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Title: A Song For Someone
Author: chicafrom3
Fandom: Glee
Pairing/characters: Matt Rutherford, Santana Lopez; Santana/Matt, Santana/Puck, Santana/Brittany
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All characters and concepts belong to their owners. Glee is the property of Fox and Ryan Murphy Television. No infringement is intended.
lgbtfest Prompt: 1391. Glee, Matt Rutherford and Santana Lopez, everyone expects him to get jealous of her on-again-off-again sexcapades with Puck. Or to freak out over her it's-not-a-relationship-it's-just-sex thing with Brittany. Being the aromantic asexual best friend, Matt just wishes she'd stop telling him all the dirty details.
Summary: In which Santana gets laid, Matt doesn't, and relationships are complicated.
Warnings: Underage sex (non-explicit)
Author's Notes: Beta'd by persephone_20. Any remaining mistakes are entirely mine.
Spoilers through Sectionals; conceived and mostly written prior to the back nine and therefore not entirely B9-compliant. Title riffed from a song by The Frames.



When they are fourteen, she dates Finn Hudson for a week.

"You should get a girlfriend," she tells him confidently. When he doesn't answer right away, she says, generously, "Or a boyfriend, if you want."

"I don't want."

"Which one?"

"Either," he says, and doesn't even understand it himself.

*

Everyone thinks they're dating, and he doesn't bother to correct them.

He can't even explain why to himself.

Maybe it's easier.

Maybe he's a coward.

Later, he'll wish he'd corrected them.

*

"Dude," Finn says in the locker room one day after practice is over, when it's just the two of them. Matt looks up. "I heard about Puck and Santana, man. Sorry."

It takes Matt a moment to figure out what Finn is talking about. Oh, yeah. Most of the school didn't know that Santana and Puck screwed around sometimes.

"I mean," Finn says, closing his locker, "I dunno what I'd do if Quinn fooled around on me."

Matt closes his locker, too.

He doesn't say anything.

*

The irritating thing is, when everybody finds out about Santana and Puck, they keep coming to him to apologize and sympathize and tell him how much better he can do. No matter how many times he says he doesn't care who Santana sleeps with, either nobody hears him or they wave it off as him being noble.

The one good thing is that Puck doesn't come around to apologize. Matt's not sure if he would burst out laughing or screaming if that happened.

Eventually he just starts nodding vaguely when someone else tells him they're so sorry about Santana cheating on him.

*

The next thing that happens, of course, is Brittany accidentally outing herself and Santana to Glee Club. And because no one in this stupid school can keep a secret, that means that really she outed them to the whole school.

Matt gets to be the recipient of all of Santana's irritation and anger after that, because she can't be mad at Brittany – really, who could? But more to the point, Santana loves Brittany too much to be mad at her.

Not that she reacts well to having that pointed out to her.

"It's not love, Matt, it's just sex, and I know that you have trouble with that concept, but – "

Well, that's kind of low.

She doesn't apologize, because she is Santana fucking Lopez, duh, and Santana fucking Lopez does not apologize, but she does look embarrassed by the outburst and corrects herself: "I mean don't be stupid. I don't love Brittany. I don't love anybody. Except me. And maybe you."

"Thanks, I think," he says, but what he really wants to say is that if she's not letting herself be in love with Brittany and Puck because of him, this whole house of cards is going to end really badly.

He doesn't say that.

*

Getting cornered by Rachel Berry is never a good thing, and he's already desperately looking for a way out when she says, "Now that Santana is gay – "

But he is much too good a best friend to let that one slide. "She's not gay."

Rachel rolls her eyes at him and says, "I realize the instinct towards denial can be very strong, however, in light of the evidence, i.e., that Santana and Brittany are doing the deed – "

"She's bisexual," he says. "Trust me, she likes sex with Puck way too much to be gay."

It's not until Rachel's expression falls that he realizes that it might have been kind of hurtful to bring up the Puck thing. But Rachel pushes on: "And what makes you so sure of that?"

"Uh, she told me, for one thing."

And it's not until that moment that he starts wondering if she tells him about her sexual escapades to make him jealous.

…well, if that was her goal, that backfired pretty majorly.

*

He asks, once, what she's looking for. Who she'd consider dating, not just having sex with.

She says, "You, but with kissing and sex."

It might be the worst thing she's ever said to him.

*

It's their monthly sleepover at Matt's house – on the living room floor, so his parents can be sure they're not having sex, and doesn't that make Santana laugh every time she's reminded of it – and they're both almost asleep, when he says, "You're in love with Brittany."

"No 'm not," she mumbles. "I'm not gay."

"Okay. But you're still in love with her."

"No 'm not."

"You're in love with Puck, too," he says.

"You're delusional," she says.

"Your face lights up when you see Brit, did you know that? And you get so pissed off when Puck acts like he doesn't care."

For a moment she's silent. Then she says, "You can't love two people at the same time."

"I bet you can."

"You don't know anything about it. And I don't love either of them."

He burrows deeper into his pile of blankets and doesn't say what both of them are thinking which is: yes you do.

*

Santana isn't crying, because Santana doesn't cry, but she's shaking all over, and Matt wants to put his arms around her and protect her from the whole world.

But it's Santana, so he just sits next to her.

"Why did you break up with Brittany?" he asks.

She's still shaking, but her voice is totally cool as she says, "I didn't break up with her. We were never dating."

He doesn't answer that.

She leans in to him and says, "I'm not gay."

"You're Santana," he says, and wishes she knew that was enough.

*

This is becoming a trend.

"Why did you dump Santana?" he asks.

Puck doesn't look up at him. "I thought you'd be glad about it."

"She's really upset, man."

"She was screwing around on you and you're worried 'cause she's upset?" Puck shakes his head. "You're so whipped."

"We're not dating," Matt says. His throat hurts, but he keeps talking: "We've never been dating. She liked you."

"She likes Brittany."

"So?"

"So…I gotta grow up, okay? I gotta be a dad now, and that means making Quinn happy, and that means not fucking around with fucking Santana Lopez."

Matt wants to say so why should Quinn get to be happy when Santana is miserable, but he's not that heartless.

Puck says, "And if you really never dated her…maybe you should think about it, if you're so determined to make her happy."

He says, "That wouldn't make either of us happy," but Puck's already gone and doesn't hear him.

*

Brittany's as miserable as Santana is, and Matt corners her after glee rehearsal one day to talk about it.

She says, "You're her best friend. I thought you'd be on her side."

He says, "I am. As her best friend, I want her to be happy. Even if it means listening to long and graphic descriptions of the sex she's having. She's not happy without you."

Brittany looks a little more hopeful at that. But she says, "I don't know how to fix it."

Matt doesn't either. But he's going to figure it out.

*

She was the first one to give him a name to put to what he is, so he decides to try to return the favor. He hits the library and does research.

It's surprisingly easy to find information on bisexuality. It's a little harder to find information on polyamory, but he keeps looking. By the time he's done, he's got a stack of notes and printouts.

Coming out stories, and realization stories, and stories about being poly or bi or both in a culture that was overwhelmingly straight and monogamous. Stories about discrimination and stories about acceptance. Blogs and communities and dating sites. Rants and advice and sheer joy.

He does his best to organize all the information he's found into something that Santana will find coherent.

He doesn't know if this is going to work, but leaving things as they are is just not even imaginable.

*

She says, "I was reading on AVEN last night."

The three-ring binder in his bag is heavy. He hasn't given it to her yet. "Yeah?"

"You know some asexuals date?"

This isn't a conversation he wants to have. "Yeah," he says. "I knew that."

"You should try it," she says. "I mean, how do you know you won't like being in a relationship?"

"Because I know."

She's not listening. "But you'd have to try with someone who gets your weird no-sex stuff."

Witness Santana Lopez trying and failing to be subtle. "Does this have to do with you not being on speaking terms with Puck and Brittany?"

They walk the rest of the way home in silence.

*

In the end, he's not brave enough to give her the binder.

So he breaks into her locker and leaves it there. Thank God he's known her locker combination every year since they were old enough to have lockers.

Hey, it might be the coward's way out, but it's effective.

He spends most of the day worrying about whether she found it, whether she hates him for getting involved, whether she just laughed and threw it away, but when he goes to glee club rehearsal he spots it in her bag. And afterwards, she tells him he's driving her home.

They don't talk about sexuality or romance or their own fucked-up relationship. They gossip about Quinn's baby bump and Rachel's going crazy over the next competition and Coach Sylvester's new rules for the Cheerios.

This is okay.

*

A week later he walks in on Santana and Brittany in Santana's room. Santana's tongue is down Brittany's throat and Brittany's hands are down the front of Santana's jeans and neither girl is wearing a shirt.

He apologizes for interrupting and starts to beat an exit, but they disentangle and Santana yells at him to wait a minute.

Neither of them reaches to put their shirt back on.

But Santana says, "You'd think you'd never walked in on two girls before. This is every guy at school's fantasy, you know."

Matt says, "I don't want to see this. It's gross."

Brittany looks a little offended, but Santana knows what he means.

He says, "I thought you weren't gay."

She says, "Bisexuality. It exists. Jackass."

He leaves smiling.

*

"I should have a harem," she declares.

"You probably will one day," he says.

"A big harem. Lots of guys and girls whose only goal in life is to please me."

"You have fun with that."

"You can visit sometimes and watch terrible movies with them when I don't need them."

He laughs out loud at that.

They're gonna be okay, the two of them.