Work Text:
Title: Off the Hook
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Through 3x16.
Summary: Post Glee-ver fix-it fic, in which Santana isn't letting Brittany off that easily.
”You’re not off the hook, you know.” Santana’s tone is almost conversational; if Brittany didn’t know her so well, she might even think her girlfriend was kidding. But this is Santana, fresh off a backed-into-an-unpleasant corner situation. Santana has never liked being cornered.
Except under particularly bedroomy circumstances.
“What do you mean?” Playing dumb is the best shot she’s got at getting out of this. It’s easy enough. Nobody expects better from her than dumb anyway.
Nobody except Santana.
She really should have thought this through a bit better.
“2 Girls, 1 Cat,” Santana muses, too breezily. The acceptance letter in her left hand flutters. Brittany pastes a smile onto her lips, as charming as she knows how to be.
“Catchy, right?”
“Mm.” Dark eyes narrow, Santana’s jawline tightening beneath the stuttering hall lights. “I’d phrase that a bit differently.”
Brittany wouldn’t, mostly because it totally is catchy. Like pop songs that taste like melting candy on her tongue, or the beat of Santana’s bound fists pulling at her headboard. Catchy is key to the whole plan.
But she can sort of see why Santana wouldn’t be a fan of that.
“I’m just saying,” she says cheerfully—too cheerfully, because it’s sort of fun to watch Santana’s head spin that way—“you got what you wanted, right?”
“What I thought I wanted,” Santana corrects, speaking through her teeth. It’s the same tone she uses while trying to talk Brittany through really hard stuff for homework, like dividing fractions, or why some words in Spanish are boys and some are girls. The tone she uses when she’s fighting really, really hard not to be angry, the way she’d be with anyone who isn’t Brittany.
Santana is special with Brittany, and always has been. It’s only fair, then, that Brittany be special right back.
Even if it makes Santana kind of purple in the face.
“You wanted to be famous,” Brittany reminds her sweetly, pecking a kiss against Santana’s too-warm cheek. Her girlfriend’s brow furrows.
“You don’t honestly think I’m buying that line.”
“What line?” Brittany gives a delicate little spin to the hand she’s holding, forcing Santana into a mid-hallway twirl. She grins as Santana stumbles back into stride, huffing.
“Britt.”
“What?” she teases right back. Santana throws back her head with a growl and screeches to a stop beside their lockers.
“Seriously, babe. Don’t get me wrong, I really love you for the whole believing in me deal, but—come on. You released our sex tape.”
“Did I?” Brittany asks, pitching her voice intentionally higher than usual. Santana scowls.
“Britt, it’s a little late to take that one back. The whole school’s seen it.”
“Did they?” she asks, even higher this time. Santana’s eyebrows jump, her hand stalling against her locker door.
“…Brittany.”
“What?” The false innocence thing is just too fun. Too fun, and too hard to drop when Santana’s glaring at her with that perfectly beautiful mix of confusion and rage.
“Brittany.”
“Santana.” This time, she drops the pitch as deep as she can go. Deeper, she thinks, than stupid Finn can go on his best day. She should try a song like this sometime.
“Dammit, Brittany.” Santana pauses, sucking in a breath and prying the locker open. Patiently, grinning, Brittany waits for her to steady herself. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Brittany answers honestly. She wraps her arms around Santana’s waist, pulling gently until the full weight of her tense body is against Brittany’s chest. “Nothing at all.”
“You—” The noise Santana makes is hilariously choked, like there are too many separate words scrambling against one another, all trying to escape at once. “Look, either you released our sex tape, or—”
Eyebrow arched, Brittany smirks at their reflection in the locker mirror. “Or?”
“Or…” It’s dawning on her now, the color draining from her cheeks. Santana’s lips purse uncomfortably, her head tilting in that grand old I’m confused, help gesture. “You didn’t.”
Brittany shrugs, pressing her mouth warmly against the side of Santana’s throat. Her arms squeeze lightly, urging Santana’s tight-strung bones to give a little against her body.
“You little—you sneaky little—” Santana’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, her gaze fixed on the tiny window of glass. Brittany raises both eyebrows playfully, her tongue swiping a thin stroke to the ridge of Santana’s shoulder. Even in the mirror, warped by dollar-store glass, they’re beautiful together. She’s starting to think maybe actually doing the deed wouldn’t have been so awful.
But then, if she had done it, she wouldn’t have been rewarded with this glorious moment.
“You never leaked it,” Santana blurts at last, and then swears a blue streak so bright, it prompts Figgins to poke his head around the corner.
“Teen lesbians!”
Santana pointedly ignores him, craning her neck to look Brittany in the eye. “You never leaked the goddamn tape!”
The last time Brittany grinned like this, Lord T had just baked his finest round of eclairs.
“But how—” Santana sputters. Brittany rewards her with a lingering kiss to the temple.
“Work it out, hot stuff.”
“Everyone was talking about it,” Santana fumbles slowly. “Everyone. Artie…that greasy-ass kid…the Cheerios—”
“And?” Brittany prompts. She’s rocking them both from side to side now, beaming with the blinding force of her own brilliance. The bull testicle thing was rich, but this. This was the part that made the whole plan worth it.
Santana is so cute when she’s thwarted.
“You told them to do it,” Santana says dumbly, sagging in Brittany’s arms. “You got everyone to just—to fake it?”
“What can I say? The people listen to their president.” Brittany affects a haughty accent, head held high. The whole effect is sort of spoiled by the grin she can’t hide away, her tongue poking through her teeth, but she figures she’s earned that much.
The more she thinks about it, the more impressed she really is with herself. After all, a prank like this—a prank that not only tricked Santana (who is, Brittany knows without a doubt, the smartest person she knows), but actually tricked her into paying attention to her own future—isn’t easy to come by. All of the pieces need to fall into place just right. And with even Coach Sylvester willing to play her part…
“You mad?” Brittany asks, because Santana’s mouth has just sort of been hanging open like that for almost a whole minute now. Her girlfriend’s head twitches slightly, like she has lost all control over her body. Just to be on the safe side, Brittany shifts her grasp, hanging on a little tighter.
“I’m sorry if you’re mad,” she goes on, since Santana seems incapable of forming words. “But I really wanted to help, you know? And since you went all diva about the famous thing, I figured…”
“I didn’t go diva,” Santana sputters. Brittany laughs, nuzzling against her hair.
“You went a little diva.”
Santana has the grace to look slightly less indignant. She closes a hand around Brittany’s wrist, the acceptance letter still resting against her side.
“I’m sorry if I came off stupid.”
“Not stupid,” Brittany corrects. “Just…you’re better than that, you know. Than the reality show crap, or the Snooki stuff. You’re not a Kardashian. You’re Santana. You’re the baddest ass girl I know, with the sexiest voice, and the smartest…smarts. You could do anything you wanted.”
Santana’s head tilts back against her shoulder, eyes uncertain. “You think so?”
“Totally.” Brittany’s grinning again. Something about the way Santana looks at her, like her opinion really counts for something, always makes her smile like a crazy person. Santana’s great at making her smile, period.
Biting her lip, looking almost shy, Santana takes in a breath and then says, softly, “You know…being a lawyer might not be a totally crappy idea.”
“You’d look super hot in a suit,” Brittany agrees, bending Santana into a gentle dip. Santana squeals, mashing the letter against Brittany’s bicep in her haste to hold on tight.
“No promises!” she laughs, even as Brittany ducks down to nibble at her neck again. “It’s just an idea.”
“It’s a great idea,” Brittany murmurs, her heart feeling fuller than she can remember. “My wife, the lawyer.”
Santana’s breath catches audibly, her fingers flexing against Brittany’s arm. “Wife?”
“Hey, I can have dreams, too,” Brittany teases. Santana’s chest swells in another giddy burst of laughter, and Brittany spins her daringly back to her feet, pinning her carefully against the lockers. “I love you.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” Santana says breathlessly, her gaze coy. Brittany grins, brushing the tip of her nose against the topmost edge of Santana’s lip.
“You’re crazy,” she feels Santana breathe out, just before their mouths meet, warm and open, as welcome as her front door. She can hear the far-away wolf whistles, the scandalized, Teen lesbians! chiming out from the next hall over. It doesn’t matter. Let them look. They don’t know a thing about them.
Her girl is going to burn brighter than every person in this hall—and Brittany can’t wait to be there for every heated second.