LbN: Written for pauladeroma's birthday on Tumblr. Fluffiness ahoy!
"Teach me."
"Sorry?" Blaine asked, both eyebrows raised. Usually he at least got a "Hey Warbz" from Santana before she launched into whatever was on her mind.
"I need you to teach me…that…thing you do with Kurt…."
"Uhhhhh—"
"No, not that! I mean whenever you come to visit. You come in like a knight on a white horse and he goes all gooey and shit."
"You want me to teach you how to be romantic?" Blaine asked, incredulity dripping from every syllable. "Didn't you basically right the book on that?"
"No," Santana said, looking downcast. "I'm good at the big stuff. Big sweeping gestures on anniversaries and birthdays and shit like that. I can buy her stuff, or take her to whatever show she wants to see and get backstage passes to meet the cast…but…." She broke off, huffing and fiddling with the screen so that she went scrambled for just one second. "Whenever Kurt comes back from one of your dates, he's a giggling, blushing mess. I want to be able to do that to Rachel—without sexual innuendo."
"Aww, Santana," Blaine said, hand over his heart. "Who knew my bro had a soft side?"
"Shut up and help me. It's my turn to plan date night this week, and I want to totally blow her away."
"Okay, then first lesson? Being romantic isn't about them being in awe of you. It's about looking at their faces and being able to tell that they're happy. Not shocked, or blown away…happy. And it's about closeness. Something that brings you closer as a couple or just let's you be physically close. And I probably don't need to tell you this, but pick something she'll enjoy doing."
Santana nodded a few times. "Got it. Thanks, Warbz. Everything good in sunny Florida?"
"Yeah. School's good, and I just got a job at Disney as Prince Eric!"
Santana facepalmed, laughing. "Oh my god, that's so perfect I want to die."
"Go plan your date. I have a princess to dance with in two hours."
"Later, Warbz!"
"Bye Snixx."
"So, where are we going tonight?" Rachel asked as Santana took her hand.
"Home," Santana said, smiling.
"Home?"
"Yep. You'll see when we get there."
"Uh oh…should I be scared?" Rachel asked as they made their way back to the apartment. "You haven't bought…a tiger, or something, have you?"
Santana laughed and shook her head, dodging a man on his cell phone. "No. I did purchase a few things for tonight's date, but they were all small, nonlethal, and inanimate."
"That's a relief, after the hedgehog incident."
"You LIKE Sebastian now!"
"It took me a while to work up to liking him though."
They finally reached their apartment and Santana put her hand out to open the door. "Close your eyes."
"Okay."
Santana slid the door open and led Rachel a few feet into the apartment. After closing and locking the door behind them, she said, "Okay, you can look."
Rachel opened her eyes and breathed in softly.
Santana had somehow strung up blue and bronze colored sheets with fairy lights, turning their living room into a large tent.
"Come on," Santana said. "Shoes off." She pushed aside one of the curtains and she and Rachel crawled onto the mattresses she'd brought out. They were pushed up against the sofa, which had a mountain of pillows cascading over the edge of it for them to lean against. The coffee table was off to the right, a bottle of wine and bowl of pasta on it. "I set everything up this afternoon."
"San…." Rachel seemed to be having trouble with words.
"And since we're going to be all snuggly, I brought our pajamas out. We can change and have dinner, and then I have another…thing."
Changing in their little tent took far longer than it should have, because a carelessly thrown shirt led to an all-out tickle fight that only stopped when Rachel threatened to cut Santana off for a month.
"You fight dirty, woman," Santana said, pulling on her sleepy dragon pajama bottoms.
"All's fair in love and war. Now pass me a bowl – I wants my pasta!"
They ate in comfortable silence, Santana watching as Rachel took in the setup.
"This is beautiful," she said.
"Thanks," Santana said, smiling. "I wanted to do something special, and….well, the other thing's kind of cheesy. I saw it on Pintrest and if you don't want to do it, just tell me, but I thought it could be fun and—"
"Santana," Rachel said gently.
"Right, uh…." She pulled a set of pens down from the table, as well as a notebook. "It's based off that Listology book, but it's lists of stuff from us as a couple. So like, our favorite dates and places we want to visit and stuff. Like I said, it's sort of—umph!" She broke off with a grunt as Rachel climbed on top of her and kissed her firmly on the lips.
"It's brilliant," the younger woman said. "I love it. What's page one?"
"Lists of pet names."
"Are we sure we want to write all of those down?" Rachel asked, laughing.
"Deadly in the wrong hands, but we'll keep the notebook safe," Santana said with a wink. "We can skip around too. Here…places we've been and places we want to go."
"London."
"Granada. I'm totally taking you on a tour of Spain one day."
Rachel snuggled closer and Santana kissed her forehead, knowing her girlfriend was happy. They spent the rest of the quiet evening together beneath the fairy lights, dreaming of their future.