Top of the List [Santa/Tier]

She watched.....waiting expectantly and .....wondering. Her mind racing with what might happen. Glued onto the sight of Tier taking her time to decide.....and then slowly closing the gap between them. She braced herself...not sure what was coming next. A pat on the head? A poke on the forehead? A push away? So that when those hands gently reached out, and she felt them slip around her frame. A relief coursed through her, that gentle smile crossing her lips as she .....tried to understand what Tier mean. No.....she knew what Tier ...meant. She thought. But it was more complicated than that. That strange .....phrasing at the end.

She knew what it was. At least...in humans. It was a frail, tender little thing. An emotion she had not understood when she had seen it directly. But thinking back, she knew that it was .... something that was far bigger than just what was coming to the surface.

She thought of Mazda. Someone very pivotal in her plans.
She thought of Nel. Someone she wanted to someday be seen by not just with sad eyes.
She thought of Algos.

...ah......Ah.. She was thinking of Algos.
Remembering the brief time they had spent around eachother. The way she had been so ....threatening.
But also the way she'd changed color when Santa had lifted her off the floor, holding her like she was a dainty little thing.

She remembered the feeling of Nel's arms wrapping around her. Holding her....calling her a Good Girl.
The hopes and trust that she had had in an arrancar she had only just met.

She remembered Mazda. And the way that he had seemingly transformed before her very eyes when they had held eachother.

And she felt ....pain in her eyes.

"If I only ever hug you. What will happen when I'm gone?" She asked softly. Watching Tier closely as she did. Imagining such a thing. As she....thought ahead. To the notion of only ever holding this woman in her arms. And vice versa. Of stitching themselves so very tightly at eachother.....that if they were ripped away......there'd be nothing left.

She imagined.....Tier back in the desert. Looking for her.
She imagined.....Tier in an empty building. Crying out for help. But with nobody to answer her.
She imagined......Tier all on her own. Once again. Surrounded by others. But still FEELING so incredibly alone. Because of her.
And she imagined herself. Leaving Tier behind.

"I've been around so long Tier..... She closed her eyes. "What if one of us doesn't make it? You said yourself. What I want might get me killed. And now you want it too. A better world."' She paused. Oh how she wanted to say yes. How she WISHED she could say it was because of other people. She wished it was that she still needed Mazda. She wished that it was a desire to share herself with others.

She could fix those. They were....simple.
But the reason wasn't that. It was because in the short time she'd had in the Silbern. She'd.....sensed some terrible things. Her pesquisa couldn't tell the exacts. But she'd felt the quiver and tremble of souls. Feeling them so close to eachother. trying to resonate. Trying to sing to one another. And ripping themselves apart in the meantime.
And she didn't know how to ..say this. She knew HOW to say it. But she didn't know how to say it, but not potentially hurt Tier in the process.
She pulled Tier back in. Gently. A soft, careful hold. But loose.

She'd seen Tier angry. Hurt.
And she knew....that Tier would probably start pulling away.
She looked down because she knew that it was probably happening even now.
Why was this so painful?
Why were these her only options?
To hurt her now. Or to destroy one of them once they outlived the other?

"I want more of this too. But I'm afraid. Not of you. But for you. Every time...I reach for you. You feel like you're about to break. "

Santa was.....surprised. Tier pulled away, but it didn't seem to be ... to run. Santa hadn't been the only one to grow in this brief time away from eachother. Just like Santa, Tier seemed to have taken ..... a lot into consideration. She had been treating Tier like this....frail thing. Worried that the slightest thing would just.... make her spiral off. And in truth.... some small part of her DID worry about that. Tier seemed....ill-equipped. It was actually quite bizarre how unadaptable she was. Whereas Santa had struggled to survive and work with her own meager prowess, had Tier simply....plowed through obstacles? How was it that she struggled with these things? It was..... strange. But she wanted to help her. That much she knew. And so whens he felt those hands gently framing the soft curves of her cheeks, she smiled a bit toothy grin, beaming warmly as she reached and gently grasped the woman's forearms, her thumbs gently rubbing the inside of the woman's wrists along the tender ligament.

"Then absolutely!" She chimed up! That same.....damaged happiness radiating from her. Leaning and gently pressing her cheeks into the soft grip of Tier's palms, clearly encouraging the behavior as she looked so very endearingly at the Espada. It really was as simple as that. with her fears addressed, and of course, Tier's confession. Santa's heart leapt and she promptly just....accepted it. Happy that Tier wanted her just as much, at least seemingly, she wanted them. "I really like this bye the way~" She hummed, canting her head to the side as a very .....different smile showed for just a fraction of a second. Pausing..... "hm..." She paused. Briefly, she had thought of just tackling the woman. Smothering her in physical affection. But she could.....see how difficult this was for Tier. She still had to be careful.

"Can I touch you back?" She asked, that smile still warm and calm. Eyes filled with patience and excitement as she waited.

Santa.....blinked. And she saw how much Tier was struggling with this. And she felt......nervous. It was strange....,but not too surprising. After all, Tier had been born and raised in Hueco Mundo. And sex was generally a very violent and violating act, so to her it made sense that the woman might possibly have hangups about it. She looked at Tier, and felt so many things she wanted to do. But .....could she do any of them?

She gave Tier a sheepish smile and chuckled. "Ah! Uhhhh, well that's alright! I can always just figure that stuff out on my own." She assured the woman. It wasn't like she couldn't just.....go GET laid. Which was.....bizarre. She had never really ...WANTED that sort of thing before. It was just something people tried to do to her. But with Tier, now she had that sort of thing. And then later on, when she'd lost her friends, it had been....strangely...something she turned to for comfort. Was THAT why that was something they did so desperately? Was she going to become like them? Looking at Tier...she ....frowned. Worry in her eyes. She didn't want to Rape Tier, but she DID want to have sex with her. And he rmind raced back to all of those savages in her life.

No. She WASN'T going to let that happen. Even if she had to just.....hunt for other ways to get that kind of thing. She'd never let those desires control her. She embraced Tier, not in the intimate...loving...affectionatr way she had before. But a ....soft....protective embrace.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. I promise."

Santa ....blinked twice. "What?" She murmured with sheer confusion scrawled across her face. It took her several seconds for her to even REMEMBER what Tier was talking about. She paused.....staring off to the side for a moment before finally glancing back to Tier with her head tilted to the side. "The....the human thing?" She asked, confused. Well...MOSTLY a human thing. It was also something menacingly whispered to her a few of the times she had had encounters with some of the fresher hollows. So already she felt ...unease up her spine at it's mention. Not only that but Tier's next question was puzzling as well. And she wasn't sure how ...to feel about it.

It certainly sounded selfish. And she remembered her encounter with Algos. Her ....mild threat .....to MAKE Santa hers. She'd ignored it at the time, since well....she got those sorts of threats all the time. But hearing about a vicious threat...being TALKED about as if it were something else was.....bewildering. If she were smarter she'd even wonder how on earth the notion of Marriage would have GOTTEN to Tier who spent all her time in Hueco Mundo. And why would she think of it fondly? Had some young hollow attempted to rape her and she just...liked one of his ideas? Was it something that Aizen or one of his lackeys had introduced to them conceptually all those years ago?

"I mean. I don't really know about Selfish? I've had it brought up before. Pretty much all of them uh....bad situations." She wrinkled her nose. CLEARLY having.... a LOT of trouble associating Tier with this ...notion that had only ever been negative in her experience. "I ..... don't know. I don't really think it matters what I think about it though. If you find someone who is okay with you keeping to yourself, I think that'd be fine. It's what Nel did, and she seems happy." She pointed out. Pointedly not including herself in this hypothetical.

To her, it sounded like ownership. And she was not fond of the idea.

Santa....frowned. Even as Tier pulled away, and gently held her hands. She couldn't help but feel the negative connotations that Tier infringed on this hypothetical. She knew very little about Nel's situation. And truth be told, she didn't ACTUALLY know if they were fully married as humans were? However, the situation that Tier laid out was something that she didn't like. IT was those words 'for a moment or two'. Implying temporary status on the situation. What was this coming from? She could see why Tier would latch onto the notion of partnership. But why had she also gotten this notion that alternatives were some kind of abandonment?

Reaching up, she gently grasped Tier's chin. "If something happened with us. I would love you, and try to give everything you wanted. And if someone else became important to me, I would see if they wanted to be with me too. I'd want you to meet. Then we could all be together. I know not....everyone gets along...." She looked off to the side. Thinking of Algos and Tier. Even pushing aside intimate relationships, she couldn't imagine them standing eachother's company. Even in just a casual sense.
"Do you think I'm the kind of person who would just abandon you?" She asked, with a hurt look on her face.
She understood that Tier could be afraid of exploring something she was interested in. But .... all of this. Even when Tier had scared her away. SHE had come to HER hadn't she?
"When you said that you would kill me. And I vanished. Did you think I was abandoning you?"