A/N: Sorry it took me so long! Hope you enjoy the update and there's a Hogwarts!Brittana shot coming :3 (10,000 words). Thank you for your patience!
Beta: Haiti2013.
Chapter 1
The day after the talk, Santana is already sitting back at the table, pretending that she is paying attention on her science notes, while her mind is focusing on something else: Day One of Ten, exploration.
Her eyes wander around the Lima Bean, with discretion, searching for the girl, Brittany. Her target.
She has been sitting here for an hour now, but the day hasn't been productive. The main reason why it was bothering her is because she wasted all yesterday night thinking about what might be the right way to flirt, what kind of girl Brittany might actually be once you got to know her. Being a predator, Santana knows perfectly well that every prey has her story. She has to act differently with every one of them, so that she won't fail.
Not that she thinks she might actually fail: even if the strategy is doubtful, Santana is sure she's too sexy to be ditched. Anyway, she's also classy and won't go for simple seduction.
This is the main difference between Sebastian and her: Sebastian – at least before he turned suddenly into the perfect boyfriend – always used his charm only to get into someone's pants; a smirk, a gaze, or something along those lines.
Santana isn't like that at all.
She's sure that such a boring repetitive process makes the hunt boring and she doesn't do boring, so she does whatever it takes to make it more interesting. It also makes it a little tougher, but it's okay because smirking and fucking gets dreary after a while and it makes all of her longing disappear (which is surprising, because Santana never gets tired of sex). Since Brittany looks like a pretty good gift she could make to herself, Santana wants to enjoy it.
It's been a long time since she has felt so attracted to girl, so she wants to take the chance before it slips through her fingers.
The problem, right now, is that Brittney isn't here.
She keeps looking around, but she can't really see it. And yet, she's seen her wearing a Lima Bean apron, so there's no doubt she works here. What if she's been fired already? It wouldn't be too surprising: she doesn't look like she's very smart so, maybe, she fucked up.
Santana's biggest problem is that she knows Sebastian won't give up on the bet even at this eventual condition: in fact he would take advantage of the situation to add some weird crazy clause to make everything so complicated that Santana would be force to search into Brittany's private life to get in contact with her and win this bet.
In the right moment when the thought starts become realer and realer into her mind and Santana thinks – even if vaguely and not for real – to give up on the bet for once, she hears a familiar voice behind her back.
"But it was raining. I couldn't go out. It was raining and there was the sun. I must wait for the rainbow, it never happens here!"
Santana turns, her eyebrows already arched at the scene: a boy who must be the owner of the shop or just the other waiter who was waiting for her and the shift, is standing with his arms crossed to his chest in front of the girl who's trying to defend herself, not too angry nor focused. The words come out relaxed from his mouth.
"Pierce, this is serious." The boy says. "If you don't take your work seriously and make fun of us like this, maybe we should think there are people who care about this job more than you do."
The girl winces sadly, her arms leaning at the sides of her body. No sign into her body proves that she's taken the words seriously, like she doesn't even understand the indirect warning the boy is giving her.
Right now, the tones of the conversation are still low, so they haven't gotten the attention of anybody else in the room, expect for Santana, who is sitting quite closely.
"I care about this job." Brittany fights back, wrinkling her lips adorably. "Where can I find another place who gives me such a pretty apron? I wouldn't exchange my job with any other job in the world. Except from being a celebrity … but I should shoot a sex tape to get famous, so …"
Santana lifts her eyebrows in surprise and her gaze wanders to the annoyed look on the boy's face.
"Are you kidding me?" He asks, trying to keep his voice down. "If you're here for a stupid apron, you can pay me and I'll give you one, but you can't just come to work whenever you feel like it."
The girl crosses arms to her chest, starting to look annoyed at the words, like the boy is the one who just can't understand the awesomeness and the importance of a rainbow.
"I didn't want to be late. I was waiting for the rainbow and I didn't realize what time it was."
Santana turns a little more than, starting to wonder if she is hearing correctly: she doesn't know if Brittany is using the first excuse that came to her mind, even if it sounds stupid, or if the girl is just making fun of her co-worker. She has to admit it, she's weirdly attracted to her world, and she would want to understand what happens inside Brittany's mind.
No, she remembers. No way, Santana, just stop. You can't be curious. You only have one mission. Don't waste any time on useless details.
"Well, next time you plan on waiting for the rainbow to show up, put on an alarm to remind yourself that you have a job!" The boy's voice sounds now frustrated and higher. They get some people's attention, so he eventually walks away from Brittany, leaving her standing there, alone in the middle of the Lima Bean.
Santana stares at her, she stares at the way her hands are closing into fists at the sides of her body. She watches as Brittany bites her lower lip and thinks that maybe she's keeping herself up, not willing to explode in front of everybody. She doesn't look like she's an angry person, so maybe she's just keeping from crying.
Santana remains there though, sitting, because even though she wants to complete her mission and win the bet the soonest she can, she isn't stupid and she know that this isn't really the right time for flirts. If she bothers her with unwanted advances, there's a chance that she might get unbearable in Brittany's eyes, which is something that she really doesn't want. It would make her lose days to make herself be judged differently.
She watches while Brittany walks away, towards the room in which they employees probably change when they start working.
Santana waits patiently as minutes go by and she can't help but imagine her sitting into a dark tight closet, her knees again her chest and tears filling those wonderful blue eyes …
Ass. Santana reminds herself. Think about her ass. She repeats herself, trying to push the image out of her mind, not only because it's out of place for her standards, but also because somehow, it makes her sad to imagine that scene.
She spends minutes looking at the boy who is waiting for the shift and, finally, just when she's considering the idea of going away and letting it go for today, the gorgeous little angel appears in front of her: white t-shirt, dark apron, little hat and hair gathered into a ponytail. She has a notebook in her hands and – Santana hates to realize it – her eyes are shining dimly and wet.
"Can I help you?" She asks, her voice sounding a little weak, a detail that makes Santana wonder if Brittany is one of those people that can't pretend, even if they try. Then she thinks back at the conversation with the guy and comes to the conclusion that, maybe, Brittany doesn't even try and pretend.
Her gaze examine the European features of her face and Santana says to herself that his normal eventually, that she's just studying her prey physically. There's nothing wrong or weird with that. It's just an objective contemplation of beauty.
"Suggest something." Santana tries to keep her voice from sounding too allusive. Not today, Santana, not today.
"Suggest?" Brittany asks, arching her eyebrows and playing with the pen in her hands. Santana's gaze is immediately attracted by her long pale fingers, perfect and attractive as much as her, so much that they almost make her mind lose into dirty thoughts at the sight only. "You come here every day, why would you need suggestions?"
Santana immediately winces as her face turns into a confused grimace: she tries not to let it show, but how can she? She thought Brittany has been working here for days, nothing more than that. So how does she now Santana is a daily costumer?
"Is it written on my forehead?" She asks then, trying to look natural in the conversation and not to show her confusion.
"No, there's nothing written on your forehead. Should there be?" Brittany asks, wrinkling her lips. "I did write stuff on my forehead too, until I found out it could seriously damage your skin. I mean, with the ink and everything … well, I thought I could simply use those tattoos that magically disappear after some time."
Santana is only getting more confused at her words, because she can't believe that she doesn't even understand what Brittany is talking about.
"No, wait, that's not what I meant." She says then, shifting a little on the chair and trying to explain. "I meant … do I look like someone who comes here often? How do you know I'm always here, everyday?"
"Oh!" Brittany comments, her face bright with a shining smile that almost blinds Santana and that weirdly warms her heart at the innocent spontaneity it has formed with, "Well, I've attended this place for long and I do remember the other students coming her. I've always stared at you …" She suddenly stops, rolling her eyes like a baby girl who has just almost confessed she's been stealing chocolates from the shelves.
Santana rejoices silently into her head: if Brittany has already stared at her, this means that she is at least a little attracted by her already. That's a nice score she wants to confirm fast.
"Did you stare at me?" She asks, unable to keep a smirk this time.
"Yup." Brittany answers, looking down at the floor for a few seconds and Santana is already about to bump herself up when Brittany adds: "I was staring at your boobs. I mean, I was trying to understand if they're made of plastic or party balloons. I sketched a theory on my notebook, but I'm not sure it came out as I wanted. It didn't make it clearer in my head, so."
Santana is confused.
She has no idea how she is supposed to read into these words, if must think this means that Brittany has been staring her body so maybe she should be happy about it, or wondering about the weird things that come out of her mouth.
"So … are you planning on ordering?" Brittany asks, but Santana doesn't want to change the topic so soon.
"No, hey, wait." She says then, looking into Brittany's eyes (eyes, those eyes she should avoid). "Were you like … analyzing me?" She asks, but she doesn't even know if this is the right way to put it.
"Yep! You and your friends." Brittany answers, grinning. "They're cute, I like them a lot. You look like an awesome flock, but … - she stops for a few seconds – my employer always says I shouldn't talk about these things with costumers because it's not cute of me to tell them I stare. He says one is supposed to feel at ease in this place, that's why he doesn't talk about the cameras hanging in the corners."
She sees as Brittany winces, like she's realized she said something she shouldn't have said. She isn't stupid. The fact that she realizes proves that she isn't stupid.
"So … you analyze costumers?" Santana asks, lifting an eyebrow. "I don't think that's cool. Just think about how they might feel. There's no really need for cameras, you're spying on us all the time." She notices but Brittany shrugs little.
"I'll get you some mocha?" She asks and Santana wears a confused face.
"Excuse me?"
"Mocha. That's your order, right?"
Santana stays with her mouth and eyes wide open: she spies on the customers, so much she knows her order. That's creepy and obsessive, but if she thinks about it reasonably, that allows her to be quite good at her job. Well, it would have allowed her to do so, if she came in time instead of staring at the rainbow.
"Mocha is going to be just fine." Santana murmurs, still a little shaken.
"Cream?" Brittany asks, writing on her notebook (why the hell does she even write if she already knows everything?).
Santana just nods with a smile on her lips and as soon as Brittany turns, she looks down on her perfect asscheeks, their shape visible through her tight jeans as she licks her lips subconsciously.
It's weird but whenever Brittany walks away, she feels better: the fact that Santana can finally run from those eyes which make such a strange effect on her makes her more at ease; she doesn't feel under examination anymore, but she feels as sure about herself as she has always been. The stunned expression at Brittany's awkward words comes to be replaced by a hungry smirk and Santana feels more comfortable.
She relaxes against the back of the chair, patiently waiting for Brittany to come back. She thinks about what to say and not only for a strategy: talking to Brittany seems more complicated than she thought it would have been, because she never knows what to expect from her. She has no idea what she might say, it's a mystery, and she can't understand her ways of thinking. And yet, Brittany doesn't look like she is stupid: she's strange, of course she is, but there's something in her words that seems to come from thinking.
She doesn't wait too long because not even three minutes later, the girl is newly in front of her and she's handing her a coffee, putting it on the table. Besides for delays and rainbows, it looks like she knows how to do her job, even though Santana hasn't everything clear in her mind, the reasons that have pushed her to get a job when being so young. Maybe her family has economic issues and she needs to help.
"Gracias." She says and smiles a little tempting, whispering the word in Spanish that would have made any man or woman melt at the sound.
Surprisingly, Brittany doesn't seem to get the nastiness of it. In fact, she smiles spontaneously and half-bows to her.
"You're welcome. It's just my duty." Brittany says eventually, before she walks away, so that Santana can't really get clearer and flirtier with her words.
Like every single time, Santana turns, following her ass with her own eyes. A girl like this, wearing tight jeans like that can't be unobvious to the concept of nastiness. She must be nasty enough to wear it with such grace.
She shakes her head to herself as a new idea starts building up in her brain: maybe Brittany isn't how it seems. Maybe she caught Santana's flirt and understands that Santana wanted something more. She's acting like this to make her give up on the goal, maybe.
Well, in that case it would her loss.
But yet, she isn't sure about this theory. If Brittany is just acting, would she do that so to risk her job? Because that's what she did with the other employee if Santana's idea is correct.
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
She has no idea what to think about it, not even as she drinks coffee which she hopes can help her focus.
It was just a weird first meeting and Santana isn't sure how to read into it. She doesn't even know if it felt positive or negative and, considering the way she sees it, the way she has always won … this looks like a terrible defeat.
She's suddenly more scared at the idea of losing a bet with Sebastian and a soft note of insecurity throbs into her, a new unknown sensation that he doesn't know how to read into and how to defeat.
For the first time, she is completely shocked from a human being, confused at what the body language of the girl must mean at every word or gesture coming from Santana.
For the first time, she doesn't know what to do.
/
"Someone doesn't look so happy."
Sebastian's annoying voice pulls her out of these thoughts filling her mind all day and that didn't leave her, not even for a second.
She wrinkles her nose and arches her eyebrows, one of the instinctive grimaces she can't keep whenever Sebastian opens his mouth. That time though, for some reasons, she thinks he's not trying to make her worse only.
"Have you been at the Lima Bean today?" He asks, as Quinn giggles, sitting on the lawn between Santana and Sebastian who is holding Kurt with his back on his own crotch.
"Are you spying on me or what?" Santana asks, arms leant behind and hands through the grass. "Don't you have better things to do?"
Sebastian shrugs lightly and Santana rolls her eyes.
"How did it go?" Sebastian asks while Kurt slowly falls asleep into his arms, looking a lot less interested than Quinn.
"Amazingly." She murmurs, clearly irritate and uneasy to believe to. "Winning this fucking bet is going to be so easy you'll regret that you didn't put anything on the line, believe me."
Sebastian smiles smugly, like he wants her to understand that he doesn't believe a single word she says.
"Of course." He confirms sarcastically. "I guess you already made a lot of progress, like getting her number, adding her on socials, maybe you already have a date. I'm listening."
Kurt whimpers in his sleep and Sebastian rolls his eyes, really unwillingly to lower his voice to make him sleep better, not tight now when he has the chance to mock Santana over her momentarily failure. It's too evident not to laugh at it.
Santana knows she is giving him the right chance so that he can take advantage of it, but she is still confused with what today has been, searching for a strategy and she has no intention to waste her mental energies to answer to this jerk or defend herself from whatever he says. It does matter anyway, because, after these infamous ten days, Sebastian is going to regret that he has doubted of her seductive ways (Santana hates a voice in her head that murmurs a soft Maybe because she has never doubted herself before and this isn't the moment she's going to start doing it – well, maybe she did when she found out about her sexuality but that's not the same thing, is it?).
"Working on it slowly." She complains then, crossing her arms to her chest. "We can't all be like you, Sebastian. You just pay for a lame drink until the victim is drunk enough to let you fuck him. Or to fuck you."
Kurt groans in his sleep and Quinn giggles again, as Sebastian starts brushing his boyfriend's soft hair.
"Shhh. He is so sensible at the topic. Let's not talk about the past." He comments and then it's Quinn replying, still laughing lowly.
"Did you talk to her?" She asks, more interested with an honest answer than Sebastian, who just wanted to make fun of her.
Santana nods, turning towards him with a less annoyed face.
"She's … weird. She says weird stuff and I can't really understand her ways of thinking. I'm sure she's a very particular vision of the world, but this doesn't really help me figuring out how to get into her mind better."
Quinn looks thoughtful, looking worried to help her, just like Sebastian didn't.
"Well, maybe you'll get to know her better by talking to her. It's not really easy to understand a person from one talk to order a coffee or whatever it was, you know?"
Santana thinks about one thing for a moment: she could tell her friends that Brittany already knew what she wanted to order because she enjoys spying on them. However, something inside her head tells her that it's not such a good idea talking about it.
The thought confuses her immediately though: she has never been the kind of person that wonders too much before talking about people, even her preys. But there is something about this Brittany girl, the way she acts, so innocent that it makes her believe that if she says this to someone, she's going to expose her fragility in front of other people.
Plus, Santana isn't really sure when she started thinking Brittany was special, neither why she cares about her fragility. It's just a curious instinct she has never felt before and she wants to follow it, simply because she really doesn't want to have to listen to Sebastian's stupid jokes about it if she tells.
"Honestly, I'm really hopeful. The things itself that she has stood by me more than she was supposed to means that she thinks I'm interesting at least. I didn't even start flirting." She notices, lifting an eyebrow to wear her usual arrogant mask, the one that allows her to hide her new unbelievable insecurity.
It seems like it's working quite well thought because no one complains. It's probably because Sebastian is too busy with his boyfriend and Quinn isn't as snarky as he is, not at all, so she doesn't feel like bothering her. Even she is noticing her insecurity, she's not going to point it out instead.
"I really hope you win." She comments instead, wearing a smile. "I love it that Sebastian is so disappointed whenever you do. It almost makes my humor better."
"Girl." Sebastian scolds immediately. "You don't have to be jealous because I've got a pair of wonderful blue eyes to stare into."
The moment he pronounces these words, he winks at Santana. It's one of those things which means nothing at everything all at once, exactly the kind of things that Santana hates because, especially now, they don't make it any clearer for her. They just make everything more confused.
When she understands exactly what it means but it's too late: her mind has translated the words quickly and Santana is now imagining a pair of wonderful sapphires. She realizes soon that it's her eyes and she can't from shaking her head.
Luckily for her, Sebastian has already gazed away to focus on Kurt, so she doesn't need to defend herself from any accusation.
While Quinn lays back on the lawn, Santana rolls her eyes to the dark sky, pushing for this awkward sensation to wash off of her body, the butterflies swinging in her stomach, to think about something different. When she surrenders because nothing seems capable of replacing those eyes, she decides to think about the only weapon that has worked this very moment: a gorgeous ass.