Love is no big truth
It all started with a date.
The most horrible and awkward date either of them had ever been on (and that includes Santana´s total failure ´date´ with Finn).
"So, you dig chicks now?" Santana sat across from her at a small Italian restaurant half an hour away from campus.
Tina shrugged. "It´s college. We´re supposed to experiment, right?"
"Well, I did all my experimenting in high school, so…"
"I remember. It´s going to be hard for you to find something to top that, huh?"
"Yeah, probably," Santana replied before she started on her tenth breadstick. (She´d been ecstatic when she found a place that had breadsticks almost as good as those in Lima.)
It occurred to Tina that it was strange how little they knew about each other given that they´d known each other for years.
"So, Michelle told me you live off campus?"
Michelle was in Tina´s math class and she was the one that had set her up with this really hot chick from her social studies course.
"Yep, thanks to my dad, he might not care too much about me, but at least he makes sure I don´t have to share my room with anyone."
Of course Santana was still as attractive as she was in high school, probably even more so, but conversation didn´t flow between them. She wondered how they had ever managed to work on Trouty Mouth back in high school. Talking to Santana felt like pulling teeth.
"You´re living alone then?"
"No, I´ve got a roommate, he´s from Norway or Sweden or something, I can never remember, but he´s totally cool. Even gayer than Kurt, but in a not so obnoxious way, you know?"
Tina nodded; her roommate back at the dorms was a girl from Montana that seemed to be on a mission: sleep with as many guys as humanly possible.
"I´ve heard you´re on the cross country team?"
"Yeah, I´ve got to stay in shape now that I don´t have Cheerios anymore."
Her phone told Tina that it was only eight thirty. "This is a really nice place," she said looking around.
"They have breadsticks, can´t say that I care too much about everything else."
"That´s… cool."
An hour later they asked for the check (Santana paid without a second thought) and left the restaurant together.
"So, I know that this date really sucked, but do you want to come up and have sex anyway? I mean that way those last torturous hours wouldn´t have been totally wasted, you know?"
After thinking about it for a few seconds Tina nodded and followed Santana up to her apartment.
The rest of the night wasn´t as bad as the date.
Quite the opposite actually.
Tina didn´t know why she had asked Santana out for a second date, why she had even bothered when she knew it would probably end just like the first one, but she had done it anyway, if only to not feel like a total slut.
A second slightly less awkward date was followed by a third, fourth and fifth.
On date number six they had fun even before they made it to Santana´s bedroom, which Tina thought was a step in the right direction so she also agreed to date number seven, eight, nine and ten.
Santana didn´t remember when they stopped being people who went on really bad dates but had great sex afterwards and became two people who could communicate without words, who were content with just being with each other. It was absurd; there was no logical explanation for her and Tina to work out, but somehow they did.
After even more dates and a busy year in college Tina had gathered all her courage and had asked Santana whether they were girlfriends or not. The Latina had only rolled her eyes and then told her that they wouldn´t be if she continued being lame like that, asking someone to be her girlfriend like a nerdy fifth-grader.
She didn´t even know when it was that she changed Tina´s name in her cell from The Asian to My Smiley, and how she had come up with that nickname.
Tina had smiled so widely the first time she´d bought her flowers that Santana had been afraid her face would actually split in a half. But it didn´t; instead the super big smile meant she got some really hot Asian loving later that night. Needless to say that Tina got flowers at least once a month after that; her smile and excitement never diminishing.
She can´t remember when it became normal that Tina slept over. That they had breakfast together and that Tina kissed her goodbye whenever they parted ways.
"Babe, I really gotta go or I´ll be late for class again."
Tina had Santana against the wall of the building her lecture was being held in and she was reluctant to let her girlfriend leave for the day.
"Okay, okay, one more kiss?"
The Latina rolled her eyes, but didn´t say no (Tina was the only person her never-say-no-rule still applied to).
"I´ll see you tonight?"
She couldn´t tell when Tina´s clothes (most of them black) started to appear in her closet or when the number of toothbrushes in her en suite bathroom went from one to two.
One morning she woke up and saw Tina standing in front of her closet in nothing but her underwear obviously still in the process of deciding what to wear for the day and the first thing that came to Santana´s mind was: Damn, my girlfriend´s hot.
When Santana spend five months in Europe during her last year in college Tina was miserable. And at first she was surprised when Santana called her almost every second day. But then after a while she realized that she wasn´t the only one feeling a part of herself missing and that made it better somehow.
The first time Tina told Santana that she loved her, the Latina had fainted. Seriously. Not because of Tina´s revelation but because of the dozen vodka shots she had taken earlier that night, but nonetheless she was out like a light as soon as Tina had uttered the word ´love´. When Tina had told her again a few days later she had smiled shyly and mumbled that she loved her too.
As for Tina´s family, she had no idea when they started to see her as their daughter-in-law or when one of her little cousins (to Santana they all looked the same) started calling her auntie San.
The first time Tina took Santana home to meet her parents the Latina ended up puking for half of the night because she couldn´t stomach the food Tina´s mom had made. It broke the ice and after that Mister and Misses Cohen-Chang always welcomed her with open arms. And they started to order Pizza whenever Santana was visiting.
Somewhere along the way Santana became really possessive over Tina and jealous of everyone that looked at her other half for too long.
When they ran into Artie one day and Santana noticed that he was nearly crying when he found out they were together she couldn´t stop grinning for the rest of the day. And when Rachel Berry asked her via facebook whether it was true that she and Tina were romantically involved, she simply replied with a ´fuck off Streisand and leave me and my girl alone´. The guy who dared to ask Tina out on a date got a swift kick in the balls and a nicely uttered threat.
It was a mystery to Santana how their relationship had started, how it had developed and how she had ended up sharing an apartment with her girlfriend of five years in Chicago. How Tina had turned into the one person in the world that got her to buy a pair of turtles, which they named Trundle and Chortle.
Tina told Santana that she had secretly moved in with her after three months. Another three weeks later Santana put her name on the nameplate outside and officially gave her a set of keys.
She had no idea how or why or when all of that happened.
But even though she was clueless as to why all these things had happened and as to when her feelings for the other girl had started changing, she knew that the answer to the question Tina had just asked her could only be yes.
Yes as in she did love her.
Yes as in she did want to spend the rest of her life with her.
And yes as in she did want the last breadstick.
"Seriously? You´ve had like twenty already and I only had three."
"So? Only shows us how little you appreciate them, now gimme the last one," Santana replied holding out her hand for Tina to give her the snack.
"You´re lucky that I love you."
"You´re lucky that you´re not a breadstick."
"These breadsticks make you say the most random things, do you know that?"
"Whatever, come on, I wanna cuddle on the couch before we have sex."
Tina sighed but got up from the dinner table anyway. "Fine, my little lizard, have it your way."
In the end it didn´t matter how it started.
Not as long as they were happy with each other.
Bonus:
"You´re mom is going to have a stroke," Santana said with a frown, her eyes still on Tina´s ankle. "Seriously, she´ll have a stroke and then blame me, because she´ll think that was my idea."
"She won´t."
"Won´t what? Have a stroke or blame me?"
"Both. She really likes you and I will tell her that I did this on my own."
"That won´t matter. She´s going to hate me. That will mean no more pizza when I´m around and you know I can´t stomach her cooking. She´s going to poison me."
Tina just sighed. "Regardless of my mother´s feelings about this, what do you think? Do you like it?"
Of course Santana liked it, now it was official and for everyone to see and forever, that Tina belonged to her. "I do like it."
"Well, then that´s all that matters," Tina said before she ended the conversation with a kiss.
As it turned out Tina´s mom didn´t have a stroke when they went back to Lima a few weeks later for her dad´s birthday. But she did blame Santana. She was certain that her daughter would´ve never gotten that outrageous tattoo on her ankle if it weren´t for the Latina.
The three little words caused a lot of fights and discussions and Misses Cohen-Chang always made her daughter wear socks when she was around her, so that she wouldn´t have to read the words.
Santana had to deal with two pizza-free years at Cohen-Chang household and her ordeal only ended when she finally relented and said yes. At first to the Cohen-Chang´s, then to Tina and one final time in front of their friends and families.
"I still think it´s strange that your parents asked me to marry you. I mean who does that?"
"You said yes anyway, didn´t you?"
Santana kept silent, her fingers still tracing along the ink on Tina´s skin. "I love that tattoo."
"And I love you."
"I know, your ankle tells me so."
I love Satan
A/N:Someone was asking about this fic. At least I hope it´s what they were looking for. :) So this is for you anon. ^^ Title is a song by Kings of convenience. My first and so far only try at Santina or whatever you´d like to call them.