In the movies, at a juncture like this, there's a crackle of electricity between two pairs of lips. There's a singular moment, where one, moved by the words of another, decides to just go for it. In reality, it's not quite like that. Santana hesitates. She feels sweat bead on her neck. She hearts her heart thumping in her ears. She can taste Brittany's breath on her mouth. But above it all, it's her mind that's the most present of all. It's her mind that tries to pull her back. It's her mind that just won't shut up.
They remain like that for a long time, Brittany just a breath away. Santana thinks, in the minutes that pass, that she's memorizing every color in Brittany's eyes. That she's counting every lash. She wants to kiss her so badly, she wants to believe her so badly. But she doesn't, kiss her, at least. The belief thing, that's still up for debate.
Brittany backs away, slowly, hesitantly. Santana almost follows. There's a draw, a pull, as the temptation is taken away from her. There's a pull, as Brittany goes to the kitchen to recycle the empty beer bottles. It's strange, Santana thinks, that the desire to kiss her is stronger when she's not there, than when she is. It's strange, but it doesn't surprise Santana. There's nothing that surprises her when it comes to Brittany. Nothing makes sense, and she hates it. Or, rather, she hates that she loves it.
As she goes to leave, Santana lingers. She second guesses. She turns over the newspaper on the entryway table. She doesn't want to go. She doesn't want to stay. Her brain is obviously misfiring. It can't get the right messages across, and it confuses her.
Even when she's out the door and on her way home, Santana's skin crawls with Brittany, Brittany, Brittany. She'd always associated skin-crawling with chiggers or bedbugs or fleas, but this is an oddly pleasant sensation. This, it seems, is her body's physiological way of working out a solution. Her body's way of analyzing because the prize is you. It's way of deciding if she can believe her, if she should open up her heart and risk destruction, or if she should curl in on herself to protect it.
She gets halfway down the block, and she can't bear it any longer. Standing in front of a Jamba Juice, she's faced with the most difficult decision of her life. More difficult than deciding to take her father's blood money for medical school. More difficult than putting aside her fear, and testifying against him in her mother's divorce proceedings. More difficult than walking right past him afterwards, when he snapped her name, and out of his life for good. Her professional choices have always come easy, because her personal ones have been so hard. But this personal choice, this one is impossible. This one is impossible, and yet, there's only one answer.
Santana turns back. That magnetic pull, it's too much to fight. That magnetic pull, like a compass to her true north, draws her back to Brittany's door step. She feels frantic, she feels out of control. Her heart races and races. She thinks it's possible that her misfiring brain will be the least of her problems, when she keels over with a heart attack on brownstone steps.
When she knocks on the door again, it comes close to that. Her hands tingle, her breath is short, and she's slightly convinced she might hurl. Definitive heart attack symptoms. Maybe her body is about to shut it all down, so she doesn't make a grave mistake. Maybe, maybe, maybe, her mind spins, but when the door opens, and Brittany stands before her, it all goes blank.
"Santana—"
She doesn't wait. She can't wait. She can't talk, or hear Brittany talk. Not right now. If they do that, she'll lose all her nerve. If they do that, her mind will start spinning again, and she'll never do it. They can talk later. They can talk for hours, if that's what they have to do. But now, right now, they can't.
Dropping her bag in the door, Santana steps forward. She cups Brittany's cheek in her hand, and she stands on her tip toes. She watches, as Brittany's eyes widen before her, she watches as they flicker down to her lips.
It's not a kiss for the movies. It's not a foot-popping kiss, and it isn't meant to be. Santana takes Brittany's lower lip between her own, and she holds her face as she does so. One hand on each side, she draws her closer. One hand on each side, she makes a promise. She's a mess, of course she's a mess, and tears start to fall as she kisses her like that. She's never kissed someone with a promise as the only expectation. She's never promised anyone anything at all. But this beautiful, brilliant, and frustrating woman makes her want to. She makes her want to be different, better. She makes her want to be loved.
"So I guess that's a yes then?"
"Why are you like this?"
"Why do you keep asking me that?" Brittany laughs, blinking rapidly, ridding her lashes of the teardrops that stick to them. "I still don't understand what you mean."
"Why do you like me?"
"Do you want me to tell you the list you don't like again?"
"I think maybe I like the list." There's a genuine laugh that bubbles out of Santana, and it surprises her. This, all of this, is overwhelming to her, and she presses her lips to Brittany's again, this time, staying there a little longer.
"I like the list too, a lot." Brittany's hand, still on the small of Santana's back from the first kiss, tickles up her spine. "Are you coming inside?"
"Brittany, I—" Santana feels this sort of panic gurgle in her stomach, and she can taste bile at the back of her throat. If there's too much, too fast, Santana knows she'll run. If there's too much, too fast…
"Or we could stand out on the stoop so the neighbor's hear us talking, either one."
"Oh." She sucks in as much air as she can manage. "Oh."
"Did you think…?" Brittany stifles a laugh. Santana thinks it's probably for her own benefit, and she should be embarrassed, but mostly she just feels relieved. She's dealt with more feelings in the last twelve hours than she has in her entire life, and really, she thinks she'd be entirely incapable of having anything that would bring them on tenfold. "How about I take you on a couple dates, and then we'll talk?"
"You want to take me on a date?" Stepping through the threshold, Santana lets Brittany close the door behind her. She immediately feels the loss of the contact of Brittany's body against her own, the loss of the thrum of a second heartbeat against her chest, and it's strangely uncomfortable.
"Do you not want me to take you on a date? I thought that's where we were headed here."
"No. I mean, yeah. No, I didn't meant I don't want you to take me on a date, yes, I'd be, uh, totally down for that."
"You're really cute, you know." Brittany shakes her head. "I know, I know, why am I like this?"
"I wasn't going to say that." Santana cracks a smile, looking into Brittany's eyes.
"You were thinking it though."
"Well, why are you?"
"I don't know." She shrugs, walking toward the kitchen. "Another beer?"
"I should go soon. But, one more, I guess."
Santana settles into the couch. This time, she really lets herself sink back into the cushions. This time, though her stomach is still knotted, and her head is still spinning, she lets herself relax. She's given into the pull of this, and no matter how battered and bruised her heart comes out in the end, she's resigned herself to let it drag her along.
When Brittany comes back, they sit for a long while in silence. Santana feels Brittany's knee against her own, but she doesn't move to touch her any further. There's something comfortable about this. Close enough to touch, if she wanted, far enough away that she has her own bubble of space. She has no idea what she's doing, really. People tend to figure this out in their early twenties, how to talk to other humans, how to date, how to be normal. But Santana was too busy burying herself in medical textbooks, Santana was too busy feeling shame and embarrassment. So now here she is, nearly thirty-four, and an actual emotional infant.
"When are you free?" Brittany asks her, jarring her out of her head, and back into the living room.
"Huh?"
"When can I take you out? You don't have to tell me right now, but I just need to get a babysitter for when we do. I won't leave Li in the daycare at the hospital when I'm not there."
"The hospital." Panic bells go off in Santana's brain. Brittany's a department head, she's an attending. She never bothered to read the fraternization sections of her contract. She never—
"I'm not planning on advertising any of this there." Brittany promises. "Or to Liam, yet. Let's take this one step at a time."
"Am I even allowed to go on a date with you?"
"Yes." Brittany shakes her head, laughing. It's strange, how when she laughs, Santana knows she's not laughing at her. She doesn't have a visceral reaction to the sound. On the contrary, she kind of likes it. "Interns, residents, Ned students, pretty off limits. Nurses are iffy, as well as a superior in your own department."
"You've, uh, really got these rules down, huh?"
"Photographic memory." She nods to herself. "Not aware from experience. I don't typically go to work to pick up dates."
"And yet…"
"You're an exception, Santana. You're an exception to a lot of things."
"Um, thanks, I guess?"
"I do mean that as a compliment. You're exceptional."
"Far from it."
"Am I never allowed to compliment you?" Gently, Brittany tucks a fallen lock of Santana's hair behind her ear. Santana doesn't shy from the touch, she just freezes, not breaking eye contact.
"Never is an awfully long time."
"Did you just quote Peter Pan to distract me?"
"It's my favorite book. You'd think it'd be morbid, for me, thinking about the kids who don't grow up, but…it's comforting, in a weird way."
"Whatever works for you, I don't judge."
There's silence again, and Santana, finding a sort of courage, seeks out Brittany's hand with her own. Placing it on top, she laces their fingers together. She looks at them, really looks at them, sees how her short, dark fingers look entwined with Brittany's long, fair ones. There's a sort of symbolism in the contrast, she thinks, a sort of telling about something deeper. It's too much for her to process through, and so, she just counts the bones in the hand below her, a relaxation technique that she'd developed in medical school. Count and name every bone in the human body, and breathe between each. It doesn't always work, it doesn't work most of the time, but now, it seems to.
"Any day." Santana tells Brittany, eventually breaking the silence again.
"What?"
"Um, the date. I'm on days so…any day is good."
"Oh." A slow smile spreads to Brittany's lips. "Okay then, how about Tuesday? I'll pick you up."
"Yeah, okay…Tuesday sounds really good."