leavinglima | "Dirty little secret."

Entry tags:

"Dirty little secret."

Who: Santana Lopez and Kurt Hummel
What: Survival Celebration and Sordid Secrets
Where: Kurt & Santana's apartment, New York
When: Just after the end of summer

It turned out that Kurt's Hot Dog of Doom was more like Hot Dog of the Gastrointestinal Apocalypse. He had been so sick, with his body completely betraying him from all angles, that Santana ended up dragging him to the nearest ER where he had to spend a few hours on IV fluids for dehydration and they pumped him full of anti-puke medication and Imodium. It was only after that did Kurt manage to finally get some rest. Before, he kept being woken up by his stomach that it made it near impossible to rest. Santana dragged him back home in a cab, he crawled into his bed wishing like hell Blaine could be there to snuggle him, and crashed out in a deep sleep. And he pretty much slept for almost three days straight, save for getting up to go to the bathroom and getting bottles of Gatorade into him when he still had no interest in touching food ever again. Santana had just left him to it, staying close to make sure he didn't die in his sleep.

He had no finally re-surfaced, flopping out of bed and shuffling into the kitchen of the little apartment he shared with Santana. His pyjama pants had slipped down over his hips to reveal the top of his butt cheek and when he found Santana in there making coffee, he yawned, rubbing over his face sleepily with one hand whilst hitching his pants back up with the other. He was less than fabulous-looking right now, hair all in a disarray and crease marks from his pillow up the side of his face. He had paused only long enough at the bathroom to pee and quickly brush his teeth, but he was sure he had still be half asleep for that. On the upside, despite feeling weak in the wake of the food poisoning, the nausea seemed to have abated and in its place was just a sore stomach from the strain of throwing up.

He dropped down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. "I didn't die," he announced, voice husky from sleep. "And apparently Puck nearly had to handcuff Blaine to a bed in Lima so he wouldn't get on a plane here right before school's about to start. I woke up to 73 text messages from Blaine. I think his next step might have been carrier pigeon."

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"Looking good there for a zombie," Santana teased, turning around with a grateful smile to see Kurt up and about. "I seriously was beginning to wonder how long it would be before your body would start to smell. Trust me, Babyface, I would've been pissed as hell if the cops had shown up to question me about the strange odors coming from our apartment... Then again, this apartment's shitty enough that they might just assume it was normal for it to reek of dead body."

"Think you could hold down some coffee, babe?" she asked, retrieving a spoon from the drawer before turning with her mug of coffee in one hand and a bottle of creamer in the other to bump the drawer closed with one hip. The fact was, she really had been worried about Kurt. The last thing she wanted was for him to get so sick that he needed an extended stay in the hospital, and had to end up going back to Lima. Santana was only as brave as the fag to her hag, and without him, there was no doubt in her mind that she would've been on the next plane with a one way ticket to Ohio until she could figure out something else.

Then again, she wasn't sure how she would handle going back to Lima. The truth was, she'd only seen Brittany once since the night of the graduation party, and while Brittany wasn't exactly known for her high level of intelligence, there was a great deal of guilt weighing heavily on Santana concerning her girlfriend. She knew that the mistake she'd made on the night of their graduation party wasn't something Brittany ever would've guessed, and maybe that made it even worse. The knowledge that, for all intents and purposes, she'd totally gotten away with what she'd done. As she finally finished stirring the creamer into her coffee, and took a seat across from Kurt, she raised her dark eyes to meet his gaze. "You starting to feel human again?"

Kurt puffed his cheeks out with a breath of air for a moment and gave his fingers a little wave. "Make it black tea and I'll be your fan for life. I'm not quite sure how successful coffee will be yet, so I might play it on the safe side for now. Anything but Gatorade, though. I don't ever want to drink that stuff again," he said, sticking his tongue out in distaste. He feathered his fingers through his hair, trying to comb it down into something more presentable and then rubbed his face again. He felt a lot better than he had been, but it would probably take a couple more days to regain his strength. The hospital found some sort of gastrointestinal food poisoning bug in his system and they had warned it could set in for a few days, just like it had done.

He waited while Santana finished whatever she was doing and joined him at the table. He had a Skype date already set up with Blaine for a little later, so he would take a shower before that and start to pick himself back up. He gave her a nod, but his lips tugged wryly to the side. "Yeah, I am. I can't believe how sick I felt. I'm tempted to go Vegan just so I never have to be near another hot dog. Ironic, considering I generally like meat in my mouth..."

But he tilted his head, analysing her for a moment. "What's up? You have a look. Please tell me it's not cold feet on New York. I'm not sure I could live with Rachel."

"On it," Santana replied, getting the kettle out and filling it with water before setting it to boil while she went back to the cabinet for tea leaves. Kurt was still a classy bitch, and he'd made it clear from day one that there would be no shitty tea bags in their place. "We may be in a shitty apartment in New York, but goddammit, we're bitches with some damn good tea," she teased as she waited, standing by the stove quietly. "Seriously, though, babe. It's fucking fantastic to see you back in the world of the living. It was touch and go there for a while, and if you died on my watch, Blaine would've given me The Eyes worse than anybody's ever seen. I might've died."

"You probably lost a metric fuckton of weight, babe... In fact, it's pretty damn obvious. You look like a skeleton with skin. Not your hottest look. You can't start off as a vegan if for no other reason than we have to put some meat on your bones first. Well, generally Blaine's meat doesn't make you projectile vomit at every turn, so I'm willing to wager that's not quite the same, snookums." She looked him over critically then, shaking her head at how his PJs were hanging loosely off his too-skinny frame.

She had gotten lost in her thoughts for a moment, and when Kurt spoke, she found herself jerking back to look at him again. "What? Huh? No... No way, no cold feet. Nothing's up... Just thinking about how we're going to get rid of those bags under your eyes." It was a weak attempt at putting up her bitchy facade to get Kurt's attention elsewhere. She knew better than to think that would really work.

Once Kurt had the mug of tea in front of him, he wrapped his hands around it to warm them. He was a little chilly now he was up out of his sick bed where he had wrapped himself up in a bundle of sheets and quilts to prepare for his imminent demise. He had even been feeling so sick that he had to pass off his convincing of Blaine to stay in Lima with the school start pending rather than jumping on a plane to play nurse to both his dad, Carole and Puck. They would have had their work cut out for them, but Kurt had to tell Blaine he really need to sleep and put the phone down until he felt better, because just about every text message he tried to send, he ended up vomiting because he was sitting up too long. Blaine eventually relented, asking Kurt to call him as soon as he started to feel better, but continued to send him frequent texts reminding him he was thinking about him, and hoped he was going to feel better really soon.

He only took a couple of tentative sips to start with, giving his body time to decide whether it wanted to keep the tea down or not. "I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep. My whole body was just weak. I can't remember the last time I felt that sick and yeah, I think I lost weight. My pants keeps falling down. But perfect excuse for some retail therapy once I can remain upright longer than fifteen minutes without feeling like I'm going to pass out, throw up, or have explosive diarrhoea. Seriously, that fear that you don't want to be more than a foot away from a bathroom? That's scary enough on it's own. I remember that from the time Puck and Mike laced my Cosmo with laxatives because they wanted to take Blaine to the game on a date night."

He watched her over the rim of the mug and then settled it back on the table in front of him. "Try again. That was a pathetic attempt at a lie. I don't know what you're trying to hide, but it's something. Even if I know I look like a love child of the Adam's Family right now."

Santana honestly wished sometimes that she and Brittany had what Kurt and Blaine had. She could only imagine what would've happened if she'd been the one who was ill. Instead of constant texts checking in on her as Blaine had sent (to both her and Kurt, she might've added), Britt probably would've been sending her constant updates on Lord Tubbington's eating and pooping schedule. Or avoiding texting her altogether because she was afraid she'd catch food poisoning from her through the cell phone signal waves. There were times when dating someone with the intelligence of a kindergartener was enough to make even the bitchiest of the bitchy pull her hair out. And those times had only increased with leaving Lima though the fact was, she still didn't know which was worse: dating Brittany or the guilt of what she'd done behind her back.

She watched him quietly as he tried to drink the tea she'd given him. "You were pitiful," she replied, the cool bitch routine interrupted entirely when the concerned fag hag side showed up. "I seriously was beginning to worry I was going to have to take you back to the hospital. I've never seen a case of food poisoning go on that long. Jesus. Bitch, you best be believing I'm going with you, because this girl right here? Wants her some new Big Apple duds and stat. Yeah, that's pretty rough, not even gonna lie. Seriously? And the bitches lived to tell the tale? You've gone soft, Hummel."

There were a few long moments of silence where Santana tried to decide what to do. Her first thought after the whole fucked up thing had gone down (pun totally not intended) was to talk to Kurt, ask him for advice and what to do. But they had decided it was best for all involved if they just kept it a secret. Would telling Kurt get back to Quinn? And piss her off? But like it or lump it, Kurt wasn't buying her bullshit, so Santana swallowed hard and said, "I cheated on Brittany."

Kurt shrugged and tempted fate with another sip of his tea, but it was actually giving him a little bit of a perk that he needed after feeling shitty. "It was a parasite. It wasn't just food poisoning. I got the parasite from the food. That's why it made sick for that long. It sucked like hell to be told, hey sorry, you're going to keep puking your guts up for a few more days yet. Welcome to New York! Enjoy your stay! But I survived and now I have an epic tale to put in my autobiography about my struggles as a hard-working fashion superstar in the making. We'll just leave the bit out about explosive diarrhoea."

It was probably lucky he wasn't still holding onto the mug by that point, or there would have been a huge risk that he spilt the hot tea all over himself. "I-- what?" he responded, dumfounded. He was absolutely 100% sure he had misheard her. He knew what Santana's past was like, but he always assumed once she had come out that she would discovered what fidelity was like and settle down. His lips formed a tiny O shape and he blinked. "Ch-ch... when? Who with? What did... why did...?" The words just died on his lips in shock and he touched the tips of his fingers to them. He was waiting for her to say she was just joking, but that never came.

"Well, whatever the fuck it was, I was pretty sure you were going to die, and I'd have to go back to Lima, because I can't afford rent without you. I swear to God, when that doctor told you it was going to be a few more days, you looked at him like you were going to intentionally barf on his face. That would've been one hell of a fuck off moment. But you're right. You've got the struggling artist thing down to an art. But you're seriously not allowed to die. Like... Not allowed. I don't know what I'd do here without you, Kurt. File that under 'Shit Santana never said,' though... Just for the record." She took a sip or two of her own coffee as she sat there, watching Kurt nervously as if he were going to blow chunks at any moment. Santana may have been a cold ice queen of a bitch on the exterior, but the fact was, seeing Kurt so sick had scared the life out of her. He was her friend and her lifeline in this place. She couldn't make it here without him by her side, and she knew it.

Santana looked down at her hands, the shame and guilt of the whole thing just shaking her to her core. She hadn't ever thought she'd end up cheating on Brittany. Things hadn't been perfect by any means, but she loved her. Brittany was the first and, up until right after graduation, the only girl she'd ever been with, and she felt horrible for having cheated. Horrible for having confused things for herself and for Quinn, too. Swallowing against the knot in her throat, Santana concentrated on not crying. "Yeah... You heard me right. I cheated on her, and I feel horrible about it, but I'm so confused, and... I don't... I don't think I can tell you who it was, Kurt, but she's straight. Or at least, everyone, her included, always thought so. We were drunk, and the next thing I knew, we were kissing, and then kissing turned into more than kissing, and... Fuck, I can't tell Britt. I just can't."

Edited 2012-09-15 15:41 (UTC)

Kurt snorted softly. "I thought I was going to die too. It's not exactly the welcome to New York I was anticipating in my head all these months. I should have been out looking for working, but I couldn't move. And I know this makes me pathetic and needy, but I spent the whole time wishing Blaine was here. Which I swear, is nothing against you because you were a wonderful friend, darling. Who would have thought Santana Lopez had that in her? I think it's just safe to say it's going to kill me on the regular being away from him. He's part of me, this crap is going to be harder than I thought. If you hadn't decided to come along for the ride, I'd probably be tempted to be running back to Lima already."

As soon as she said she shouldn't tell him, Kurt knew it was someone he knew. It was one of their friends, he could hear it in her voice. "Okay, Brittany aside for a moment because you have been hinting for weeks things haven't been going well there. How did this other girl make you feel? Was it just plain regret? Do you wish it never happened? Or do you just feel like this because it was cheating? I know you probably don't want to tell Brittany, but you need to figure out why the hell you ended up cheating to start with. What it means, why you did it, and how you feel about it now it has."

"It was horribly unfabulous," Santana said flippantly. "I mean, seriously, if you're gonna die in New York City, Hummel, you damn well better make it more memorable and worthy of infamy than a goddamn bitch of a case of food poisoning plus. Come on, something like... Being shot up in an alley, or dying at some crazy protest rally. Get it together." Still, she was smiling, and there was no denying how grateful she was to see Kurt up and around again, if tentatively. "Blaine seriously bugged the piss out of me about you while you were out of commission. I had texts from him at least once an hour, wanting me to pop my head in and make sure you were still breathing, but 'Remember to be quiet, San, because he needs his rest, and if you wake him, he'll save up all his bitchpls anger for when he's well.'" She shook her head, trying not to envy Kurt too much for having a relationship with someone who actually fucking knew enough to be able to check in on him properly when he was ill. But when she thought about that, she thought about Brittany, and about Quinn... She was dating the epitome of a dumb blonde... no, worse than that. Brittany literally should be in a mental institution, and Santana knew it. It was probably why she spent so much fucking time trying to protect her. And yet, it had been a soon-to-be Yale student with whom she'd spent graduation night, in a hotel room, tangled in alcohol, arms and legs, and epic confusion.

Leave it to Kurt to ask the tough questions that Santana was afraid to answer. Honestly, she wasn't even sure why she was so afraid of the answers, but the more she thought about it, the more it dawned on her. She was afraid to answer, because the answers would indicate what she'd been afraid of all along. That Brittany wasn't the girl for her, and in all reality never really had been. It was a huge thing to even begin to think about. "It... It was a mistake, Kurt. The girl I slept with is straight. Or... I thought she was... She probably is... It was just one of those crazy things that happens when you're drunk. I... I don't want to hurt Brittany, Kurt. I love her, you know I do. But she... she hasn't made me happy in a long time, and I don't think it's wrong of me to want to be happy... But, shit, the person I slept with? Probably isn't any better of a choice than Britt in the long run."

Kurt just smiled softly at her, even if generally he probably would normally threw back more bitch banter. "He cares about me. He gets worried. The emotional distance is way harder than the physical distance. I know it seems like, oh my god, we can't have sex and we can't hug or kiss. Sure, that's hard. I seriously got used to sex on the regular after I lost my virginity. It was like a staple. But not just having him there in my line of sight, or hearing his voice across the room, or knowing his warmth will be there when I roll over in bed, or sure, having him cuddle me when I don't feel good. That's all the hardest part of this. He's never not on my mind."

He waited until she had finished and then gently put his hand over hers. At least his illness had been purely self-inflicted and not contagious. He hadn't put Santana at risk there, and the whole infectious thing had been one of the main things he rambled in the doctors face between puking about. He hadn't wanted to make her sick. Especially not that sick. "Darling, you used to identify as straight too, remember? Remember how you only figured it out otherwise when you started experimenting with girls? Sitting here telling me the other person is definitely straight and using that as an excuse not to deal with this and what it ultimately means is just a train wreck waiting to happen. Brittany hurts herself, and she has these... odd dependency issues on you as her best friend. But you're not going to stop being her best friend. You just really need explore yourself and your own sexuality without her emotional baggage roadblocking you. Because frankly, darling, the minute you got drunk and your inhibitions where down? You jumped into bed with another woman. What is that saying?"

Edited 2012-09-24 02:55 (UTC)

"It was kind of cute... in that embarrassingly dorky kind of way that only you could love," she teased, though she couldn't help shaking her head and offering Kurt a smile of her own. "I'm not going to lie, though... It sounds nice. I don't think Britt has the mental capacity to think to check in on me when I'm sick. She ends up telling me some crazy remedy her grandma came up with that's always supposed to work... Sometimes I wonder if her grandma's home remedies got used on her mom when she was pregnant with her, and that's what makes Britt so... special."

"Okay, yeah, that's true," Santana replied with a tired shrug of her shoulder. "Brittany's been driving me crazy for a while now. I love her, Kurt. I really do. And God knows I don't want to hurt her, but I'm not happy. I'm not satisfied with our relationship, and I deserve to be happy, don't I? Fuck... I have to break up with her. I don't... I don't know... I... Kurt I've been with her for a long time. And she's not exactly the quickest on the uptake. I don't know how to break things off with her without being awful. She's not going to get it." Santana was beginning to tear up in frustration and confusion. "Kurt, why does this have to be so fucking hard?!"

Kurt looked down into his mug with a smile at this. He was really, really aware how difficult the distance could be. It had worried him from the start and he hoped he and Blaine could manage to keep a flow on things and make it work. It was terrifying for him to think it might be that which could lead to him losing Blaine. So far, so good, but Santana here was prime evidence that just when you thought you had something right, it could all go really, really wrong. "Blaine's just naturally caring and compassionate. Not everyone is. I know I lucked out. It's been like that with us from day one. Even when he was still a stranger, he was caring about me and wanting to help. It blew me away. I think Brittany's just... well, simple. I know you care about her, I do. But I think you're more like her minder and babysitter than you are her other half, you know? That's got to take it's toll. It's more like a sibling dynamic than a romantic one."

"You know the biggest teller of a relationship, darling? It's how it holds up when the foundations under it shaken. When change happens, when things go from being the norm to something entirely new. If it can hold up, then it's got the staying power but if it starts to fold at the first few turns? It's time to stop and wonder if what you really want and need long-term. Sexuality is such a tough thing, San. It's something that literally plays into every single facet of your life and your future. It makes you who you are, and prepares you for who you want to be. But you have to understand it yourself before anyone else can know who you are and be a consistent part of your life. You haven't had the chance to understand it or understand you. It was just the realisation you like girls, and what it means to be a lesbian, and then Brittany conveniently on hand to be the girlfriend that gave you this... this cause to jump on to convince yourself being a lesbian was okay. I have a girlfriend, everyone! Judge me on that and I'll fuck you up like the bitch I am. I know that was your coping mechanism and that's okay. Sure, you could have dealt with it a little better, but you got there in the end. You're not a lesbian because of Brittany, darling. You're a lesbian because of you. And yes, you do deserve to be happy. But you need to spread your wings and unchain yourself from the comfort zone you have built around yourself of Brittany as the convenient girlfriend so you don't have to face the rest of what it means to be gay," he insisted quietly and then gave her a small point. "Because that's why it's so hard. You haven't found yourself yet. You found justification in liking girls dating Brittany, but you haven't let yourself truly understand it yet."

Edited 2012-10-10 09:05 (UTC)

"You really did. He's a great guy. I'd never tell anybody else that, because it's not my scene being nice to people," she joked. "But in all seriousness, babe, you really are so lucky you have him. I love Brittany. I do love her. But I really don't think I'm in love with her, and I don't know what the fuck to do, because it's been forever that we've been together. I don't want to hurt her, and I don't even know that she'd totally understand if I broke up with her. She'd probably think I was actually going to break something or... Fuck only knows what. I just don't know, Kurt." She sighed, taking a sip of her drink. "She wears me out. I love her, but it's like I'm constantly taking care of her, and she's not capable of doing it for herself."

Santana was quiet as Kurt's words began to sink in. "I... I'm proud of who I am. I don't need anybody else for that anymore. I really don't. It just... She's been there for me through so many things, Kurt. How do I look her in the eye and tell her that I'm done being her girlfriend. No more kissing, no more sex, no more of the things that are part of her normal? But on the flipside of that... I slept with someone else, and... Shit, Kurt... I've thought about her more since I left Lima than I have Brittany, and that makes me feel like a piece of shit. It's horrible. I'm a shitty girlfriend, and probably a shitty person, too. But goddammit, my head is screwed all to hell."

Kurt turned his head a little and feigned a yawn, patting his mouth with his fingers before he looked back to her with a small smirk. "Oh, were you telling me how horrible a person you were again? Sorry, I must have lost interest the first billion times you said it. But back to the point. I know I'm lucky to have Blaine, but that's no reason to compare what you and Brittany are to what Blaine and me are, because the situations are really, really different. Blaine and me were both virgins, we never dated anyone before. We both had histories of being bullied and ostracised, and pasts of people judging us for being who we were. We found a kinship together and it blossomed into something more. We never really had struggles with knowing our sexuality, just with other people disapproving of it. You and Brittany are a different kettle of fish, and maybe the histories you guys have is just not conducive to take a long-standing friendship that worked into a romantic long-last relationship that works. There was nothing insisting that would be a guaranteed transition."

He gave a tiny shrug. "You just do. You just tell her. If a majority of your relationship is just encompassing kissing and sex, there's something missing anyway. Something you might never have. I mean, I can only assume that this other person doesn't mean anything. You won't name them, you're just passing it off as nothing. It's all Brittany you're focusing on, so I guess feelings for the other person isn't a factor. Just your guilt over what you did to Brittany. Either way, you still need to end it. Going on discontent is only going to lead to you resenting Brittany." He paused for a moment. "But if you do have feelings for the other person and you're just fooling yourself, maybe you have a whole other set of issues you need to think about now too, and not just how to end things with Brittany."

Santana rolled her eyes, chucking a potholder at Kurt halfheartedly. "Bitch Please, I've worked long and hard on this bitch reputation, and just because you could out bitch me with one eye closed and one hand tied behind your back at a hundred yards, doesn't mean you get to discount my bitchtacularity." She was only kidding, though, and the smirk on her face more than gave her away. "I think maybe you're right," she replied with a tired shrug of her shoulders. "It was nice in high school, and it worked while I was there. But as soon as all that was behind me, literally within hours after graduation, I was drunk and in a hotel room having incredible sex with another girl, and it was out of this world. Kurt, it wasn't just the sex. It was like... Like I was really exploring my sexuality and not just going past friendship with Britt."

"There was so much more to it than that, but there has been something missing. Once I got past the, 'I am lesbo, hear me roar,' phase, and I was out... I started to focus more on the actual relationship, I guess, instead of what it could do for me in my journey to coming out. And that's when it hit me that there was so much missing there. But I care about Brittany, and I never wanted to hurt her. But then the next thing I know, I'm curled up in bed after cheating on her with someone else... It wasn't just sex, Kurt, there were fucking cuddles. But I'm... I'm not naming the other person because she didn't want me to. She wanted to keep it between us, but I had to talk to someone about it, and I can't talk to her." She paused at that, feeling a twinge of something in her heart that she couldn't quite name.

Kurt rested his head tiredly on his hand, his fingers squished his cheek up a little and he gave her a bemused look. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe deep down, Brittany was only ever a rest stop for you until you could break away from Lima and explore yourself more? Maybe deep down, you always knew it wouldn't be endgame or a forever deal. It was just... convenient." He cleared his throat that was a little scratchy from the throwing up he had been doing and he held his other hand up. "Don't automatically jump to the defence. Just consider it for a minute. Graduation was the closing of that chapter of our lives. It signalled a lot of endings and also a lot of beginnings. Maybe it wasn't such a random thing for it to happen that night."

"So, you're just going to never talk to her again...? Okay..." And he was just going to leave it all at that. His nose and forehead scrunched up just slightly when he wasn't exactly sure what to say now. How could you talk about something she was shutting down? He didn't know who this person was, and if Santana was just deciding that was it, and she wasn't going to talk to her, he didn't see the point in pushing on a subject he really knew nothing about. He wasn't a lesbian, for one. He also never had any urges to be unfaithful to Blaine. There had been Chandler, but that had just been basking in the attention when Blaine had been cutting him off from it. There might have been the odd guy here or there who seemed to give Kurt an interested lingering look in New York, but Kurt would never have acted on it. He was content and happy with Blaine, despite the distance. "So, you're not going to talk to Brittany, and you're not going to talk to the chick. That's a hell of a lot of not talking, ostrich... I thought you had more balls."

Santana wanted to argue with Kurt. To tell him that he was wrong, and Brittany was the only girl for her. But the truth was, if that were the case, she would never have slept with Quinn. Nor would the fact that she had be getting to her on the level that it was. If it were just a matter of being upset that she'd cheated on Brittany, it would be Brittany and her alone who got the focus of Santana's concern. But it wasn't. And in fact, the thought that she'd somehow hurt Quinn was getting to her as much as, if not more than, the thought that things might not be right with Brittany. "You... You might be right," she admitted, exhaustion written all over her face from the long hours she'd spent thinking this over while Kurt had been too sick to distract her for anything more than puke cleanup duty. "I love Brittany. And I will never not appreciate the role she played in my coming out. But I think you're right, and that's a hard thing to swallow."

"Of course I'm going to talk to her again," she protested, shaking her head with a roll of her eyes. She knew there would come a point, sooner rather than later, when she was going to have to face up to all of this. With both of the girls in question. It was going to be something she was just going to have to figure out a way to deal with one way or another, no matter how much it hurt her. And she couldn't just leave Brittany and Quinn hanging in the balance in the meantime, because that just simply wasn't fair to expect them to keep living in questions while she tried to figure her shit out. It wasn't fair at all.

Kurt got up and retrieved a bottle of cold water from the fridge so he could start trying to re-hydrate himself after he had been so sick. He unscrewed the cap and took some slow slips, watching Santana as he did. "It doesn't make you a failure or a selfish bitch, darling. Not by any means. It's not like we're middle aged and have a wealth of life errors to draw on that should know better with everything. We don't. We're still learning. That's part of what growing up is. Just because Brittany was your first girlfriend certainly doesn't mean she is going to be your last. And just because Brittany was a conveniently bisexual best friend to you in high school doesn't mean that it is automatically going to work out in the real world where life is nothing like high school and there are so many more factors to think about and experience. Just because you don't want to date Brittany, it doesn't make you a bad person. In fact, I think it makes you a stronger one to admit it."

He capped the bottle again and took Santana's hand. "You can tell me who it is, you know. You know I won't betray your confidence. We live together, we're practically family. You don't need to have secrets from me. I might be able to help you better if you confide in me. Because this apartment isn't all that big, you know. Do you really want to have secrets in your own home again. I thought our whole point of being here was to be out and fabulous together? That doesn't just mean sexuality, you know. It means trust on all levels, going things together like a team. Plus, you have seen me puke and had an awareness of me doing a lot of other disgusting and unfabulous things now. We're practically connected by blood."

"It's just... I wasn't prepared for this," Santana said. She had never been one for revealing her feelings in this way. They had always been more likely to come out in a moment of anger and in the form of bitchy insults or ridiculous screaming. But she and Kurt had pretty much crossed all the friendship bridges together. There was no holding back at this point, and Kurt understood her on a different level than most any other person in this world. "I thought that Brittany and I were right for each other. I was happy with her, and we'd gotten through so many tough things together. Or... I don't know, maybe I got through them, just because I believed in what we had at the time. I don't think I realized that I'm strong all on my own. I can be strong with you here as my fag. I don't have to be dating to be happy or strong. But it's just been a part of me for so long, Kurt..."

Santana looked across the table at Kurt, the truth of his words hitting her loud and clear. She didn't want to live her life the same as she had before, buried under all the secrets she was afraid to share. Kurt was her go-to guy -- the one person she trusted with everything. And she squeezed his hand tight, took a deep breath, and let it go. "It's Quinn, Kurt. I slept with Quinn. We were so drunk, and she's not... We haven't talked since then, and... Fuck."

Kurt shook his head. "There's no way anyone can be prepared for this sort of stuff. We tell ourselves over and over again that we are, and we want to think we can just shed our high school skin and be all fabulous adults in the real world, but it's not like that. It's hard. I'm already homesick and we haven't even been here very long yet. It's freaking hard work to try and keep a relationship together. Beyond hard. You have to have a lot of inner strength and determination as a team to work together. It's a thing you draw strength from each other to pull off, and I just don't think Brittany even realises the enormity of a relationship, let alone what sort of work it takes to keep it together when you're apart. She thinks her cat craps chocolate, for god's sake," he said with a snort and a shake of his head. "She's sweet and she's simple, but you're a strong-willed ambitious woman who wants to succeed in being herself and liking herself. You're not losing her as a friend, you're just admitting that this relationship with her isn't healthy as it stands right now. Not for her and not for you."

As soon as the confession came, though, Kurt fell silent. His eyebrows rose a little and he searched over her face with his eyes. "Quinn...? Whoa..." He hadn't seen that coming at all. For once, he was pretty sure Quinn was straight, but that didn't mean she ultimately was deep down, which is probably why he wasn't 100% shocked to hear this. Growing up, it was never too late to try and discover who you were deep down and it was never too late to look. "You need to talk to her. Like, really. You can't put this off, no matter how hard it is. Why haven't you spoken to her?"

"Being a grownup is way the fuck overrated," Santana grumped, but she met Kurt's gaze, grateful as hell that she didn't have to become a grownup without the fag to her hag. Kurt had become her anchor and her best friend, so quickly that it had made her head spin. They had a long history of going at each other, and it was hard to believe they'd finally not only buried the hatchet, but become good friends. It was something she was thankful for every day, too, because fucked if she wouldn't have already left New York if Kurt weren't here. "I love Brittany. I know I keep saying that, but it's true. I love her, but I'm not in love with her, and that's fucking with my head, because I was so damn sure that I was. But if I keep... I don't know, trying to be with her, it's just... It's going to hurt us both, isn't it? It's going to push us so far that we can't be friends anymore."

Kurt's reaction was more or less spot on to what Santana had expected, and she answered his question with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't really know," she said quietly. "It was just... It was so awkward when it all happened... When we woke up together, and we both just decided we were going to forget about it. But... I just haven't known how to forget about it or put it aside, Kurt. It flipped my whole world upside down, and I'm sure she doesn't want to talk about it. Why would she? She fucked a girl, and she's straight."

All Kurt could do in response to this was give a slight shrug of his shoulder and tug his lips to the side wryly. He was finding it hard to be away from Blaine, beyond hard, but his plan was to keep busy and hoped to god they managed to keep working as well as they did. It was going to take a lot of work, he knew, and really, Santana's situation was merely a casualty of the long distance relationships thing everyone kept warning them of. Some people might make it work, and Kurt hoped he and his other half were one of them, but others grew apart and no amount of trying to force it to stay together was going to rectify that. "Darling, you and Britt are just completely different people. That's no newsflash. You always have been. What made you work was convenience and ease of mutual location and a mutual all-encompassing interests of Glee and Cheerios. Now all those three elements are gone, and you're drifting from her... and you want to be, or you never would have done. Brittany is simple, and she's odd, and eccentric, and a slow on the uptake. But she isn't stupid. She's very in tune when it comes to feelings, and I think she would rather you be up front with her than stringing her along just to patronize her. You need to look at it from her point of view too."

"Did you both decide that, or was it just getting the hell out of the situation as quickly as you could so you didn't need to decide... and then her going to Yale, and you coming to New York?" he asked carefully, but he already knew the answer. He knew why she was trying to delude herself, but it was her job to make sure she didn't keep doing it. "The logistics aside, darling, how do you feel about her? Right down, deep in your gut and your heart, how do you feel about it?"

Kurt's words hit far too close to home and Santana just looked down at the table in front of her, realizing that the end of things for her and Brittany really had well and truly come. And as much as Santana hated that it had to end this way, she knew that Kurt was right. If she didn't do it now, it was a matter of time, and the longer she waited, the more Brittany would be hurt. She didn't even honestly have to tell Brittany that she'd cheated. Maybe she should, or maybe she shouldn't. If she did, she wasn't sure if it would really help Britt at all, or just make things worse for her while somehow relieving Santana's guilty conscience. "We were attached at the hip back then. She was always really... just really sexual, and I needed to be able to find my feet with that, so I took advantage of her. I knew that was what I was doing even then, but I did love her... I just didn't know how to go about doing things the right way, so I took advantage of how sweet and simple she is to get what I wanted. It was never a healthy relationship, and I know it. It's just hard to let go. Even if, maybe in some ways I already did."

"I don't know... We didn't want to tell anyone, so we decided that and just... went our separate ways. We didn't discuss it or what it meant, it was just this big fucking mess. I don't... I really don't even know where to start processing it." And then Kurt was asking her the question she really wasn't prepared to answer, and she didn't know what to say. "I... I want to see her. I miss her more than I even know how to say, and I hate that I haven't talked to her since then. I'm sorry I cheated on Britt. But I'm not sorry that it was Quinn if I had to. I just wish it wasn't so fucking complicated."

Kurt remained companionably quiet, realise Santana would need time to process the things they were talking about. He knew if the shoe was on the other foot, and Blaine had been the one cheating on him, he would want and need to know. He wasn't sure they would survive it and it would crush him if it happened, but it was only fair, no matter how hard it would be, that Santana told Brittany so they could deal with the fact their relationship hadn't turned out they hoped it would. You make adult mistakes, you had to deal with them like adults or you would only make everything all the more worse. Of course, there was a chance Santana wouldn't tell Brittany that particular fact in breaking up with her, but that was Santana's choice to make, not Kurt's. "I don't think you took advantage if she is sexual to start with, darling. She was even pretty full on with me that time I was... doing whatever it was in a painful amount of flannel. You talk about Brittany like she is some sort of wilting flower. She's far from that. She's still a slut, she'll tear you down for her own gain. You need to drop the BFF blinkers, darling. Brittany's not a child. I'm more innocent than she is."

Now he just watched her in concern, and his hand tightened more around hers. "You need to talk to her. You do. How do you think my life would have turned out if Blaine never told me how he felt about me? If he just shoved it away and never did anything about it again? It would never have been near as amazing and mind-blowing as it was. We've established Brittany isn't The One, but what if Quinn is, darling? She hasn't even spoken to me since graduation. I thought I pissed her off, but now, maybe it's not even me she's avoiding. I can help you both."

"I'm not saying I took advantage in having sex with her. She was all about the sex. But she was happy where she was... With Artie. And she didn't want to cheat on him. I lied to her and fucked that whole situation over to get what I wanted. It's not something I'm proud of, but then again, there's not a lot of high school that I am proud of. I think that's the other big thing for me. I have to let go of the things that tie me to that, Kurt. Not you, or my friends, because that's different. Because the fact alone that we're friends is proof enough that I'm not the same person I was back then. But Britt... As much as I care about her, she's probably the biggest symbol of the hardest parts of school, and my biggest fails there." She paused, her dark eyes turning to meet Kurt's. He was right. Then again, he always was, and she kind of couldn't believe sometimes just how in tune he seemed to be with what was going on around him, even when he'd been dead out of it for what seemed like ages with the epic food fail of doom.

Santana's eyes flooded with tears against her will, and she swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, holding tight to Kurt's hand as if it were her lifeline. "I know, but... But I never thought of Quinn and me being like you and Blaine on any level. You guys already knew you were gay when you met, and... I just... I can tell her, but it's not going to change anything if she isn't gay, or if it was just a really serious drunken fuck up for her. It's... It's not that she's totally ignoring me. I got... She emailed me, but I didn't know what to say to her, so I didn't say anything. But how can you help us, Kurt?"

"I know you didn't. And I never indicated it was just having sex with her in that you took advantage. Which is why I wasn't exactly following the concept. It sounds like you're trying to say Brittany is young and innocent, and you're the big bad wolf who railroaded her into everything... and I think part of you likes to feel like that with her. No, don't get bitchy at me right off. It makes you feel needed and important in her life to have this control over her, and like she constantly needs you. Or at least, it did in high school. Now high school is over, it's just feeling like a dead weight around your shoulders because it's not the same out here as it was back there. Your feelings are different. But what I'm saying is that Brittany isn't as young or innocent as you have built her up in your brain to need... that's the Brittany you need her to be to need you. If that makes sense. I promise you, though, she is back there coping just fine without you. She always does. She is simple enough, she doesn't need anything complicated to be happy. I think the biggest catalyst here is that you need to get closure on the fact you have lived so long with Brittany reliant on you. It's a two way street. You're not doing her a favour by letting her down gently with this and protecting her, you're doing yourself a favour in admitting that all there is left to your relationship with Brittany is mutual need to need someone. But you don't need anyone. You can survive perfectly without a girlfriend..." Kurt pointed out, and then took another small sip of water.

His blue eyes were still locked on her though when he was setting the bottle back down in front of him. "Just because you don't have to need anyone doesn't mean you don't want someone, though. Quinn might be that person. She doesn't need you, she never has. Maybe that's something to distinctly think about in all of this. And don't you dare throw that 'You guys already knew you were gay' shit at me, because you know that will just piss me off. Blaine and me had a whole lot of other real issues we had to overcome to make us work. So fucking what if we knew we were gay. You really need to learn that your sexuality isn't this concept that can make or break your life or any situation within it. It's just what you are. What you make your life is up to you. You know how scary it was when you were realising you were a lesbian and liked girls, and didn't really know what that meant? Don't you think maybe Quinn doesn't deserve to be alone for that? I can't help you with anything as long as you want to keep burying your head in the sand and running away from everything under the guise of your sexuality making everything so much harder for you."

"No... No, she isn't. I know that she isn't. And... I don't think I ever thought that was what I was doing. But at the end of the day, it really may well be. I'm used to thinking that she needs me... That she really can't live without me in the long run, because that's just the way we always lived. I got used to things being that way, and maybe that's the worst mistake I ever made. I mean, clearly things aren't working out with us, and now, it's... It's like you said. It feels like this huge weight on my shoulders, and it's not one I want to carry anymore... It's like..." She paused there, trying to think of a good example for this that made sense, and then it came to her, perhaps even a little humorously when she really thought about it. "You know when a cat comes into your yard... And it's really skinny, so you feed it, even though it can catch mice or whatever it is cats do on its own? But then you feed it that one time, and it hangs around, because you fed it... You met its needs once, and if you're going to do that, why should it go find its own food? It's kind of like that. Only I do love Britt, and I don't want her totally out of my life. I just can't keep being the one who does everything for her, even if I was the one who put myself in that position in the first place."

Santana sighed quietly as she looked at Kurt, wishing that she had some kind of argument for what he was saying. This was a mess. A major fucking mess, but anybody who'd been to McKinley, of all high schools, had seen some damn beautiful things grow out of messes. This friendship, for one. Kurt and Santana had never been close in the early days. In fact, they had done much more bitch fighting than getting along. But here they were, in New York City, close friends with a hell of a lot of very special things shared between them, including the bond that could only come when one friend saw another puke. "Okay, fine... I've been wondering ever since that night what might happen if me and Q tried something... tried to make something happen, you know? She's... Whether I want to admit it or not, her first huge delve into her sexuality outside of guys was with me, and we've been friends for a lifetime. Of all the people that should be there for her when she's going through this, I'm really damn high on that list..." That sank in very quickly with an air of absolute finality, and Santana looked up at Kurt, an almost panicked look in her eyes. "Oh, my God..."

Kurt was sipping his water again, but watching her over the bottle as he did. His mind briefly jumped to his own relationship and he wondered how he would cope if he heard that Blaine had cheated on him while he was away. The thing was, though, they were each other's first and he was pretty sure they were soul mates. In some different alternate universe if Blaine did cheat on him, he was sure it would be near catastrophic on his heart and couldn't know if they would survive something like that. It made him a little nervous about the distance, but he believed - and hoped - they had the staying power it took to make it through this until Blaine graduated and could come to New York too. They were doing okay so far. Brittany and Santana were a totally different story. It was a different dynamic, and they had hooked up out of convenience more than being love, and now this was what they were facing. "Darling, you don't need anyone to qualify or verifying your existence. You don't need to be needed to be who you are. Not like that. Brittany will be fine. She'll land on her feet, she always does. Hell, I know, she practically ran over me with a bus in the Class President elections and didn't even give me a second thought. If it doesn't feel right, then it's not right. A relationship needs to fill your every fibre, be on your mind more often than not, you need those tummy butterflies when you're going to see them, and then tummy churning when you know you won't. If you're not even close to that, then you need to take a restock of your plans and choices and admit to yourself it's time to try something new and different."

He rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward, his hand touching the back of hers again. "But the question is, do you feel any of those with Quinn? Not just the guilt over the fact you cheated or the regret about cheating on Brittany. Just think about Quinn for a moment. From the sounds of it, it happened quite easily, and hell, you two always clashed so epically I'm surprised blood wasn't drawn more often than not. Do you think that maybe all along, somewhere deep inside, you had feelings for Quinn that just exhibited themselves as bitchy rivalry because she was never an option? You thought she was straight. She was with however many straight guys that weren't right for her. Which, come to think of it, could really be a teller on her own sexuality. You need to talk to her, okay? Sooner rather than later. Because as much as he is pretty much family now due to Blaine, Puckerman is no Dr Phil Quinn should be relying on for her sexuality of girl-on-girl action," he added wryly.

There was so much wisdom in Kurt's words, and Santana couldn't help agreeing as he spoke. Her relationship with Brittany, she'd well and truly realized, was over. She may not have called it that yet, but it was. She couldn't expect it to carry on as it had after she'd not only been with Quinn, but realized that, deep down, she didn't want to be with Brittany anymore. She just didn't. As much as she did care about the other girl, the feelings required for a real relationship were gone. Like Kurt said, there were certain things you were supposed to have in a relationship... certain feelings... and Santana didn't have them. She didn't. Not when it came to Brittany anyway.

But Quinn... Quinn was a different story, and Santana wasn't even sure when it had happened. There had to have been a moment, before they ever got to the point of actually sleeping together, when Quinn had come to mean something to her that she hadn't known or anticipated. You didn't just cheat on your other half with someone you didn't even know was gay when you didn't have some sort of reasoning behind it. She and Brittany hadn't actively been having problems. But something in her had clearly been telling her that their relationship wasn't the right thing for her. And had it been more than that? She had to think that over a little more. But after a few moments of sitting there in silence, she had to look at Kurt, tears starting to fill her eyes, because this was a huge thing to realize. "I haven't... I haven't stopped thinking about her since it happened. And not just on an, 'Oh, shit, I cheated on my girlfriend,' level, but... Worrying about her. Wondering if she was okay, or if she was as confused as me, and not knowing whether or not I should text her or call, because I didn't want to make things more confusing and just..." Her voice broke a little as she turned her hand over to squeeze Kurt's. "Kurt, I want her. I want to figure all of this shit out with her and try to fix it."

Kurt was watching her as she thought things over and he gave her a small point. "You know you're really making me miss my other half. I feel like I need to see him to hug him and tell him how much he means to me, but the bank balances are already really stretched, and I need to just settle for Skyping and texting right now. It feels like months since I've seen him, touched him..." There was a sigh, shoulders slumping a little. This was going to be a really long year. "But you know, New Haven is technically just up the road. Only a train trip away. You know something I truly believe in? Kismet. That sometimes, the world just puts everything around you in alignment to make everything... right. It's there for the taking, and it all depends on whether you take it or not. When kismet intercepts, darling, don't pass it up, because you never know when it will come back to you again. Like the day I met Blaine on those stairs. If I hadn't caught his attention, we would never have been. Kismet only works if you listen to your heart, though, and listen to those directions deep down inside that a practical mind doesn't always let you hear."

He nodded. "All that aside, she's still your friend. If you have been wondering about her and thinking about her, you should get in touch. Friendship shouldn't be taken for granted, and she's away at Yale all on her own, coping with all these changes in her life without any room mate she knows she keep her company and reason it out for her when she can't," he said pointedly and gave her a small smile. "I'm going to take a shower, because I'm gross and I still smell sick. Then I'm going to Skype Blaine and tell him how much I love him. Perfect time for you to email... book a train ticket..." He got up from the table and gave her a nod, hoping she would take the blatant hints.

"Money's a bitch in college," Santana said with a nod. "I've gotta get a job of some kind to supplement the money my mom gave me. Britt's been Skyping me non-stop since I left. I had to pretend to not be online a time or two. I just can't..." She sighed just a little, reaching out to pat Kurt's hand in a symbol of sympathy. "I know what you mean, babe. You two were made to be together... It has to suck ass to be so far apart when all you want is to be there with him." It sounded strangely familiar, and it hit Santana very quickly that she was sort of maybe wishing that she were with Quinn right now, too. "You think... you think maybe things are lining up for me and Quinn to... maybe try something? I should... I should give her a call. I really should. I miss her like crazy."

Then Kurt was not so subtly laying it all on the line, and Santana knew better than to argue. He was right on every count, and she knew it, whether she wanted to admit it or not. After a moment or two, she stood up from where she was seated, and moved to pat Kurt on the shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I... I might not be home this weekend. I'm not sure yet, but I might go to New Haven. I think... I think you're right. It's a train ride away. And Quinn shouldn't be alone."

Kurt puffed out his cheeks with a breath and sighed heavily. "I'm hearing you. As soon as I can get to looking and feeling 100% fabulous again, I'm going out to get myself a job. Hopefully not anywhere near coffee. The Lima Bean for a few weeks was plenty traumatic for me to last a lifetime. I've applied at Vogue, but haven't heard anything back. That was probably totally living with my head in the clouds and wishful thinking, but I say that if you want something, you have to go out and get it. You're not going to get it by not trying. And that, darling, goes for jobs as well as people. You might want to bear that in mind. I think the only way things will line up for you and Quinn are if you go out there and do the lining up. Kismet has already done her bit, but she's not going to make it work for you. There comes a time where you need to bite the bullet. Call her, email her, text her. Something. But for now, I'm going to Skype my cutie to let him know I'm feeling a bit better so he can stop planning an escape route from Lima to New York all Shawshank style," she said in amusement.

He got up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "You know you want it. At the very least, talk to her. You'll know in your gut and your heart if it's right. Talk it out, don't bitch at each other. Now is the time to break the old habits and explore if there is anything deeper there," he said wisely and then gave her a little wave to head back to his room to talk to Blaine. He was missing him like crazy and he probably wouldn't surface until they spoke for at least a couple of hours.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Dirty little secret."

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