing the syrup and ketchup bottle from the fridge, since she’s noticed Brittany likes it on her hash browns and eggs. She hip-checks the fridge door closed and balances everything carefully before returning to the living room.

Brittany’s no longer trapped in her nest of food and napkins and cutlery, but standing with her back to Santana and the rest of the living room. Santana silently places everything down on the blanket before moving to see what Brittany’s looking at. She’s standing between the window and the television, where there’s a small shelving unit build into the wall. It’s where Santana keeps most of her framed pictures, her college diploma, a couple of old birthday cards from her mom and Mike and Tina, and her mom’s old knickknacks that she’d had for long before Santana was born.

Santana doesn’t have to see where exactly Brittany’s looking to know what’s caught her attention; the five framed picture, her favourite ones, sitting just below Brittany’s eye level and just above her own.

The first one is of her mom in the hospital mere moments after Santana was born; she’s exhausted and her hair sticks to her face in a dark sweaty mess, but it’s the picture that Santana’s always stared at the most over the past couple years, because as Santana’s gotten older she’s seen herself in her mom at the same age more and more, in their hair and in their smiles and, mostly, in their eyes.

The next picture is of her mom and herself a week before her first day of junior year in New York; her hair is in wild curls and a baseball cap is pulled low over her eyes, and she’s hanging off her mom, who’s a little older and whose laugh lines are a little deeper than they were sixteen years ago. They both look absolutely exhausted, but elated, as they stand in an empty apartment in Washington Heights, the apartment that would be home until her mom died, each holding a pair of keys up for the camera with proud smiles.

The middle picture is of a slightly younger Tina and Mike and her, Tina and Mike dressed in their costumes from whatever show they were doing and Santana in all black, a headset around her neck; Mike’s hair hangs messily into his eyes from before Tina and her convinced him to cut it at least a little bit shorter, Tina has streaks of electric blue peaking out from under the ridiculous hat her character wore, and Santana’s hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her favourite part of the picture is the smudge of tan in the bottom right corner that obscures all of Santana’s body and most of Tina’s from about the shoulders down, because she’ll never forget the look on her mom’s face when the pictures were developed and she realized that her thumb was featured in most of the pictures she took of their third year spring semester’s show.

The next one is Santana and her mom, her laugh lines even deeper as she kisses Santana firmly on the cheek, just a hint of the Stephen Sondheim Theatre behind them; Santana’s beaming at the camera because it was her first official assistant stage manager job at a real theatre, a show she worked on for its short three week run over summer break between her third and fourth year. Her mom’s expression is overflowing with adoration and pride even though only the hinge of her jaw, her pursed lips, her squished nose, and her dark eyelashes are visible to the camera.

The last picture is of Santana and her mom in her mom’s dining room, in the middle of summer at her apartment in Washington Heights, their cheeks pressed together over a small, slightly amateur cake that Santana had baked and decorated herself; her mom is older and thinner in this picture, her cheekbones a little more pronounced and the dark circles under her eyes darker than ever before. Santana has her arms looped around her mom’s neck from behind, both of them smiling widely at the camera, their hair blending together into a wild mass of dark waves.

“That was a couple months before she died,” Santana says suddenly.

Brittany jolts and gasps, glancing over her shoulder to find Santana standing there, watching her study the pictures. Brittany looks embarrassed to have been caught snooping, her eyes wide and her toes tapping together, but Santana just smiles reassuringly at her. Brittany seems to search for words for a moment before she gives Santana a soft smile. “You have her eyes. And her smile.”

Santana’s smile wavers a little but her eyes are bright and delighted. “That’s what everyone always says,” she says proudly.

“You were a really cute baby too,” Brittany says, her attention turning back to the pictures. “You have, like, the tiniest ears ever.”

Santana crosses the living room to peer over Brittany’s shoulder at the picture of her as a newborn. “Mami always told me I was born with hair on my ears like a monkey,” she says with a laugh, “but I think she was mostly just messing with me.”

“Well you’re the tiniest and cutest baby I’ve ever seen,” Brittany declares, and Santana ducks her head as heat rushes to her cheeks.

“I was about a month early,” Santana explains, “All developed, just pint sized.”

Brittany subtly straightens up to her full height and leans her elbow on Santana’s shoulder, grinning widely down at her. “You’re still pint sized,” she teases.

Santana laughs and swats at Brittany’s stomach with a small eye roll. “Oh, shut up,” she complains, “Let’s eat before the food gets cold.”

Brittany grins and bounces over to the blanket, her limbs collapsing in that careless grace of hers as she sits. Santana sits beside her and passes her a plate as they quietly start dish up their food, Santana handing Brittany the ketchup and then the syrup. She’s surprised to find that the food is still hot and not at all soggy and her coffee is perfect, like it always is when Brittany gets it, and Santana wonders how exactly Brittany manages to be, like, incredibly perfect all the time.

“Can I ask you something?” Brittany says suddenly.

Santana swallows her mouthful of eggs and nods, taking a quick sip of her coffee. “Course.”

“Was your mom’s death— Was it sudden?”

Santana takes another sip of her coffee debating; it’s surprisingly not as hard as she thought it would be to talk about this with Brittany, who gives Santana her full attention, eyes wide and steady on her own. “For me it was. But it wasn’t for her. She knew for months before she told me and I was busy working on some dumb show and she was—” she lets out a shuddering breath. “She didn’t tell me until it was too late.”

Brittany nods and picks at her hash browns before glancing back up at Santana with a small smile. “Tell me about her,” she says.

Santana stares at Brittany for a long moment before she smiles softly, shifting a little until their knees brush. Mike and Tina already knew her mom really well all throughout their college years since she was always inviting them over to feed the three of them and make sure they didn’t starve while on a diet of ramen cups and microwaveable frozen meals, so she’s never had to tell them about her, and she’s never gotten close enough with anyone else to even want to tell them about her mom. But with Brittany’s soft blue eyes on hers, attentive and fond and understanding, she’s actually eager to tell Brittany about the woman who raised her. Even with Mike and Tina it gets too painful sometimes to talk about her mom, and they completely respect that and she kind of really loves them for it, but for possibly the first time in four years she actually really wants to gush about her mom. “She really liked to freak other parents out with crazy stories about emerg,” she starts, “I was the coolest kid in grade one because when she volunteered in our classroom she always told the scariest and most gruesome Halloween stories, and only her and I knew that they weren’t made up or anything. It was like we had our own little secret.”

///

Santana wakes up to fingers slowly trailing over her arm, actually feeling warm and well rested and relaxed for the first time since Tuesday when she realized how close it was to the anniversary of mom’s death.

It takes her a moment longer than it should to realize that she’s curled up into Brittany’s side, her head tucked against Brittany’s shoulder and neck and Brittany’s arm draped around her own shoulders, fingertips dancing across her arm with slowly increasing pressure. She mumbles something, still half-asleep and more comfortable than she’s ever been, and nuzzles closer to Brittany.

“Come on, sleepy head,” Brittany murmurs, and Santana can hear the smile in her voice, “You’ve gotta wake up soon.”

“Time is’t?” she croaks. Brittany’s warm and comfortable under her, and she feels no inclination to move, like, ever.

“Like one,” Brittany says, “I figured you probably wanna get ready before we have to be at the theatre. You’ve been sleeping for about an hour. And you’ve really gotta finish that story about your mom helping you win a snowball fight since you feel asleep right in the middle of it.”

Santana grunts in response, absentminded and content, her limbs still heavy with sleep and comfort. Brittany’s fingers trailing over her arm, even through the thick fabric of her hoodie, feels perfect and she’s dreading going to the theatre today because that means she’ll have to actually move from where she is right now.

“You’re cute when you sleep,” Brittany whispers.

Santana cracks one eye open and glances around her living room. Brittany’s legs are spread out in front of them, Santana’s knees curled over her thighs, and they’re sitting slung at an angle against the couch, Brittany’s head resting atop Santana’s head and the couch cushion. Santana has one hand tangled in Brittany’s sweater, her other one squished between them and painfully tingling as it starts wakes up. “Your butt must be numb,” Santana grumbles, only half of her filter actually working.

Brittany laughs, shaking both of them with the force of it, but not enough to dislodge Santana from her side. “A little,” she agrees, “But it was so worth it.”

Santana hums and lets her eyes close again and just rests there for a long moment, Brittany’s fingers still dancing and tapping all along her arm, Santana’s body moving gently with Brittany’s soft breathing. “We should do this more often,” Santana finally mumbles.

“What, picnics in your living room?”

“Cuddling,” Santana corrects, and she can feel the hitch in Brittany’s breathing jolt their bodies a little. Santana hesitates for a long moment before turning her head slightly and pressing a soft kiss to Brittany’s collarbone through the fabric of her shirt. Brittany’s fingers dig in a little at the move and Santana’s pretty sure Brittany stops breathing entirely for a moment. “Thanks, for this morning,” she murmurs.

“Yeah,” Brittany says distractedly, and Santana can hear the dreamy daze in her voice, “We totally should.”

Santana just grins and nuzzles closer, content to stay exactly where she is until they absolutely have to get moving lest they be late.

#brittana #brittany pierce #santana lopez #glee #brittana fanfiction #glee fanfiction #my writing #story: be my fire in the cold (and I'll be waiting by the mistletoe) #also we've Officially passed the halfway mark I'm screaming this is Wild lmao