I know. We're all dying because of the brilliantly epic Glee Adele Mash-up. I haven't been able to stop listening to it. At all. And in extension, I haven't been able to effectively shut off my feelings like I usually do.

So when I was going over my Chemistry notes for the day, Brittana was pounding in my subconscious like that steady beat of RumourHasIt. It simply demanded for my full attention.

Who was I to resist?

On a small side note, this is for S. Every time you tell me you don't have anything to say, it makes me wonder if that means you honestly have too much that you do want to say. And every time you tell me you don't want to feel, it makes me realize just how much you're capable of feeling. You're a good friend. I just wish you'd trust me when I say I won't be as good a friend for you.

Unedited and slightly rushed, so any errors are all mine.

Real Matters

In her mind, she's lost somewhere in between Rumour Has It and Someone Like You, and she can't believe any of this is happening.

None of this should even be happening.

Not one. Not the black silk clinging to her sweaty flesh, wrapping around her slim frame tightly like chains weighing her down. Not the persistent beating of a drum that pounds as loud as her heavy heart, pumping in time to every even beat. Not the telltale opening notes Mercedes is singing right now, the opening notes of one of the songs she knows almost as intimately as she knows Brittany's body.

She wishes she could close her eyes so she could block everything out and see nothing. Not the way Mr. Schuester clasp his hands together in nervous energy while he observes her, or the way Ms. Shelby frowns in concern as she watches her every move. Not the way Mercedes stops midsong, looking at her through the corner of her eye like she's worried that Santana will suddenly dissolve into a puddle of blood and bones on the shiny surface of their auditorium stage.

She wishes she doesn't look back at her companion, trying to convey a telepathic "I'm fine, keep singing" when deep inside she wants nothing more than to run from this stage – run from this world – and vanish into the welcoming arms of the cold, dark night.

None of this should even be happening.

Not the way she can feel the burn of Brittany's gaze on her without sparing her a single glance as they continue on with their performance, her arms and legs moving to every move of this perfectly choreographed dance – except she's lost her footing in another dance, one that transcends this simple stage performance and bears heavily down on her in ways she can't exactly explain. And she hates it. She hates feeling like she's been kicked out of the sanctuary of her secrets.

And in a way, she also hates how she can't control her eyes as they move involuntarily to Brittany's face when she passes by her fleetingly on her way to the front of the stage. She hates how that simple glance sends a pool of emotion pouring throughout her body, filling her like a liquid bent on occupying every single space, until there's no room left to breath and she's drowning, drowning, drowning…

Don't forget me, I beg, I remember you said…

She bursts into song because it's the only thing she feels she can do at this point. She hates that she can feel every word she's singing as they squeeze out of the deep waters of emotion threatening to overpower her. She hates how the notes flood out of her mouth, taking with them the depth of her feelings and revealing to world just how true every single rumor out there actually was.

None of this should even be happening.

If she were honest, she'd admit that she hates that those rumors are facts.

She hates that some part of her believes that those rumors shouldn't be facts; that some part of her still clutches desperately to the belief that there's something inherently and irrevocably wrong about her being in love with Brittany.

She hates how some chunk of her still feels like none of it should have ever happened in the first place, how being a lesbian is the one wrong thing she should never have become.

But most especially she hates that when she turns around she's met with the sight of Brittany dancing and harmonizing, and she's reminded by a white hot burst of uncontrollable adoration that this is happening, whether she likes it or not.

None of this should even be happening.

And these emotions she feels now, these emotions she will probably feel forever? These emotions that govern her, the same ones that render her into a single beating heart that continues to live almost wretchedly on for one person and one person alone?

They shouldn't even exist. Emotion in itself, regardless for whom or for what, shouldn't even exist.

She knows that emotion isn't matter. And if all those Chemistry lessons and textbooks weren't lying, then the whole world – fuck, the whole damn universe – is supposed to be made up of it. Everything is supposed to be divisible into tiny indestructible atoms, which are then supposed to be composed of electrons, protons and neutrons, three things she never honestly gave a rat's ass about.

But emotion isn't made of any of those three. Emotion isn't quantifiable; it can't be broken down to have the shit analyzed out of it. Hell, emotion refuses to be close to anything vaguely resembling analysis. She should know. She's tried.

But she's still stubborn sometimes. Sometimes she still tells herself that emotion shouldn't even be happening, that emotion shouldn't have so much power over her.

And that emotion, for all its abstract intangibility, shouldn't be able to make her feel so real.

But it does.

She watches as Mercedes makes a few steps forward on the stage, voice growing softer as the performance reaches a close. She knows she can't hide the anguish in her eyes as she looks at Brittany one last time. She sees the fear and terror shaped expressively over the blonde's features, and she realizes that somehow, she doesn't really want to run away anymore. She's filled with a greater urge to wrap herself so tightly around Brittany until they become one invincible, illuminating being, bursting through the darkness of this life until there was nothing left but a sweeping, pulsating light.

Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.