In the scattered evening light, Dani sat with her back against the wall, her good leg crossed underneath her body and her injured one stretched out straight in front of her. The guitar in her hands reflected the glow of the setting winter sun. Beams of red and orange filtered through the cold windowpanes, streaking the hardwood in thick blocks of color. There was very little sound but for the brief scratching of dull pencil tip on paper and the occasional restless movement of clothing for a long time.
It had been hours since she had entered the room alone after a late midday meal with the rest of her flatmates. Kurt and Rachel had gone off to some festive event at NYADA for the night, and Santana had fallen asleep watching movies on the couch. It was the first time in weeks that she had been truly alone, left without the presence of other humans or of the demons that enjoyed dangling inside her head. She was taking full advantage of the time; in the past few hours, she had written music only from the memory of the sound of each chord. The lyrics had swarmed through her head since when she woke in Santana's arms at dawn.
Raising a glass of water to take a small sip, she cleared her throat and began to play the notes that had been dancing in her head.
You've been gone
Fifteen hours now
There's a storm rolling in
The kitchen light's fading out
I want to tell you
But I don't know where to begin
There's a cloud in the sky outside little child
There's rain threatenin' to come down
There's a storm on the rise there's trouble in the skies
There's sure to be some fallout
Just remember that
Somewhere out there
There's a rainbow touching the ground
There's nothing to cry about; honey don't make a sound
When you left
People came round
Questionin' where you'd gone
I shut the door; let them wonder
I wish you'd come home
Instead I'm sitting here alone
There's a cloud in the sky outside little child
There's rain threatenin' to come down
There's storm on the rise there's trouble in the skies
There's sure to be some fallout
Just remember that
Somewhere out there
There's a rainbow touching the ground
There's nothing left for you to cry for; little child don't make a sound
And I know and I know and I know you told me
You told me a thousand times
But I don't but I don't I don't know why
You chose to let us go
If you won't be comin' home
Please tell me so I don't have a reason to hope
You know
There's a cloud in the sky outside little child
There's rain threatenin' to come down
There's a storm on the rise there's trouble in the skies
There's sure to be some fallout
I said
There's a cloud in the sky outside little child
There's rain threatenin' to come down
There's a storm on the rise there's trouble in the skies
There's sure to be some fallout
But remember that
Somewhere out there
There's a rainbow touching the ground
Hope's not something you should cry for; my little child don't make a sound
As the last chord dropped into the air, a knock sounded on the bedroom door. Cheeks flushing, Dani straightened up with a cough, casting the papers scrawled with lyrics beneath the bed before assuming what she hoped to be a casual position.
"Come in," she responded lowly, half hoping that her reply would not be heard. She should have known better. People in this apartment seemed to have abnormally acute hearing. It was actually rather irritating; there was virtually no window for privacy.
Blaine popped his head around the corner of the doorjamb, his wet hair apparently freshly combed.
"Nice music, Dani," was his comment. Dani flushed brightly from the neck, and the boy laughed quietly. "Embarrassing, huh?" Dani shook her head, placing the guitar down on the side of the mattress to make her predicament seem less obvious.
"Not exactly. Just . . . my songs are personal," she explained softly, doing her best to make the admission sound offhanded. The ploy didn't work; Blaine's eyes softened, and his lips spread in a knowing smile.
"Do you mind me asking what that one was about?" he inquired gently. "It was beautiful, but you sounded . . . sad." She granted him a tiny smile for his observation.
"It's . . . just something that I wish someone had said to me," was her quiet response. Blaine took the statement as a hint not to say anything more, and gave her an understanding nod before backing out of the room. Dani sighed in relief once the door had closed. She didn't mind sharing things as much anymore — in fact, she was starting to think that it might perhaps be beneficial to do so more often — but her music was her heart and soul; her only escape. It was the only outlet she had ever had, her only safety. Many things had been stolen from her over the course of her life, but she would be damned if she ever let someone take her music away.
In the beginning, it had been her only safe place. Now that she no longer seemed to be in any immediate danger, it was morphing into a different method of expression. But, it would never take the backseat.
Maybe one day, if she finally managed to heal herself enough, it could even be something bigger.
When Dani stepped tentatively into the combined kitchen and dining room, skirting around the furniture nervously and staying near the edges of the room in a manner they had all come to be familiar with, Santana anticipated a multitude of scenarios and was surprised when none of them were accurate. For one thing, since she was cooking, she was half expecting a denial of hunger or an offer to assist in some way. For another, Dani had remained shut in their room all day, as was her custom, and had not yet greeted any of them. Perhaps guilt was on the table, or perhaps Dani was being made anxious by the fact that a fire-alarm test was scheduled for that evening, which would result not only in the presence of other humans, but in loud noises. Both were things that held an element of fear for her despite the fact that this was her fourth month with them, and her third week out of the hospital.
So, accordingly, Santana was much surprised when Dani skittered into the kitchen wearing a flattering crimson blouse and dark jeans, makeup attractively applied.
"I'm ready to talk," she announced quietly. Instantly, Santana reached down and switched off the burner she was tending to. She set down the wooden spoon and the oven mitt and turned to face Dani with her arms folded across her chest. Food dealt with, she opened her mouth to comment, or to give the go-ahead signal, but a last-minute detail caught her eye and the words that escaped her were not at all what she intended.
"Your hair looks different." Dani shot her a bemused look before reaching up absently to twiddle with a strand of hair. She looked down, back up, then down again, and appeared to remember what had happened.
"Oh, yeah — I uh, I washed the rest of the dye out last night," she admitted with a shrug. "The blonde was on its last legs, and I didn't even really like it anyways." Santana's eyes appraised the dark chestnut curls spilling over the edge of the blouse, and she decided she liked the look. Moreover, once she got past the physical aspect of it, she was impressed. There was simply no way that Dani would have had the courage to take charge of her body in such a way two months ago. Nor, even if she had done that, would she have had the nerve to say out loud — albeit in a somewhat roundabout way — that her own opinion of herself actually counted for something.
Hell, Santana wasn't just impressed; she was proud.
"So I uh, I think — can we talk?" Dani blurted out when Santana continued to do nothing but gaze at her in admiration. Santana snapped out of her thoughts and shook her head slightly before realizing that the movement could be taken as a refusal to Dani's request. Hastily, she nodded, recovering her error, and gestured towards the kitchen table invitingly.
"Of course. Would you like to sit down?" Dani shook her head.
"I think I'd prefer to stand." She offered Santana a slight smile. "If you don't mind, that is," she added, a hint of her old insecurities slipping in. Santana smiled in return.
"Not at all; go right ahead. Do you want me to ask you things, or would you rather just tell me?" she asked. Dani drew her plump lower lip between her teeth, contemplative.
"Just tell you." It seemed to cost her something to admit it; understanding, Santana leaned back against the counter, ready to listen.
"Whenever you're ready," she said graciously. Dani's shoulders seemed to freeze up somewhat; she drew a quiet, short breath. She closed her eyes, and for several long moments, she seemed to only exist, not moving, not breathing; hovering somewhere in a balance between thought and speech. Then, abruptly, she turned on her heel and crossed the room to run her fingertips along the frame of a picture on the wall. It was an old painting of a lake, given to them by a friend of Kurt's from NYADA.
"When I was six years old, my mother died," she let out in a rush. For a moment, time seemed to freeze, holding still, as if the universe was anticipating a reaction. When no cosmic event occurred, another breath was drawn. She continued, "She left behind no money for her husband to pay her debt and a pathetic excuse for a mortgage that the bank didn't even bother to foreclose. I'm not even sure it was legal, anyway. My stepfather was a drunken man who thought he loved my mother and who hated me, and once she died he. . . didn't want me in his way." She allowed the words to hang in the air for a long moment. Something in the coldness of her tone told Santana that this story would not be a happy one.
"He was a bastard," Dani hissed, now apparently intently examining her fingernails. "He was a drunken, vile asshole who took his grief out on his wife's child. Unfortunately, being soaked in booze didn't stop him from figuring out new ways to do it. He was very . . . creative in his punishments." A hard knot formed in Santana's throat and slipped all the way down into her stomach. It twisted there, weighted and icy, and she was suddenly fighting the urge to throw up.
"He hurt me," Dani said, raising her eyes to meet Santana's, and her voice dropped to a tight whisper. "Though I guess you've probably figured out that. He did everything he could to try to end my existence without actually killing me. There were nights when I wasn't sure whether I would live till morning because I was certain he was going to murder me in my sleep. Sometimes, on the mornings when I'd wake up and he'd declare a day home sick from school, I'd wish he had. Then one night, my sophomore year, he almost did." She paused, seeming to struggle for air, and Santana nearly reached out.
She was stopped by the fire of pure, raging hatred burning in Dani's eyes. It was a look she had never seen on her before; the sight of it was intense, and the contrast between it and the woman's usually uncertain demeanor was astounding. By the flashing fierceness behind those eyes, it was clear to Santana that in another life, this wouldn't be a woman she would ever want to cross. It was evident that this was a rant Dani had not expelled in a long time — maybe ever. Santana decided that the healthiest thing to do was to let the anger run its course, and she was still curious. This was the most she had ever heard of Dani's story.
Seemingly overwhelmed with intensity, Dani ripped her gaze away, and walked a short distance away to fiddle with the leaves of a potted plant in the corner of the kitchen. It was several minutes before she spoke again.
"He broke seventeen of my ribs," she continued when she had regained control over her angry brain and stilled her lips and tongue. "One of them snapped into thirds and punctured my right lung in two places. Another got ripped totally out of place and jammed upwards. It missed my heart, but not by much. My right arm broke; my left shoulder got dislocated. My collarbone snapped. He cracked my skull on both sides, chipped a disk in my neck, and broke my jaw. It still pops when I swallow," she added with a humorless laugh. The sound was flat and dead sounding in the warm room.
"Fucker." Santana startled herself with her own interjection. Dani laughed once more, and again the sound held no mirth.
"He wasn't the only one," she said darkly. "Just the first. There were others; after that little incident, social services took me, put me in the foster system. I was in it until a few months ago, when I finally got my shit together enough to earn some money and get myself the fuck out of there. I came to New York thinking that it would be different; that I would be safe. Then those dickheads found me in the park and ruined everything I thought I'd gained." She turned, looking Santana straight in the eyes in a maneuver that startled them both and holding the contact far longer than either of them anticipated.
"And then you found me," she concluded. Suddenly, all hint of fury had dissipated; the hatred had vanished from her eyes, and she was once again the small, sweet Dani Santana had come to know.
"And then I found you," she echoed, staring straight into honey eyes. Still not breaking eye contact, she acted on instinct alone and reached out both hands in a silent offer. She watched as the young woman continued to gaze at her warily before feeling the weight of Dani's hands being placed into her own. Their heaviness settled, fingers adjusted, and the remaining touch of skin on skin felt secure, like a promise being made. Without clear knowledge of what she was about to do, Santana leaned forward, dipped her head down, and pressed her lips to Dani's forehead. Her lips pressed their hope into warm flesh, searing in their promise with gentle pressure; an assurance. When she pulled away, their synchronized breaths were choked and heavy.
Dani's eyes were like swirling lakes of molten joy.
"Rachel! Rachel, I think I'm dying!" Rachel came skidding around the corners on the hardwood wrapped only in her towel to find Dani standing with her hands outstretched at the bathroom door. The sight of fresh blood on the other girl's right hand nearly made her faint. Quickly, she checked Dani for any signs of outward injury. When she found none, she looked to Dani with a querying expression.
"I'm bleeding . . . and my stomach hurts. A lot. Right here." Dani moved her hands to mime rubbing at a spot just above the top of her yoga pants, and something clicked in Rachel's brain. She fell back with a sigh of relief.
"Dani, hun, you're not dying; you're just on your period." Dani shot her a confused glance. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"What?" Her hand remained flat against her lower abdomen, pressing down firmly as if in attempt to suck the ache out of her muscles and into her palm. Rachel stared from Dani's hand to her frightened face for a long moment; her eyes flickered back and forth, attempting to sort out why she didn't understand.
After a tense few seconds of confusion, the answer came to her, and she moved closer to the worried girl. Dani backed away nervously.
"Rachel what's . . . what's going on with me? Am I sick? Did I need to get stitches for something and it got missed? I'm not going to die, am I? I don't want to die yet," Dani blurted out, backing into the wall. Her shoulder blades collided with the sheetrock with a painful jab, and she instinctively brought up her other hand to rest on top of the first. Rachel smiled reassuringly and shook her head.
"No, honey, you're not going to die," she promised with an easy smile. "This is completely normal." Dani's eyebrows scrunched together worriedly.
"You're sure?" Hearing that she still sounded fearful, Rachel reached out a hand for her to take. Dani eyed it warily for a moment before accepting the hold with hesitant fingers. Entangled, Dani's trembling fingers made Rachel's shake, too.
"I'm sure, honey," Rachel soothed with a smile. "Although I think that you and I need to have a little talk. It's nothing bad, I promise," she assured, backtracking at the sight of Dani's wide eyes. "There are just some things you should know; it's not your fault that no one's talked to you about them before, but you're . . . how old are you?" Rachel trailed off, realizing that she had missed out on this important piece of information about the girl. Dani shot her an odd look, but answered regardless.
"I'm twenty-two," she responded carefully. "I think. I was born in ninety-three; it said that on my papers. I think that makes me twenty-two." Her fingers tugged slightly to free themselves from Rachel's eager grip. The diva nodded, displaying a much more collected version of what her response would typically be. She understood that at the present time, what Dani needed was for her to remain calm. She would ask questions later, or better yet, get Santana to ask them. Santana clearly had a way with Dani that none of the rest of them seemed to possess.
"You're twenty-two," she continued calmly. "And you needed to know these things years ago. So I'm going to show you how to get comfortable and then we're going to talk, okay? We can sit on the couch and eat pizza or something, if you'd like." Dani shook her head at the mention of food.
"I don't eat without Santana." Rachel frowned.
"Dani, it's just a piece of pizza; it . . ."
"I don't eat without Santana," Dani reiterated, finally succeeding in pulling her fingers away from Rachel's. "But the couch is okay. We can sit there. To talk." Rachel hesitated, noting the way that Dani's tone was clipped and her expression stony, concealing certain anxiety. Seeing the way the woman drew her lip between her teeth and crossed her arms agitatedly, she almost changed her mind. The words were on the tip of her tongue when she realized how important it was that this be discussed with her new roommate. Dani needed to be informed, especially after all that she had been through. At this point, it would be criminal for her to be unaware of the workings of her own body.
Rachel smiled encouragingly and beckoned with her hand, and Dani followed her stumblingly into the living room.
That evening, as Dani sat curled in the corner of the shower, her legs drawn up beneath her chest to shield her body from the bullet-like droplets, her mind raced at a million miles an hour. She hardly noticed the frigid water pummeling her skin, the drops shattering on impact and splashing out across her tattoos. Somehow, the wetness seemed to darken them, making them fade and smooth into the creases of her skin.
You are a woman. Rachel's voice echoed in her head, sounding strange and foreign when contorted by memory. She hadn't understood, at first, what Rachel had meant by her words. Dani was not a woman — at least, not so far as she could tell. A woman was an adult, a grown-up person with a stable income and a husband and a regular nine-to-five job; that was what she had been taught all her life, by her stepfather, by her teachers, and by the various cookie-cutter couples that had been rich enough or desperate enough to take her in during her later years.
Truth be told, Dani's own idea of a woman was slightly different from what she had been taught. Despite the terror that had previously discouraged her from even thinking for herself, the image had popped into her mind unbidden. When Rachel had mentioned women, the first vision that had come to her was of someone with a secure past, with none of the demons or weaknesses that haunted her own existence. A woman was without fault or flaw or fragility, all of which she had, and beyond that, she looked nothing like the image that was conjured in the backs of her eyes. Santana was a woman; Rachel was a woman; the people she saw on the streets were women. Dani was not a woman.
The people who had taken her into their homes had not taught her well enough for her to understand that she could formulate her own opinion, and especially not of a matter such as this. They had forced her to choke down their beliefs and values; they had scorched her mind with their distorted perceptions of life. They had not assumed responsibility for her; that would imply that they had given her some degree of thought and care. If that had been the case, she would have known all of what Rachel had painfully explained to her over the past hour and a half.
If you have any questions at all, she remembered that Rachel had said, you can ask me whatever you'd like. And though she had been caught up in mortification over what the diva had been describing, Dani had taken a degree of advantage of the opportunity to gain a little knowledge of how . . . things . . . generally worked. That being said, there was still much that she didn't know or even have a good chance of comprehending at the present time.
Thinking back on one of the topics that had been brought up, Dani felt her cheeks flush slightly with embarrassment. What Rachel had been describing hadn't necessarily been repulsive or wrong, but even the mere thought of such things was somewhat off-putting to Dani. Never before had she entertained such thoughts. In the past, her body had been taken possession of, and she had not grown to see it as her own; it had merely been an object for others to use as they pleased, and for her to be ashamed of. Now, knowing that she was, at least, relatively safe for the first time in her life, she couldn't help but be curious despite her discomfort with the subject.
Caught in her thoughts, Dani automatically glanced down through the surge of water, and her eyes caught blurred glimpses of her own pale flesh. Something in the sight piqued her curiosity, and she abruptly shifted to sit up slightly straighter. It was still blurry that way, but a little less so; she could see the water catching against the roughness of her scars and streaming in dancing rivers across her skin.
Tentatively, she brought her hands up from where they had been lying flat against the cold tile of the shower floor. First, hesitantly, she touched the pads of her fingertips to her temples. When no calamity occurred, no buzzing electric shock, she resumed movement. Slowly, she brushed up the sides of her face to her forehead, and then back down by the bridge of her nose. They smoothed out the skin above her eyelids, and then moved to her cheeks.
With each inch of skin touched, she felt every particle beneath her fingertips; every bump and scratch and sleek expanse where the delicate structure of bones could be felt underneath. Her hands traversed the short distance down the defined tendons of her neck to her collarbone, and from there across the tops of her shoulders. She continued the sweep down her arms by her inner elbow to her wrist, palm, and fingertips, and paused a moment there, examining the lines of her hand, her nails, and the tiny webs of skin between her the bases of her fingers. Then she continued back up the outside of her arm and returned to her neck, halting for a tense moment before venturing downwards.
She neglected to touch right away, sweeping her hands down the valley between her breasts before dancing lightly over her abdomen, which still twinged dully with the pangs of tensing muscles. She felt the scars there, more numerous than elsewhere save her wrists. Her upper ribcage was littered with bumpy remnants of cuts and vicious carvings, and to touch them elicited a slight spasm of leftover fear within her diaphragm, but she touched them regardless. She had suddenly been consumed by a need to explore, to remind herself that she really was still in one piece, and perhaps to prove something else that she was not quite aware of yet.
As her fingers dragged over her midsection, she marveled at how her ribs were already less sharply outlined against her skin. She had put on a little weight, though whether that was due to her current predicament or the regularity of her food intake, she wasn't entirely sure. It was why, Rachel had told her, she was experiencing this newfound area of womanhood. This was the heaviest she had ever been in her life; it made sense that it would happen now, when her body was being sustained enough to support its vital functions. It allowed for the possibility of the occurrence of other, less critical things.
Her first thought when she noticed the change was that Santana would be happy. Santana had worked so hard over the past couple of weeks to encourage her to get into the habit of consuming regular meals, steadily increasing the amount of food as time went on. It was oddly clear to her that with this, Santana's only objective was for her to be healthy. It was the first time another's motives had been both obvious and benign, and for that, she was grateful.
After lingering on her ribcage for several minutes, Dani summoned up the courage to bring her hands a little higher to brush the undersides of her breasts. Instantly, her eyes snapped shut and her breathing grew slightly frantic, spooked by the onslaught of horrific memories that flooded through her at the feeling. The thoughts that crowded into her mind were awful and caused her to twitch slightly where she sat, making her want to rip her hands away and continue her shower in peace, but something in her made her hold back. Tensely, she held the panic at bay and attempted to steady her breathing. After a long moment, she gradually pulled all of her fingers away, with the exception of her thumbs, which she left resting there, the sides of her knuckles brushing against her skin.
Several minutes later, she moved them again. Immediately, there came the same response, but again she would not permit herself to budge. Three times she repeated the process, until she had moved her hands almost an inch across her skin. Then something in her told her to do no more, at least not at the present time, and she allowed her hands to drop. Her breathing was labored and heavy; still a little anxious, though less so than when she had begun. As the feeling of hands on flesh faded away, her pounding heart gradually slowed, and her body relaxed against the shower wall. A small smile spread across her face.
It wasn't everything it could have been, but it was certainly a start.
"So I hear you taught my girl some inappropriate life lessons?" The throw pillow, lobbed from across the room with precise aim, collided with the back of Rachel's head. Rachel twisted on the couch to glare at the smirking perpetrator, who sat with her hands folded inoffensively in her lap. She snatched the pillow out of the air expertly as it was fired back in her direction, and caught Rachel's eye with a wink and a mock glare.
"She needed to know, Santana! And for your information, it was quite possibly the most awkward discussion of my life; I didn't enjoy it any more than she did!" Santana scoffed.
"Yeah right Berry, you probably enjoyed lecturing someone about something non-Broadway related you knew about that they didn't, for once," she snorted, inhaling a good portion of her ice cream. It was vanilla. She scrunched her face. "Besides," she added once she had cleared her nose. "She probably didn't even want to know. What sparked this conversation, anyways?" Rachel cleared her throat. Her eyes traveled to Kurt on the couch, seemingly focused intently on the latest episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey.
"Santana, could we maybe . . ." she gestured subtly to the kitchen. Catching the hint, Santana nodded.
"So? What happened?" she asked once they were out of earshot. Rachel folded her arms with a worried look.
"She got her . . . you know . . . time of the month, and she totally panicked. She didn't know what was happening. Tell me of any other twenty-two-year-old you know who panics when they get their period. I mean, obviously she'd never had it before because she's so underweight, but nobody had ever told her about it. She needed to know." Santana cringed at the wording but permitted a shrug.
"That was her business, Berry. You shouldn't have butted in," she said offhandedly. She did a good job of concealing her worry.
"Santana, she thought she was dying. It took me at least half an hour to convince her that she wasn't bleeding out. I had to do something." Remarkably, Santana's face remained impassive.
"Still, you didn't need to give her a full health class lecture. You could have just . . . I don't know . . . edged your way around the subject?" she flapped her arms in demonstration. Rachel's gaze turned reproachful.
"Santana Lopez, don't you dare tell me you wouldn't have done absolutely everything you could to comfort that poor girl if the situation came up." Santana's eyes narrowed.
"I . . ."
"Exactly," Rachel cut in firmly. "I did what I could to calm her down. It's not like I presented her with birth control and a box of condoms and told her to abstain or the world would frown upon her. I told her what was happening to her, answered all of her questions, and gave her an ibuprofen so that she could sleep off the worst of the cramps. Now, is there something else you'd like to bother me about? Or can I get back to running my Fannie Brice lines again?" Santana snorted as she crossed the room to open the cupboard.
"You already know those lines by heart, Dwarfie. I'm pretty sure you've been reciting them in your sleep since you were old enough to dream."
"You can never know them too well!" shrieked Rachel, halfway out the door. "And I need to practice expression!"
Santana only chuckled to herself, pulling a box of tea out of the cupboard and setting a pot of water on to boil.
Balancing a full mug in one hand and a small book in the other, Santana attempted to knock on her bedroom door. After some finagling in which her anklebone attained a moderately severe bruise, she managed to bump her knee against the wood in some a version of a knock. A strained come in sounded, and she nudged the door open with her hip.
Dani looked up from Rachel's worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. Though slightly pained, her eyes lit up at the sight of Santana, a small smile flitting across her lips. Santana immediately noticed the way she was sitting, curled up with her knees tight against her chest, and how her eyebrows were drawn close together with discomfort.
"I brought you some tea," she said softly. Moving carefully across the room, she set the mug of hot liquid down on the bedside table. "It sometimes helps me when my cramps are bad." Dani threw her a weak smile of gratitude. The action looked a little strained.
"Thank you," she murmured, accepting the drink gratefully. Curling up further against her pillow, she took a slow sip. Her eyes fluttered closed at the soothing feeling of warmth curling down into her body. A moment later, when she realized that Santana was still standing at the bedside, waiting, she opened her eyes again. Accustomed to Dani's habit of keeping her gaze downcast, Santana was startled when dark honey eyes made direct contact with her own. The jolt that ran through her unsettled her momentarily, and she was rendered paralyzed for a short moment before she could gather her scattered nerves up and clear her brain.
"Uh — you're welcome," she stammered, and instantly was mentally dousing herself in the hot tea she had just handed over. Since when did she stumble over her words? Dani was upturning her entire, perfectly fabricated façade. It was a little silly, if she thought about it enough; that after all her years of dealing with abrasive individuals like Rachel, it was Dani who had cracked open her shell. This girl was going to be the death of her.
Dani let out a quiet laugh that was stiffened by the edges of the mug near her lips. "Something making you nervous?" she teased lightly. Santana noted the way that she toyed with the edges of the cup, fingertips tracing swirling patterns across the painted ceramic. She gave her a warm smile.
"Not particularly," she returned casually, eyeing the edge of the mattress. She gestured towards it with a quirked eyebrow. "May I sit? I'd like to talk to you for a minute," she requested. Immediately, Dani's whole body tensed; she drew her legs up tighter to her chest and pulled in her hands closer, still cradling her tea. Her eyes were abruptly wary, and Santana was filled with guilt at the sight. It made her sad to think that Dani still had trouble trusting her on occasion. "It's okay," she reassured, seeing that the girl had scooted farther up on the bed. "I was only wondering something." Hearing that, Dani's body relaxed most of the way. Her large brown eyes blinked lazily up at Santana, questioning, but she nodded slowly.
Santana hadn't really noticed before how long Dani's eyelashes were.
"Why don't you know for sure how old you are?" she blurted out. Distracted by the sight of Dani's eyes, she hadn't thought to phrase her question more eloquently. Instantly, she grew anxious, wondering if Dani would balk at such an inquiry. Sure enough, the young woman shifted a little where she sat. She ducked her head down, lowering her eyes to the quilt.
"I . . . birthdays weren't exactly . . . celebrated in my house, growing up," she said finally. One of her hands played absentmindedly with the hem of her shirt. "My mother was either too drunk or too busy getting drunk to remember, and after she died, my stepfather made a point of keeping me as miserable as possible — especially when that involved me being my own person. As far as he was concerned, I was just a piece of meat." Santana was incredulous.
"So you've never had a birthday party?" was all that she managed to respond with. She stared in bewilderment at Dani, who shook her head with only an accompanying shrug of indifference.
"No." Santana was astounded; Dani didn't even seem to be aware that she was missing anything.
"What about a dinner? Visiting relatives? Presents?" Dani's shoulder twitched at the mention of relatives, but it was her only visible response.
"Nope." Santana blinked.
"No presents?" she asked disbelievingly. Dani shook her head.
"No presents." Santana gaped at her in pure astonishment. Dani, oddly enough, didn't seem the least perturbed by the woman's persistent stare. When Santana cleared her throat in a loud show of shock, she didn't even flinch.
"Did you ever even have a cake?" the dumbfounded Latina finally asked in desperation, seemingly desperate to find at least one small piece of evidence that pointed towards a proper birthday celebration.
"Once, I think," Dani said offhandedly. "When I was little. There's a picture of it somewhere. It was at school, so I guess the teacher made it for the class, or something." She wrinkled her nose in distaste, and Santana had to withhold a giggle at the adorableness of the expression.
"What is it?" She didn't understand why the mention of cake would conjure up a disgusted expression; the memory that Dani had mentioned appeared to be a happy one. Dani hesitated.
"I don't think I like cake," she admitted after a moment. Santana threw her head back and laughed, leaving Dani to look on, bewildered. "What did I say?" she wanted to know when the brunette couldn't stop giggling. Santana wiped away tears with another little huff of breath.
"I don't like cake either," she explained once she had regained control of herself. "I think it's gross. Rachel says that it's just a vessel for frosting, but that seems a little pointless. Why not just eat the frosting without anything to go with it at all?" Dani frowned.
"What does frosting taste like?" she queried.
Santana actually went pale.
"Wha — it — you — you've never tasted frosting?" she finally croaked disbelievingly. Slowly, Dani nodded in affirmation.
"Not that I remember, anyway," she added. Santana closed her eyes for a long moment and breathed deeply. When she opened them, they were determined.
Abruptly, she stood up. She reached for Dani, impatiently gesturing with her head for them to leave the room. Her foot tapped impatiently.
Dani followed suit, a little nervous.
"Wh — what are we doing?" she asked hesitantly, reaching out to take the proffered hand. Santana stared down at her with an expression in her eyes that was almost stern.
"We're going to make frosting. Right now. And if you don't know how to make it, then I'm going to teach you, because nobody has an excuse to not know how to make frosting. If I don't teach you at least that, I will be a failure as a friend." Following behind her on the way out to the kitchen, Dani paused in the doorway. A tiny smile quirked at the corner of her mouth
"Friend?" she asked quietly. Prompted by the threat of the loss of Dani's hand in her own, Santana halted and turned. She studied Dani for half a second before noting the tiny smile; then she offered one of her own.
"Friend," she affirmed, and allowed her eyes to twinkle a little.
Dani's grin moved to her eyes and danced in reply.