In Which Life Falls Away (Brittana AU-Part 2/??)
I’m hesitant to say that this is a continuation of You’re My Weakness but I suppose it fits that way. So, what I’m trying to say I suppose is read YMW first and then read this one, or don’t, it’s up to you.
It isn’t our place per say, even though we’d picked the place together. You had insisted on that, and everyone knows it’s impossible to say no to you. I had wanted something small, one bedroom, out of the way and out of sight, perfect for staying under the radar, but you were having none of it. You had dragged me across the city at all hours of the day and night to look for places, but I loved it. I loved it because after we kicked the realtor out into the hallway you’d take my hand and lead me around the apartment.
“Come on San.” You’d say, slipping your hand into mine and pressing a kiss to my temple.
We’d wander into the living room and you’d drag us to the spot where the couch would be “The TV would be over there.” You would explain, pointing across from us to the perfect spot along the wall “Gotta have a TV” you’d say, grinning at me “we’ve got to many TV shows between us to watch them all online.”
And we both know that on those rare occasions when I’m home and a show is on, the night is spent cuddling in bed and watching it, fangirling over it together “I think we should paint this room.” You’d suggest and I would nod accordingly, agreeing that this room (and most of the others would need color).
We would carry on like this for a while, kitchen next, then the bathroom, the guest room and lastly, the bedroom. This was the hardest room for you, and for me, because it was the strongest reminder of how often I left you. But you’d step in the room and squeeze my hand tighter and whisper “This would be our favorite place.”
You said those exact words the day we found your current apartment. I’d known this was the one from the moment I saw the glass ceilings in the living room, the one adjacent to the little room where the TV would be. I’d known because you’d always told me how you climbed up onto the roof of your old apartment and look up at the starts, wondering if I was looking at them too.
I never told you I was.
Nevertheless we’d stepped into the bedroom and you were taken by it. Your eyes had lit up and you turned to me, barely breathing as you leaned into to kiss me you’d whispered “This would be out favorite place.”
We’re there now, in the bed, your arms wrapped around me, holding me too you in a way that makes me never want to leave. I shouldn’t feel safe, here, in bed with you, but I do. There’s a comfort that your presence brings me. It seems to calm that wild, animalistic side of me. It forces it down to something that can, for just a moment, live in the shadows of me and just for a moment you and I are, you and I. We are Brittany and Santana, the two girls from nowhere who made it, made it together and promised each other forever.
For a moment I am not a free-lancing murderer who fixes the upper crust of societies problems with a fake name and a bullet. For when I am with you I am always Santana Lopez who is deeply, utterly, dangerously in love with Brittany Pierce. And you are Brittany Pierce who has made so much more of herself that the world thought she would, who manages to love me even though I barley love myself, who is perfect in every fucking way. There is one person on this planet I would die for, who I would cross lines for, and that is you. You are the only reason I have to come home from these excursions instead of eating a bullet. Your voice carries me home, your touch sets that dark part of me on fire and burns it, burns it while the rest of me heals. Without you I am not. With you, I am.
“Baby.” You whisper, planting a kiss at the base of my neck “You’re still here.”
There’s relief in your voice and it’s exemplified by the way your arms pull me closer so that we are fully flush against each other “Yeah” I whisper and although I’ve always been here when you wake up, always let us say good-bye, you still remember the time you woke up alone.
I remember it because when I finally showed up, at the apartment we’d picked out, you didn’t run into my arms or smile, you simply collapsed into the chair. I had stood there, frozen, unsure for a moment what to do as I saw your shoulders begin to shake and the echoes of your sobs playing the soundtrack to our reunion. Then, as if the girlfriend part of me realized what was needed, I had moved across the room, bent down and looked into your eyes “I’m sorry.” I’d said, repeating it over and over and over again as you’d slid from the chair to my arms, forcing me back to the floor.
I have never forgiven myself for the pain I’d caused you. Quinn didn’t either, she has the basic idea of what I do for a living and all things considered about her, she can’t judge me. Like me though, she doesn’t get why you don’t run from the two of us. We are trouble, we are dangerous and yet I am your girlfriend and she is our best friend.
I remembered meeting Quinn for the first time after you sobbed in my arms. Somehow she’d figured I was back in town and as soon as she saw me, she slapped the mess outta me. Right there in public, our gazes met, steely, cold and she silently dared me to hit her back “What the fuck were you thinking?” she’d hissed, grabbing my arm and pulling me into the basement of her bar “Leaving her in the middle of the night? She thought you were dead or worse, never coming back. She showed up here at five thirty am and she was fucking lucky I’d stayed all night doing business. She was a mess Santana, a mess that I could barely keep together. And now you show up out of the blue back to see her, she should have dumped your ass.”
I’d let her rant and get all the anger out, simply standing there in the middle of the supply shelves and listening to how much I destroyed my girlfriend. The tears were shining in my eyes by the time you said the words “dumped your ass.” and as I heard them, I froze. My eyes snapped up and looked at yours, I remember the words, stuttered out in the fresh panic of maybe being alone in the world “She—no, I’m sorry.”
And as she heard how broken I sounded, how said it was, she’d realized that she’d crossed the line. Her shoulders dropped and she shook her head “She loves you dumbass.” She’d said, holding your arms for a hug I readily accepted “I’m glad your back.” she’d whispered “Maybe you could not scare us both next time you leave.”
It wasn’t subtle, but Quinn Fabray, the East Coast’s best, uncaught and unwanted, arms dealer, wasn’t known for being subtle.
“You’re thinking.” You whisper, your breath warming the back of my neck and sending a cascade of shivers down my spine.
“Yeah.” I reply, bringing one of our intertwined hands and kissing your knuckles “But not about leaving.” I add quickly, feeling the question swelling in your chest and dragging us down “There’s a lot of heat, I need to lay low for a while.”
You press a smile into my shoulder blade, you lips twitching up even higher into the kiss as my body moves into yours and you whisper “I think I can help with that.”
“Oh really?” I reply, my breath hitching as you lead our hands down my abs “And how do you propose to help?” I draw out the word help, letting you know I know what you’re thinking. Not that it was hard.
“You see” you started, moving slowly at first “I’ve got this fear right, that the woman I love will leave me without telling me. So I had to figure out how to make sure that never happened again.”
“Really?” I asked, intrigued and caught off guard as I suddenly found you straddling me, fingers still interlocked “and what did you come up with.”
“There was really only one way.” You grin, leaning forward so your mouth was brushing the shell of my ear “Handcuffs.”
I’m gone.
It’s sad really, how little fight I put up as out of nowhere the metal bracelets snapped around my wrists and restrained me to the headboard. You lean back on me, surveying your work “So this is it huh?” I ask, suppressing my breathing with what I consider superhuman abilities as you watch me struggle to suppress everything else.
But it’s not my fault you’re so fucking hot.
“You really want me to do more?” you ask, rolling off me and the bed, in one smooth motion.
“Where are you going?” I asked, fighting with the desperation, you could not do this to me.
But apparently you could, because you walked back over to the bed, grinning, placed a kiss on my cheek and left me.
Left me clad in nothing but a white tank top and my underwear. Left me so, so fucking worked up and let’s be honest here, I could break out of these cuffs in twelve seconds flat and finish the job myself….but that’s for the nights when I’m thousands of mile from you. It’s not for when I can hear you getting god knows what from the kitchen…and anyway, the knowledge that you knowing that I’m handcuffed to your bed is driving you crazier than it’s driving me….it makes it worth it.
And then there’s the scream.
It’s not playful.
It’s terrified.
