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"Honeys, I'm home." Santana elbowed the door open with her arm full of groceries and was met with silence. Her brow furrowed as she kicked the door shut and walked into the kitchen of their loft.
Santana had a thing for cooking. It came from all those hours spent with her abuela, sweating over family recipes. Thinking of her abuela still brings a bitter twinge to her heart, but she still thinks of those moments of learning how to cook things like paella, fondly. Her abuela had the most amusing stories and all Santana really remembers of those times is giggling until her tummy hurt. That love and happiness somehow got transfused into a joy of cooking for Santana, so when she saw this kitchen (out of the twenty apartments, homes and lofts they had searched through) she knew this loft was the one.
She placed her reusable bags down on the granite counter top and spared a moment to take a cursory glance around what she could see of their loft. It was eerily quiet. Normally she would be bombarded at the door by a blonde of some form. Either it was Brittany pouncing onto her and welcoming her home with a giant welcome home kiss, or it was Sam picking her up and twirling her around in the air and carrying her to whatever room she needed to go to, or it was their golden lab, Thor, who would wag her tail and nuzzle at Santana's legs with the hugest puppy smile possible. Sometimes they'd all be there at once and it'd be a bit overwhelming (but never unwelcome), being greeted by nothing but silence was...well, it never happened.
Nothing seemed amiss though. Santana didn't feel like she should be worried or anything. Her cursory glance around the loft provided the usual neat disarray that came with living with a boy and a Brittany and a puppy and a far too busy Santana. It wasn't messy, it was lived in, and it felt like home. (Even when Santana would trip over one of Sam's seemingly endless packets of guitar strings or Brittany's clothes, which were always thrown in a random direction as soon as she walked in through the door and no longer needed to be wearing anything. Thor was the neatest of them all, really. But tripping over things, even when she was in a bad mood only seemed to remind Santana of how much she was loved and her bad mood would ease away.)
"Honeys?" Santana called out again, and when she didn't get a response she shrugged, turned around and opened the doors to their stainless steel refrigerator. It was empty, except for a single apple (fuji) which was obviously left for Santana ('cause they know it's her favorite snack). They've got a chore list, kinda, where everyone takes care of certain things, but it's always Santana's job to control the food in the house. If she didn't, there'd only be Doritos, Dots, Lucky Charms, bagels and Hot Pockets, which is just not okay in any form. Santana liked actual food, proper food, things that have ingredients that she can actually pronounce. Sam and Brittany didn't mind Santana being responsible for the groceries, she did most of the cooking anyway (and her food was, like, the most delicious thing ever, even when it looked really freaky.) Brittany and Sam are still dealing with the super delicious fried calamari that Santana made last week. Tentacles take a bit of getting used to, for anyone, and Santana's quite proud of her babes for trusting her and eating the squid despite the appearance. (She knows how lucky she is, Brittany and Sam are the type of people who will try anything at least once. This was excellent for her culinary growth.)
She planned on making a filet mingon in a balsamic demi-glaze with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli tonight, to celebrate Sam landing his dream job with Dark Horse as an artist. It's his favorite meal. Santana leaves all the ingredients for it out on the counter, and places all the other weekly necessities in the fridge. She pulled out the bottom freezer drawer and hid three different pints of Ben N Jerry's underneath the frozen peas and berries. (Santana's been trying to get everyone to eat healthier, so dessert usually means fruit of some sort, but tonight is special. But she lives with two giant kids and she needs to hide that shit if she wants it to last until after dinner.) Santana put the reusable bags on the table next to the door of the loft and headed to their walk in closet. (They call the loft Stark Industries 'cause it's totally swanky with walk in closets, a kick ass kitchen and the most amazing bathroom in existence. The exposed beams, brick walls and view of the skyline are just the whipped cream and cherries on top of an amazing sundae.)
As soon as Santana rounded the kitchen corner, she saw why she hadn't been met at the door (and why there was nothing but silence in the loft). Through their 'Wall of Glass', as Brittany had dubbed it, Santana saw that a giant fort had been built out of (probably all of their) beach towels on their balcony, and Sam was currently being chased by Thor and Brittany (who was shooting a Nerf Gun). Sam was running around the fort with his plastic Captain America shield, trying to block the Nerf Darts and diving behind random patio furniture. Santana stood for a moment and watched, feeling her chest warm and a smile grow on her face. It was childlike and dorky and everything she'd spent so much time pretending to not like, but it was home and she couldn’t wait to join in.
Santana continued her journey to their walk-in, where she stepped out of her tan pumps, slipped off her navy a-line skirt and white button down. She placed them where they needed to go (someone in the apartment had to at least pretend to care about organization) then grabbed her jean shorts and put them on. Santana had to search for her Stark Industries tee shirt (things usually got rowdy whenever she wore it, or she wore it when things were going to be), and found it behind Brittany's life-sized replica of Cheer Bear. She pulled it on and put her hair up into a pony tail as she headed towards the glass door that leads to the balcony.
Brittany, Sam and Thor were on the other side of the balcony, still running in circles, and hadn't noticed Santana's entrance. She took her eyes off of them to inspect the fort. Santana wasn't sure exactly how they used the mops and other random household objects to build it, but she was fairly sure that if a hurricane came and tried to blow it down, it'd still be standing afterwards. She pulled at one of the strings holding up the blue towel that said police box in white letters at the top of it and smiled at it being the one to mark the entrance.
"SAN!" Brittany called out.
"TANA!" Sam followed immediately after.
"WOOF!" Thor never liked being left out of anything.
She didn't think that they'd be as close as they were when she turned around, but Santana barely had enough time to blink before she was pounced on by her three very special blondes.
Santana was wrong about the fort being able to stand up to a hurricane, it promptly collapsed under everyone's weight, but Brittany and Sam had been clever and put their spare air mattress inside of it. It broke their fall with a soft exhalation of air, not that it could be heard over the laughter and greetings.
The fort would be rebuilt later, sometime after they finished playing The Avengers, cuddling and talking about their days. It'd probably happen while Santana was inside making their dinner, which would be perfect for eating their pints of ice cream and gazing at the stars through their fort's moonroof. (Santana hopes that was the old shower curtain that had a couple broken holes due to that one time they thought it'd be a good idea to give Thor a bath in the guest bathroom instead of just using their glassless shower. They should've known: Thor isn't a guest after all and didn't appreciate being treated like one. Sam tried to catch Thor before she jumped out of the tub and ran out of the bathroom, but all Sam got was plastic shower curtain and a concussion.)
Few things are better than listening to Sam talk about the universe while lying under the stars, eating ice cream and cuddling. It's easy to forget that they're not actually floating through the universe in their own little space ship. Santana loves that they keep her imagination intact. She can't wait for tonight, but first; The Avengers were needed to save the day.