“God, San, can you stop being a horndog for, like, five seconds?”
Santana’s eyes shot up from where they rested on Brittany’s cleavage, wide with guilt and a hint of wonderment, like she couldn’t believe Brittany actually existed.
“What?” Santana asked dumbly, her fingers tangled in front of her in a cute nervous thing she often did around her girlfriend.
Brittany rolled her eyes in response, but inside she was grinning like a stupid idiot. God, did Santana even know what she did to her? It’s like everything good in the world packed itself into her heart and now she’s walking around with the weight of it tugging at her, except she didn’t mind carrying it around if it meant she would always feel this happy.
“Santana,” she said, trying to invoke a strict tone but probably sounding anything but, “I’m trying to organize these stupid binders for school but now all I can think about is making sweet lady love to you. So can you stop staring at me like that?”
Santana giggled, her cheeks bunching up in a way Brittany will always find the most beautiful.
“Well I’m sorry, but it’s pretty hard when all you’re wearing is a tank top and underwear.”
Brittany sighed dramatically. “You’re the one who decided to steal the only pair of sweatpants that doesn’t have Lord Tubbington hair on them.”
Santana smirked, tilting her head sideways. “Do you want them back? ‘Cuz I can take them off-“
“No!” Brittany cut in before Santana could do just that and ruin her back-to-school planning. “Just pass me the loose-leaf. Please?”
“Britt, we’ve been at this for an hour. Can we please take a break? Watch a little Sweet Valley High?”
“You don’t even like that show.” Brittany smiled despite herself because, God, how could she resist anything Santana asked of her when she’s looking that cute?
“Yeah, well, I mostly suggested it so we could stop paying attention ten minutes into the episode and make out,” Santana said, and Brittany just laughed.
This had become an everyday thing for them as soon as they jumped from “friends who like each other” to “girlfriends” in the beginning of June. Just sitting in Brittany’s house, sometimes Santana’s, and being. Stealing kisses behind bedroom doors, stealing more than kisses during sleepovers. Watching the way their love grew and stretched each day, making room for more of it, if that’s possible.
If Brittany thought she loved Santana last year, from afar, it was nothing compared to loving Santana and knowing she loved her back just as much.
They ended up cuddled on Brittany’s bed as they watched the show, except neither of them were watching, as predicted. They didn’t even make out- they just laid there and held each other, Brittany’s legs draped over Santana’s, their hands linked together between them. Brittany tried to ignore the quiet, all-encompassing pounding of her heart, but when she felt Santana’s beat the same, she just let herself succumb to her feelings. Her loving Santana feelings.
“San?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you scared to go back to school?” Brittany asked, her fingers slowly tracing over Santana's collarbone. She reveled in the softness of her skin, circling the little birthmark above her breastbone.
Santana took a sharp inhale before answering. “A little bit, yeah.”
“Is that why you didn’t wanna get our stuff ready?”
A beat.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to tell people, you know,” Brittany murmured. She looked up to Santana’s face and was met by a delicate, questioning look. A look her girlfriend often gave her when she didn’t know what to say or how to say it.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, because I really do,” Santana said. “But I don’t think I’m ready to be the next Kurt.”
Brittany raised her eyebrows. “But you don’t wear those hideous scarves every day like he does. And you’re not intolerable to be around.”
Santana huffed out a laugh against Brittany’s neck. “I meant, I don’t wanna go to school every day and get slushied or thrown into garbage cans. Do you know how many people in our school live to see gay people cry? Like, it’s their numero uno hobby.”
“But you’re you,” Brittany said.“You’d kill them with your vicious, vicious words.” She was admittedly a little concerned about how Mckinley would react to them, as them. Not just SantanaandBrittany, but the SantanaandBrittany who are so in love with each other they can’t stand it sometimes.
She tried to look at them through other people’s eyes, a third-person lense, but all she could see was happy. Santana’s huge smile she wears when Brittany says something ridiculous. The way they grab onto each other when they laugh, or when they cry, or when they do anything that requires a gesture that screams I adore you in every possible way.
Brittany knew that senior year would bring challenges and new Glee club tributes to dead celebrities, but she never, ever questioned their relationship, because she knew Santana was in this for the long-haul the moment she took her hand under the napkin.
“You’re brave, San,” Brittany said, grabbing her girlfriend’s face in her hands, making sure she was listening. “Braver than anyone else I know, even Kurt. You’re brave and you’re so special and anyone who can’t get that through their thick skull doesn’t deserve you.” She took a deep breath, watching as Santana’s expression of worry blossomed into something that looked a lot like hope.
“Yeah?” Santana whispered, her voice a thin layer of terrified and elated all at once. Brittany just smiled softly and nodded, never breaking her gaze away from Santana.
“Yeah. I think, that when we go back and our friends see all the little ways you’ve changed this summer, they’ll think so, too.”
She wasn’t prepared for the way Santana pounced on her, connecting their lips in life-affirming kiss that didn’t last long enough before Santana pulled away, her eyes melted and gooey like the ice cream cone they shared for lunch.
“You’re my favorite person in the whole world and I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I’m so glad I have you,” Santana rushed out all at once.
Brittany felt dizzy, but the good kind of dizzy that comes with being in love, the kind that felt like she was nose-diving out of the air and the only thing there to catch her was Santana.
“I am pretty great,” she joked, but then she pulled her girlfriend down into another kiss and held her there, all wrapped up in their little cocoon of love and warmth and safety. “You are, too, please never forget that, okay?”
Santana bit her slightly swollen lip and pressed another quick peck on her cheek.
“For you,” she said, “I’ll try.”