Title: Reasons Like Seasons (They Constantly Change)
Pairing: Finn/Santana
Rating: R
Length: 2, 250
Spoilers: Special Education
Summary: Finn and Santana over the year.
Notes: Reposted from old LJ. Written for gilligankane.

What surprises her the most is how easy everything seems to be about their whole arrangement. It's like her and Brittany. Well, how her and Brittany used to be. They hang out at school, see each other at parties, and no one bats and eye when they leave with one other. Almost no one – Berry still stares after him like a puppy who got kicked. Or one that cheated on him with Puck, knowing it was the worst thing she could do to him after all the baby drama. But other than that, they're just two normal, popular, single people. And their hooking up only solidifies their position on the social ladder.

They fit together well enough as long as she's in a good mood and he doesn't say anything too asinine. When she's not, or when he crosses the line into potential mental retardation, however, they fight like cats and dogs, and more and more she finds herself surprised at how strong his backbone seems to be growing. She takes credit for it, of course, when all is said and done and they're half-naked, sweaty and sated. Tells him he's finally growing a pair because she's around to keep them intact and that she's a good influence. And on the rare occasion that she snuggles into him when their eyes start to droop, he says the same to her.

"Why do you like me?" she asks one night as she stares up at the ceiling. The sheets on his bed are a little uncomfortable from the off-brand laundry detergent his mom had bought before they moved into the Hummels'. Not surprising that he hadn't bothered to wash the things since then. Finn wasn't really a slob, but he didn't go out of his way to keep things spic and span.

"Hmm?" he mumbles in return.

"Why. Do. You. Like. Me?" Santana asks, repeating each word slowly as if speaking to a child. She finds herself doing that a lot.

Finn cracks an eye open. "I don't know. Lots of reasons."

Santana rolls her eyes but doesn't say anything. The whirring of the ceiling fan is the only noise she can hear, the light from the sunset outside catching the metal at the base of the blades and flashing orange across the walls. Finn needed to paint this room. Beige was so boring.

"We work." Santana jumps a little when Finn speaks, his voice booming right next to her ear in the quiet room. His arm slides around her waist, pulling her closer so he can nuzzle her hair with his nose. All she can smell is sex and boy and Febreze. "I like you because of a lot of reasons and… we work."

Santana shrugs and turns onto her side as well, facing the wall. "Wake me up at eight. I have a date with Scott Westgard tonight."

She can picture the frown on his face but she's relieved when he says nothing and pulls the blanket up over them.

"Why do you like me?"

They're sitting on the beach and he looks like something right off of some tacky romance novel cover – translucent white buttoned down shirt with the sleeves pushed up his arms, khaki shorts a lighter color than the sand, hair dark against the bright blue sky.

She doesn't really respond but gives him a half-hearted shrug in return as she sits up and digs her feet into the sun-warmed sand at the end of their blanket. Santana loves the beach. Loves the stupid opulent beach house her father bought last year. Even if she had to bring Finn down with her family there, it's still nice. He's good with family.

"Birds are cool." She raises an eyebrow and looks at him and he shrugs in return, eyes following a gull that's cawing above them. "I know a lot of people don't like seagulls, but they're just looking for food and I'd make noises like that if I had to wait around for people to finish a burger so I could get the scraps or whatever. Plus they fly andget to swim on the water."

Sometimes when he speaks, his voice gets deep and gravelly and it makes Santana shiver a little and she feels like such a girl for still getting weak in the knees, especially after all this time. But she does and it makes her want to do stupid things, like get a little feather tattoo for him. Maybe on the inside of her thigh or something. And she'd wear her really short skirts so her mom will think she might see something there but she'll be too afraid to ask. There are a lot of questions to which her mom doesn't want answers.

"They eat fish," she clears her throat because it feels a little tight, "and crabs and shit. Not just garbage."

"Oh." A hand is on her back now, sliding across the warm skin above her jean short shorts. "That's cool. I didn't know that."

She turns, leans down and kisses him as hard as she can, and, after all this time, he's learned to just go with it instead of doing something dumb like asking questions as to why he gets to suck on her tongue and just does it (and, god, he so knows that she loves that). But, really, what person in their right mind assumes that any animal only eats garbage and leftovers from humans to survive?

"You're half-decent in bed," she says pulling away and not really looking at him.

"Wha-"

"You asked why I like you."

"Oh." He frowns, but she doesn't meet his eyes. "But... why did you start liking me?"

She shrugs and moves to slide off him. "I knew you'd be half-decent after some practice. Didn't count on you being a man of many words though, that kind of blows."

His hands move from her back to her ass, pulling her into him and keeping her there.

She loves when he takes charge like that.

"I'm sorry."

She doesn't love when he says shit like that in this kind of situation though.

"Just shut up, Finn." But she kisses him again, grinding down against him and reveling in the moan the motion elicits. She hopes for their sake that her family doesn't come looking for them anytime soon.

"I love you."

"Shut up."

They're standing outside the country club in full formal wear and her mascara is running and surely giving her a severe case of raccoon eyes. She gasps again, hating herself for doing so and hating herself even more for letting more tears fall.

He takes off his jacket and wraps it around her shoulders. She won't say anything, but she's grateful. She can see her breath and even the slight breeze is making her cheeks sting where the tears have made their way down. A bus boy from inside comes out with a smoke in his hand but stops in his tracks and turns back around when Santana shoots him a particularly nasty glare.

"Hey." Finn's thumbs brush away the streaks of mascara and his body blocks the breeze of the cold autumn air. "It's okay."

"He's an asshole."

"He's your dad."

"He hates me."

"He loves you."

"I hate him."

"I love you."

"Shut up," she sobs again, though she welcomes the way he pulls her into him, relaxing into the familiar scent of Drakkar Noir and Finn. She had to get him some new cologne.

"You look beautiful tonight," he whispers into her hair.

"Shut up," Sanrana repeats with less bite. She presses her face against his black dress shirt, enjoying the feel of his smooth muscles and the sound of his heart beating far more than she would ever admit. She speaks so quietly that she's not sure if he can hear her over the rustling leaves being blown around behind him, "He thinks I'm a whore."

"You're not a whore," he whispers back, kissing her forehead gently. Her father hadn't actually called her a whore, but the heated, hushed argument at the dinner table had led to certain implications,Santana calling him an asshole loud enough that McPhersons had looked up from their table next to them, and her mother eventually begging for peace. "You're not a whore, you're my girlfriend."

Santana frowns and pulls back from him. "No. I'm not."

He nods. "Yeah. You kinda are."

"No," she repeats through gritted teeth. "I'm not."

He smiles that Finn smile, that stupid boy 'look at my girl overreacting' smile, the kind that's usually accompanied by a light hearted eye roll, though he forgoes it this time and tugs her away from the building. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" she asks, frowning when he abruptly turns and bends down to fish through the pockets of the jacket that's still around her. He pulls out her dad's car keys and smiles, shaking them in front of her face like she's a toddler in desperate need for amusement. "For a ride? Are we gonna ditch them here?"

"That'd be rude," Finn replies, his mock 'very serious' face on. "But we could fool around until it's time to go."

She thinks she should want to hit him – she's been crying all night because her father thinks she's a slut, that's not usually an invitation a gentleman would normally take as 'I want to fool around with you'. But he knows her better than that, knows that subtle revenge and a make out session will make her feel nothing if not accomplished. She nods and he bends down and carries her bridal style to the SUV and she laughs at the ridiculousness of it all.

They pushed back the driver seat and tilted it down so she could straddle his hips, surely groaning loud enough that anyone in the parking lot would have been able to hear them when he would thrust up and hit that beautiful spot. Finn was less than careful and cautious with her, biting at her lip and leaving fingerprint bruises all over her waist and hips. She had even smacked her hand against the inside of the windshield to get a better balance at some point and it had slipped down, leaving a smeared handprint à la Titanic on the built up condensation.

Santana stares at it on the ride home as her parents, none the wiser, thank Finn for coming with them tonight. He smiles and makes small talk while she stays mostly quiet, her head resting on his shoulder, his bear paw of a hand engulfing hers. She's almost fallen asleep when he nudges her and points to her underwear, which is hanging unnoticed on the back of her mom's armrest.

"I'm not saying it back."

"What?"

They were on their way back from some stupid Christmas party that the glee kids had when she decided that she needed him in her at that very moment. He had complied, pulled into some playground parking lot, and smirked when he settled over her in the backseat, surely cocky that she had been so adamant. She would have scowled back, but he had promptly slipped into her and fucked her until she couldn't breathe.

"You've been looking at me for weeks like you're waiting for me to say it back, but I'm not going to." She licks her lips and pushes his hand away from her breast. It had been a month and a half since their night at the country club and she now wore a necklace he had bought for her daily.

"Say what back?" ge asks, shifting above her and, in turn, shifting inside her. She loves when he stays inside her after he comes. It's sexy.

"I love you."

"I love you too, babe." This time she does scowl and drops her thighs from around his waist, pushing at his shoulders. "San..."

"It's not funny."

"You're allowed to love your boyfriend, you know." She rolls her eyes but stays quiet when he leans down and kisses her jaw, his second choice after she jerks her lips away from him, and nuzzles her neck. "What do you want from us then, Santana? What is all of this to you? We're dating; we have been for almost a year."

"Yeah, well..." Santana stares at a hole in the leather on the back of the passenger side seat. "Where do you see us in ten years?"

Finn's eyebrows come together, apparently deep in thought. "I see us... married. Living on the West Coast because you like the beach so much. Because you don't burn like me. And Britt will probably be there too because you two are kind of a deal like that and that's okay. And you'll be pregnant. Like one of those hot pregnant chicks who look better in a bikini than some regular girls."

"What if I don't want that?"

"Then we'll do whatever you want."

"What if I don't want you?"

"Then I guess I'll have to see what Brittany's up to."

Santana smacks him, hard, on the shoulder but smiles despite herself and he grins goofily down at her. She sets her jaw and huffs to try to get back into character. "Even if I do, I'm not being all schmaltzy and saying it all the time."

"That's okay." He brushes his nose against hers.

"Okay, enough of that," she says, pushing his face away and scooting back so she could adjust her clothes. He smiles at her, that smile and she glares in return. "Can you hurry up and get dressed? I want a burger."