limaohio[dot]craigslist[dot]org/search/w4w
She lies.
With enough makeup and that one leather jacket that came from her mother's closet, she can pass for old enough. She's never had trouble getting into bars with Brittany in the past, and she's not getting any younger.
So, "5'8, blonde hair, blue eyes. Not looking for a relationship" sounds just about right, and she lies. Sure, she can meet her at the bar behind the hospital where both her parents works. Absolutely, she's clear that this is just about set. No problem, she can be gone before morning.
And she can be 21 years old.
What she doesn't count on is the very tall woman lounging by the entrance. Lurchess doesn't even turn her head to look at Santana, just blandly drawls, "and where do you think you're going?" as she goes to enter.
"Oh, sorry," she breathes, fumbling with her purse and pretending like it hadn't even occurred to her that she would need to show some ID. She flutters her eyelashes and smiles with both cheeks, and at this point she's usually got her fake ID in her hand but is being waved in without even handing it over, a promise to come back and say 'hi' and a bit of direct eye contact having done the job, but.
"Go home, baby girl."
What? The woman still hasn't moved, and Santana isn't even sure she's looked at her.
"Hold on, I've got ID." The fake is good, she trusts Puck that much and he's never let her down in the past. She steps forward and holds it out to the woman.
"You could hand me a birth certificate and I still wouldn't let you in, sweet cheeks."
Oh, that is is. She is going to get laid, and this woman is not going to get in her way.
"Excuseme," the fake attitude is replaced by the real, far less polite tone that would get her slapped by her mother.
"You're excused, honey, but you aren't going in." The woman finally turns to look at her, giving her a once over that feels so pitying she feels like she's sinking into the ground. Something must show on Santana's face at this, because the woman sighs. "Go home. Whatever it is you think you're going to find in there, it'll still be here in a couple years time, okay? You can wait until then."
She can feel her face tightening, the mask slipping back into place, and she turns before the woman decides to impart any more unsolicited advice. She's standing at the curb, waiting for the swirling inside her head to fall into a calm that matches her outside, when she realizes what she's done.
It's after midnight, on a school night no less, and she's fairly certain there are no more buses. She's only fairly certain because normally she wouldn't be caught dead on public transport, but also because whenever she's needed to sneak out in the past, it's always been to go somewhere within walking distance - Brittany's house usually, and that was only a block away, but sometimes Puck's over by the school, or the park roughly halfway in between. She hadn't wanted to risk taking her car.
So after midnight, in downtown Lima, with no buses. Fantastic. She can feel the swirling increase, and it only gets worse when she realizes there is literally one person on the entire planet she can call right now.
She's about to sit down on the curb, because it seems fitting, when she spots a diner with its lights on down and across the street. She cuts across the road at a low angle, not having much fear of being run over in a side street in the middle of the night. There are people inside, which gives her pause - who the hell is out at this time of night besides desperate baby gays and the online predators that attract them? - when she remembers that there's a hospital right there that is full of people looking for a place to escape even for a moment at 1am, and that gives her even further pause.
These people could work at the hospital. These people could know her father. They could know her mother.
It takes her two breaths before she realizes there is no way her mother, father, or anyone that would know either of them well enough to know her would be sitting in a diner attached to a gutted former garage at 1am. Or 1pm, for that matter.
She slides into a booth, and before she gets a chance to open her phone a waitress appears at her side. She orders a coffee because it seems like the thing to do, despite not actually liking coffee all that much.
The coffee is half gone and half cold before she hits number one on her phone, and when a sleepy voice answers she nearly hangs up before sighing and dropping her chin to her chest.
"Can you come get me?"
"Where are you, San?" Brittany doesn't ask what she's doing in town in the middle of a school night, just climbs out of bed and says she'll be right there. Santana is about to remind her to put a jacket on, but the line has gone dead.
Fifteen minutes later, jacket on but feet bare, Brittany is poking her head in the door, looking around like she's not sure she has the right place. Before she can come in, Santana is out of her seat and pushing them back into the street.
She's about to climb in when Brittany catches her eye over the roof of the car, and she can see the same pitying look the bouncer had given her earlier. She climbs in to escape that gaze, buckling her seat belt and fixing her stare out the window. The bouncer is still outside the bar, chatting to a blonde woman in a tailored blue coat.
They're pulling into the street they share ten minutes later, Brittany having been silent the entire trip. She can feel the words pressed against Brittany's teeth, trying to form, but in the end the girl just sighs. Santana can feel the urge to demand, Brittany never mention this again, ever, to anyone, including Santana herself preferably, but she shoves it down. Their entire life is one big pinky promise. Asking is unnecessary.
At the bottom of Santana's driveway, the car idles quietly enough that she just sits for a moment, digging her key from her purse and then just gathering the effort to move. It's been a long night.
"Oh, San."
She can feel the look on Brittany's face, when she reaches over and ruffles Santana's hair, before she pulls out from underneath and slips out of the car.