Santana made her way through the busy Manhattan sidewalks, the rain sloshing along the pathway, sopping her socks through her boots as she sheltered her head with her grey jacket. She cursed silently at herself for her lack of an umbrella as she darted towards the Spotlight Diner at midnight, avoiding traversing couples drunk on love and white wine. As she headed toward the graveyard shift she had been subjected to, Santana tripped over a puddle and bumped into a short blonde right in front of the diner.
"Shit! Sorry!" she exclaimed, averting her eyes from the girl's face.
The blonde laughed heartily, somewhat of a judgemental smirk on her face. "Don't worry about it. You going in?"
Santana hesitated. "Y-yea—" she stumbled, before she was cut off by the girl across from her.
The blonde had already opened the door for her and was inside, safe from the rain as she peeled off her jacket. "Your uniform," she stated blankly towards Santana's confused look. "I take it we're the two on the graveyard together?"
The darker girl nodded, her eyes wide. "Yup," she mumbled, caught off-guard and somewhat delighted by the girl's matching uniform.
"You're skitzy, aren't you?" the blonde said, eyeing Santana carefully.
Santana bit her lip and looked down uncharacteristically, feeling nervous by the closeness of the other girl.
"It's cute," she replied to Santana's lack of words. "I'm Dani. Dani Harper. Gunther transferred me over here from the evening shift." She rolled her eyes. "Fucking great."
Santana giggled a tiny bit, put off by Dani's sudden welcomeness and loosness before she was jerked out of her thoughts.
"You have a name?"
The taller girl perked up quickly, feeling her hands sweat as she observed Dani's tell-all eyes. "Oh! Right! I'm Santana Lopez. I've worked this shift for a while now…You get used to it?"
Dani sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Right," she mumured. "Well, then how about we get to these sugar caddies?"
Santana relaxed some as the pair fell into a familiar routine of Dani grabbing the caddies and Santana dumping the full bag into the funnel as the sugar tunneled into the containers. "So, how'd you end up here?"
"Oh," Dani replied casually, shrugging, "My parents caught me making out with a girl in the basement and all hell broke loose, to say the least. So I grabbed my guitar and never looked back."
Santana was surprised by the openess of the shorter girl and smiled what seemed like too widely. Fuck, she's hot, crossed her mind once before she opened her mouth. "Sucks," she replied shortly.
Dani furrowed her brow. "Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out, but I mean, I am gay."
Santana chuckled. "My grandma reacted the same way. I kinda get you."
"No shit!" Dani raised her eyebrows in exclamation, butterflies lighting up her stomach.
"Yup," Santana pursed her lips, blushing as she averted her glance from Dani. "I had a girlfriend, Brittany, back in cow-town Ohio where I'm from."
Dani narrowed her eyes in a desire for Santana to expand. "Oh?"
"Y'know the bisexual best friend who you casually fuck and then fall in love with?"
The blonde nodded understandingly, now returning the sugar caddies to their designated tables. "Been there, done that. Without the casual fucking, though. Just fell in love with my straight best friend."
"Mmmm." Santana cracked a half-smile. "Can't help you there, sorry."
Dani snorted half-heartedly. "Yeah," she smirked, plastering her face into a more positive look. "You asked me about my story. What's yours?"
Santana hesitated, her hands shaking in her lap. Damn under-boob sweat, she cursed silently, trying to smile at Dani. "Cheerleading scholarship to the every-so-esteemed 'University of Louisville'," she said dramatically, using the name of her former school as a pejorative.
"And?" Dani pressed on, unwilling to relent.
"The long-distance thing wasn't working so I broke up with Brittany, realized Kentucky wasn't working for the flaming homosexual that I am, and moved to New York because I knew people here."
"Ah." Dani replied shortly, now gathering the empty napkin holders from certain tables. "Grab that thing of napkins, will you?" she said, gesturing to the plastic bag with her head. As she set the holders down, she continued. "Is there anybody ever here from midnight to six in the morning?"
Santana rolled her eyes. "Nope. Except for the occasional drunk guy trying to sing 'Poker Face' and playing his own penis very well as accompaniment."
"Shit," Dani answered, disgust crossing her face.
"You wish I was making it up."
"You're right. I do. Look how well you already know me!" Dani teased, a smirk filling up her eyes.
Santana slapped the blonde with a napkin. "Shut up!"
After that, the two fell into a comfortable silence filled with the cadence of the knock of empty napkin tins and the wave of a sheaf of napkins entering their temporary home. Dani looked occasionally at Santana, hoping not to meet the girl's eyes as she admired her seemingly exquisite features. Santana would clear her throat ever-so-often, returning the favor to Dani before getting up to return the napkin dispensers and retrieve the empty mustard bottles. As she walked, she heard a gentle, quiet voice behind her.
"So you wanna play with magic? Boy, you should know what you're falli—"
As Santana turned around, Dani looked down and blushed. "You sing?"
Dani swept her eyes around the room, reaching every point except for Santana. "No, um, not really, I just um, occasionally as a time-killer, but, um,"
The brunette smiled at Dani's sudden change in confidence. "You're good."
"Thanks, um, than—"
"Shhh," Santana advised, placing her finger to the other girl's lips before gracing her face with a smile. "I sing too. I was in a glee club in Ohio. We won Nationals one year," she stated, bragging slightly.
Dani's mouth dropped. "Shit, wow. That's impressive."
Santana shrugged non-commitally, "Yeah, I guess. I mean, we had a girl – the one I live with – who's on Broadway practicing to be Fanny Brice now, so she kind of car—"
"Rachel?" Dani exclaimed, louder than she meant to.
Santana narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, how do you, um…"
"She worked the evening shift with me. Her and Kurt. They're you're roomates."
Santana sucked her cheeks in. "Yup."
Dani laughed a tiny bit. "No shit! Both of them are a piece of work."
"You could say that."
Dani settled herself more properly at the bar, and before she put her chin between her hands, she smoothed down her skirt, clearing a strand of hair that had fallen down. She smirked, "I'd like to hear some stories about that."
Santana grinned. "Well, there was this one time, Kurt was showering, and Skype went off." She rolled her eyes. "It was his boyfriend. From Ohio. Rachel called him into the room and Kurt told him to bring it in the bathroom." Santana covered her mouth. "There were all sorts of, y'know, sounds, coming from their. Kurt says it wasn't video sex. My ass."
Dani's head rolled back in silent laughter. "That must've been great."
Santana grimaced. "I needed earplugs. And I did the next time too."
The blonde grinned widely, lighting up her entire face.
"You—you're cute," Santana stammered, and then flushed due to her newfound confidence around the girl. Her eyes went wide as she quickly apologized for the sudden outburst.
Dani smiled even bigger. "Why are you apologizing? You being embarassed is cute." She paused. "Almost as cute as me," she replied, tossing her hair in a casual flaunting manner. "C'mon, these mustard bottles aren't going to fill themselves."
Santana cleared her throat, still visibly shaking from what she had just said to the shorter girl. "Right, right, that's what we need to do."
"Damn straight," Dani grinned, causing Santana to twist her fingers tightly together.
The two girls talked more as they filled the mustard bottles, moving on to ketchup, salt, and pepper and they aquainted themselves with each other. Every time Dani smiled, Santana looked her way, brushing her dark hair out of her face. The blonde quickly noticed, biting her lip each time Santana did so. Before long, after they had fallen into another comfortable silence, Dani humming occasionally, with still no customer to serve, the sun began peeking over the downtown Brooklyn skyline from the East.
"Oh!" Dani exclaimed, walking towards the stage for a better view. "The sunrise is my favourite part of the day – I knew there had to be some plus to working at this un-godly hour."
Santana frowned, furrowing her brow. She supposed she couldn't exactly be seen as a "plus" at this point. "Yeah," she said, beginning to smile as Dani's eyes were flecked by the sun, "it's certainly nice."
Dani giggled and grabbed Santana's hands, twirling them in circles as she began to hum The Beatles. Santana broke into a gentle harmony as the two danced around the restaurant.
"I'm really glad we're on this shift together," Dani whispered into Santana's ear, causing the brunette to blush.
"Me too."