Thanks to my beta SunshineTuna and everybody reading/reviewing. For updates on story progress, etc, I also cross post on tumblr under ehefic. Enjoy!
As they put the plastic bags in the back of Santana's car—only three of them, mostly microwavable food and a pack of tortillas and milk and a smaller bag of fruit—Santana's hand slowed suddenly, in the midst of tucking the half-gallon into the corner made by the taillight. Brittany watched anxiety slither around those dark eyes, flicking them around the contents of the trunk.
"What's wrong?"
Tornado's head snapped toward her. "Nothing," she blurted, sharp and defensive. She slammed the lid down and stalked to the driver's seat. Brittany hesitated, surprised, before trailing to the passenger side and settling beside her. Whirlwind had the car started and was switching anxiously through the six worthless radio stations. "God, why can't they play some good music in this fucking town?" Santana swore. Her black nail polish flashed as she jumped among the preset buttons.
"You don't have to play anything." Brittany twisted her hands together in her lap. Santana didn't want music she liked, or she'd play her CD. She wanted something loud and catchy to drown out their conversation. Probably something she wouldn't accidentally start singing to.
Just another girl. The memory of that rasp made Brittany squirm against the seat. That and Santana's too-long silence.
Santana turned the radio back off with a soft sigh. Brittany waited. Santana gripped the steering wheel and twisted her hands forward and back. Staring at the blinking LED image of an unbuckled passenger.
Her breath came out in a gush. With her eyes still on the flashing red icon, she said, "I've gotta put the milk in the fridge."
Brittany stared. She watched Santana's face, sure it would reveal what she'd missed. Finally—probably a little too late—she agreed, "Yeah." She glanced toward the trunk, but her eyes pulled back to Santana. "Unless you need funky milk instead."
This sigh had a laugh at its edges. "Right," she said, and her voice sounded a little less tight. Whirlwind came back to life, shifting into reverse and guiding them fluidly out of the lot and onto the street.
Her dark eyes kept drawing back to the clock as they drove; Brittany copied her the first few times, but the difference between 5:38 and 5:39 couldn't keep her interest the way Santana did. Her elbow braced against the car door. The anxiety at the edge of her eyelids when the clock changed. Her free hand pushing her hair back carelessly.
The humble storefronts faded almost immediately into tired two-story houses. The tired houses shifted into dilapidated ones, white paint dirtied and peeling, windows askew. After another few blocks, the yards followed suit, fading from a determined dull green to brown patches to, finally, a scratchy, dry tan with life's detritus strewn near the front stoops and the driveways. Trash cans or broken toys. At one corner, two little boys chased each other over a discarded, shredded tire.
Santana was avoiding her eyes. Tendons rippled on her forearm as she forced the wheel around to turn down the next street.
Hurricane held the steering wheel taut and the car curved onto the first driveway—a practiced, perfected calculation. The tight circle matched her tight expression. She let the wheel correct itself, palm skimming over the pleather, and inertia carried the car over cracked asphalt. They slid alongside the dull gray house toward a small garage; just before a pothole, Santana swerved them off the pavement and onto a parking space of dead grass. She shut off the ignition and verily leapt out of her seat, shutting the door before Brittany could catch those dark eyes.
Brittany clicked the belt and the door and scooted out of the car. Santana was gathering the grocery bags. Eyes pinned to their contents. Like she hadn't chosen all the items herself.
A child's shriek and a revving engine cut through the quiet. Brittany glanced over her shoulder—head whipping with Slayer apprehension—but tall, scraggly hedges blocked the small backyard from the street behind Brittany and the house behind the garage. She turned back to Santana.
Santana's eyes edged uneasily around the trunk and the corner of the house. Brittany took a hesitant step closer. She wondered where they were—Quinn had never mentioned Santana's home life, if she even knew anything about it—but sandstorm's shifty stance and twitching hands and the echo of her trepidation about having to bring milk home kept Brittany's teeth clicked tight together.
Gently, Brittany reached into the trunk and took two of the bags. They were light. Santana's eyes flickered to hers for an instant—deep with guilt, or sadness, or maybe embarrassment—but then she was twisting the plastic handles between her fingers and closing the trunk. She mumbled something and slinked past Brittany, thumbing through keys on her keyring. Brittany caught up at the back door. Santana twisted the chosen key in a larger, crooked lock at eye-level, then pulled back and flicked to another key. She pressed this one roughly into the doorknob and twisted back and forth twice, then rammed her shoulder into the door.
It shuddered and yielded with a reluctant creak. Santana pushed it open wide and stepped into the darkness; as she tugged the key from its crevice, she said, "Come on in," in that tone Brittany couldn't decipher. She listened, following into the house and out of the path of the door. Santana shut it and flipped the deadbolt, leading Brittany a few feet to the right—toward a doorway—and pushing the heel of her hand up against a panel of three light switches.
She led Brittany into a small kitchen. The afternoon sun filtered through long, dusty curtains, and a similarly unattended but serviceable ceiling fixture offered supplementary light. An uneven wooden table was pushed into the windowed alcove, half swathed with papers and mail. The uncovered side sheltered two scratched, matching chairs. The refrigerator and dishwasher were wedged among the cupboards, counter, and sink. A second alcove next to the doorway housed a small stove and more cupboards.
Santana opened the refrigerator—undecorated, Brittany noticed, so different from the magnets and drawings and photos on her own—and tucked the milk and cheese inside. Her body hid the contents, but the rack above her head was empty.
Santana pushed the door shut with a heel and spun, hands outstretched to Brittany. Her gaze still canted to one side. Brittany slipped the handles of the bags off her wrists and into Santana's palms. Her whirlwind looked more like a beehive, now—calm on the outside but buzzing with danger and nervous energy. She slipped the frozen food into the freezer and turned again, putting the rest of the food into one bag and placing it onto the counter near the stove with the twitch of a sneer.
When she froze, stock-still, facing Brittany, the energy from bustling seemed to whir gently past her, burning out as it shifted her hair and clothes against her skin. Dark eyes settled on Brittany. And, almost suddenly, Brittany could see pink warmth blooming where Santana's summer-dark skin faded lighter into her hair. Then, with a sinking jolt, she recognized that inward look-away guilt.
Humiliation.
Brittany swallowed as Santana's gaze darted away again. She stepped forward and, after a second of panicked consideration, slipped her pinkie around Santana's. Those eyes turned up and sank into hers. Brittany offered a small smile. "What do you wanna do for dinner?" She teased her bottom lip between her teeth, feeling almost shy. She thought about continuing—reiterating that she had no plans, and needed to eat something, and they might as well eat together—but she saw the words turn over and over behind Santana's smooth skin and wrinkled brow.
Finally, tornado relaxed, looking away in thought instead of discomfort. Letting Brittany's levity defuse the atmosphere. Santana's glance lighted on the bag on the counter. "I was gonna just make tortillas," she said, "but maybe we could go out instead."
Brittany blinked—it was usually her who stumbled into double-meanings—but Santana's emphasis made it clear that out referred to the house. And probably the neighborhood. Maybe Quinn would know.
"Yeah!" She squeezed Santana's pinkie and bobbed her head. She spread her smile bigger. It successfully pried a little one out of Santana. Then, Brittany's face fell; she lamented, embarrassed, "But I don't know any place to eat, really."
Santana's shoulders quivered, like she was chuckling really quietly, and she shook her head, tugging Brittany's pinkie and leading her toward the door. "We can just go to Breadstix," she said, holding the door open for Brittany and releasing her pinkie. Santana gestured for her to go through and she grinned; as she passed, Brittany swore she felt Santana's hand, feather-light, guiding between her shoulder blades.
Brittany felt eyes boring into her through the menu. She peered over the edge of the plastic at Santana, curled into the corner against the booth and the partition.
Brittany wet her lips. "What?"
Dark eyes flicked over her face. A small, amused smile. "You've never been to Breadstix?"
Heat crept into Brittany's cheeks, though she didn't know why. She curled the corner of the menu, watching her fingernails reflect the light. "Nope."
Tornado laughed, loud and short and beautiful. Brittany pushed the menu against her lap and folded her arms over the edge. "Should I have?" she asked. Her mouth slanted upward a little, the way it did when she missed a joke but still got pulled along with everyone laughing.
Santana just shook her head. She craned her neck and gestured gruffly at a passing waitress. "Can we get some service here?" Brittany trained her eyes on the startled server; the woman—Betty, according to her nametag—skittered toward the kitchen.
Santana's face had already relaxed when she turned back to Brittany. "You should try the shrimp cocktail," she suggested.
Her tone was so certain. Brittany just nodded. "Okay," she said, folding the menu and setting it on the table. She reached across to get Santana's and slid it closer, settling neatly over hers in a small stack. Santana took a breadstick from the basket and nibbled on the end, then brushed the crumbs off her chest.
"Why did you come?"
Brittany's eyes snapped upward—how had they settled there, on Santana's chest?—and she chewed the inside of her cheek. Certain she'd been caught. "Huh?"
Santana broke off a bit of the bread, holding it over the table this time. "To the store. You didn't have to." She popped the bite into her mouth. It sounded like she'd wanted to ask all day, and now she couldn't hold the question down anymore.
"Told you." Brittany knew, somehow, Santana wouldn't like the truth. That worked out okay; she wasn't positive what the real answer even was. "I didn't have anything to do." Even so, making it seem like nothing felt wrong, so she added, "Besides, I wanted to hang out with you." She took a breadstick from the basket, eyeing it curiously.
"Why?"
That figuring-out look. Again. But harder—deep creases sank between Santana's eyebrows and along her forehead. Instead of diving deep, her eyes seemed to press outward, against Brittany's. Searching.
Brittany looked down and pushed her thumb through the breadstick near one end. She pushed the little piece into her mouth and chewed. Buying time. "Because," she said just before she swallowed, holding her hand in front of her lips, "you're interesting." She gulped and dropped her hand. "And you're the other Slayer. I should at least know a little about you."
Santana stared hard at the breadstick, scratching bits of seasoning off onto the table with her thumbnail. She began to reply, but the waitress—Betty—appeared at the edge of their table with her pen poised above her notebook. "Good evening, ladies," she said too quickly and with some trepidation. "What can I get you this evening?"
Brittany glanced at Santana. "Can I get the…" She frowned just a little, enough to mimic confusion, and asked Santana, "What'd you say I should get?"
It worked. Santana turned to Betty and ordered for both of them.
Betty skittered back to the kitchen; Santana munched through the rest of her breadstick dispassionately. "I can't believe Sue expects us to drink that Master Cleanse shit when there's a place like this in town," she commented.
Brittany glanced over each shoulder. The restaurant was full of—couples. Few adults. "Was she serious about that?" Brittany turned to Santana earnestly. "Because I can't get kicked off, but I need to eat because I get really cranky when I don't eat, and I can't—"
"Britt." Brittany cut off, her bubbling panic bottled in Santana's warm voice. In those lips, coiled into a wry smile. Almost affectionately, she explained, "Nobody really does that. You can't live off that shit." She shifted forward, bouncing on the booth's padding until she sat upright across from Brittany. "Only the newbies actually try it, but anorexia isn't exactly a workable lifestyle when Sue's running your ass ragged day in and day out." She ran a hand through her hair, guiding it carefully across her shoulder. "Besides," she added, taking another breadstick and ripping off the end, "like I said, slayin' leaves you hungry and horny, and even the wrath of Sue can't work out those kinks."
She rolled her shoulders and leaned back into the booth, tucking the bread into her mouth. Brittany worked to unglue her eyes from Santana's shirt shifting as she preened. After a moment without an answer, Brittany felt those brown eyes settle on her again. She looked up too late—cheeks tinged pink—but as Santana turned slightly to the right and squinted, like she was sure she'd seen something important but needed it verified, like she'd learned a secret—
"Here you go, girls," Betty nervously chirped, setting plates before them with trembling hands. "Is there anything else you need?"
Cyclone was focused on the food, now; she flicked her wrist in a dismissive wave and Betty retreated to the back. Brittany held her breath.
Nothing. The only reference to Brittany's staring came as mirth glinting in Santana's eyes when they caught Brittany's. Santana freed her fork from the rolled napkin and dug into the salad in front of her.
Brittany took a shrimp from the rim of the glass and dipped it hesitantly in the sauce. She'd had shrimp once before, when she was six at an office party and her father had teased her about her picky eating. She'd risen to the challenge, but remembered little else. The bite tasted foreign on her tongue.
It struck her, offhandedly, that this was her chance. To ask about Holly. The hallway. Or even—Brittany glimpsed a drop of the red sauce slipping down the crease of her palm—the dream.
But by the time she looked up, trying to reshape the thoughts into questions that wouldn't whip up the storm before her, Santana was already talking. "Where'd you say you moved here from?"
It caught her off guard, and Brittany had to gulp down the malformed phrases she'd begun to stitch together. "Indianapolis," she answered, almost stuttering.
"Huh." Santana bobbed her head and half-shrugged, as if to herself. "That's kinda cool. Were you, like, right in the city?" She speared a piece of lettuce, folding it in half savagely with the tines, and pushed it between those full lips.
Brittany wet hers subconsciously. "Kinda." She dropped her eyes to her own salad. Her fork, shoveling underneath the pieces halfheartedly, just scooted the food around the plate. "We were in a suburb, but it was bigger than this one."
A scowl. "Lima sucks," Santana spat, stabbing another leaf with unnecessary violence. Her face crumpled angrily, like a smashed pop can.
Brittany eyed the fork—jerking up and then jutting at a new angle like a stake—and Santana's eyes, pointed at the task at hand. Brittany's heart pounded out ten long, thick seconds against her inner ears. Uncertainly, she opened her mouth and drew air in sharply, closing her lips in a pucker to make a sucking noise like a breathy slide whistle.
Storm-eyes looked up in surprise for a full second before a short laugh escaped. It sapped the hostility from the muscles in her face and arm, like a cool cloth against hot skin. She shuffled the lettuce around her plate with less vehemence. "But, come on, it's gotta be shit compared to Indianapolis, right?" She glanced up at Brittany from beneath long lashes.
Indianapolis. Brittany let her eyes drift over that face and down along the smooth arm picking at shredded bits of carrot. She noticed how her right hand mirrored Santana's left; it felt almost—strange. Like a living reflection. Or maybe something else, with such dark hair and eyes and deep-summer skin and black nails. Like a shadow counterpart.
She thought back to the dream again. The Indianapolis warehouse. The blood on her hands. Santana, dark quicksilver, like a stroke of charcoal on bleached paper. A swath of night.
Brittany shrugged and popped another shrimp into her mouth. "It's kind of nice," she said, a little defensively. "It's quieter, and you can see the stars better. You know you can't see the stars at all from the city?" Santana watched her carefully. Brittany drew a breath. "I bet you can't see them in Cleveland, either."
Santana's expression pulled inward like closed shutters. She gulped ice water, dark eyes flitting away from Brittany, but didn't say anything. Brittany wondered if the warehouse in the dream had looked the same to Santana's eyes.
They crunched quietly through their salads. The lettuce felt insubstantial, settling like a feather in Brittany's stomach and leaving too much space. She ate another shrimp and studied Santana's face folding along old creases into the look she presented to the Cheerios and Quinn and Beiste and Holly. Unexpressive. Only a tick past neutral, enough to suggest a scowl. To discourage—something.
Brittany touched her water glass, tracing her fingertips in lines through the fogged condensation. "Santana," Brittany began—but once those deep dark eyes crept back into hers, she lost the courage she'd gathered to mention the night on the mausoleum or the beat of their bodies against each other in the Bronze or on the grass. She wasn't even sure how to mention it. Instead, she hastily substituted, "What do you think that dream meant?"
The rush to organize her thoughts and then replace them had made her voice waver, like she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. She realized it was probably that uncertainty—the sound of vulnerability—that kept Santana guarded instead of springing her into attack. Snapping shut like a mousetrap. Like swearing at Puck and kicking the chair.
Santana looked away, apparently considering. "I dunno," she muttered gruffly, but the way her gaze paced the table and their plates and their glasses said she wasn't done thinking yet. Brittany waited. And watched. Santana scraped her short nails across her skin, leaving faint off-color streaks in the pattern of the blood-war-paint from the dream. "In my experience, they don't make sense until it's too late." Her voice was strong and open and almost melancholy. When Brittany looked up again, those dark eyes were already pressing into her, the way Brittany set Hershey's kisses into the soft cookie dough when she and her mother and sister made black-eyed Susans.
Brittany thought about the warehouse and the blood and Santana's voice like steel and the graveyard and the blonde and him and the talisman and the headstone labyrinth. Santana looked pained, like she was thinking too. Like the dream was a soup of questions she'd swallowed too hot, scalding her tongue and throat and settling steamy and boiling in her stomach.
"Yeah," Brittany agreed, no longer sure what she was agreeing with. She dropped her eyes to the lettuce, cold and crisp on her plate. She took the last few shrimp instead, pressing the ends together between her fingers, dipping them in the sauce, and eating them all in one bite.
Whirlwind was looking around again, like her eyes were those little gnats that never stayed anywhere long. She took another sip from her water. She seemed as interested in the remnants of her salad as Brittany was in hers. "Let's go," she muttered, waving at Betty with a scowl.
Brittany said nothing.
