Fic: Revelations (Part Two) - A Short Story
Her words jolt him back to reality. He’s confused at first but then remembers Shue’s question. Where does he want to be in ten years? He leans back into the chair and contemplates how to answer.
Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath. She trusts him so he will trust her. “Out of Lima. Writing music and strumming my guitar. Maybe singing lullabies to my badass little kid as he goes to sleep. Married. Happy.” He opens his eyes. “I don’t need much, really. I just want to be, I don’t know, different from who I am now. Different but the same.”
“How,” she asks but doesn’t move from her position.
“I don’t want to be banging cougars forever, Berry. Probably won’t have the energy then anyway. ‘Sides, imagine how old the cougars are going to be when I’m ten years older.” He hears her giggle softly. He likes the sound of it. “I can be a monogamous guy with the right girl.”
“You were with Lauren.”
He shakes his head even though he knows she can’t see him. “That’s because she would have gone all Lorena Bobbitt on my dick had I not been. Seriously that girl is scary. I mean, yeah she is cool as shit, but she is crazy shit too. And not cool crazy, like you, like I’m pretty sure she could be the woman from Misery crazy. And that’s wacked.” He runs his hand over his hawk before he continues. “So in ten years, I see myself married to some hot Jewish woman, which totally makes my ma happy. The sex is fucking awesome and she makes me breakfast in the morning but sometimes I surprise her with breakfast in bed. Followed by sex. We’ve just started what will be a large and badass family so I’m on diaper duty and I kinda love it but I won’t tell her that. I write music during the day and play sometimes at night around the city. Sometimes she gets a sitter and comes and listens to me and I play even better then. I’m happy. And I’m good with that.”
The rooms falls silent when he stops talking and he believes he might even be able to hear her breathing softly across the room. It makes him kinda nervous because he doesn’t know what she is thinking. Hell, he can’t even see her face to try to figure out what she is thinking. So he pushes himself up and strides across the room, plopping down on the bed beside her. When he looks at her, he sees she is just staring up at the ceiling.
“Did my future put you to sleep, Rach? I know it doesn’t sound very exciting.”
She turns her head to look at him, resting her cheek on the pillow. “No, it sounds very nice actually.”
He cocks an eyebrow at her, “Did I mention the awesome sex?”
“I think you did,” she giggles and the mood lightens instantly.
“What about you?”
She draws in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “I think everyone knows where I want to be in ten years. New York. Broadway.”
“Yeah but beyond that, besides being a big Broadway star, who is Rachel Berry?” He leans back against the bed and watches her as she struggles with his question.
After a few seconds, she moves her eyes to his and he believes he sees a slight bit of sadness in them. “Should I answer with how I want it to be or how I think it will be?”
He admits that her question kinda throws him. Rachel uncertain about something? He doesn’t like that because it’s not like her. She’s too confident, too sure of everything, to be uncertain. She doesn’t give him a chance to answer.
“I want to be achieving my dream on the stage in front of thousands of people. I know that will happen. It’s everything else that I’m not sure of.” She shrugs and then turns her head back to gaze up at the ceiling. “I want to be madly in love by then. Travelling with him when I’m in between shows. Sipping wine in Tuscany as he holds my hand. Watching New Years Eve fireworks above the Eiffel Tower. I want to be so certain of his love that I don’t worry every time he’s not in my sight or terrified if his ex-girlfriend calls.” He doesn’t have to ask to know that part of what she is revealing is about her relationship with Finn and how it didn’t work for her. He always thought she deserved better and hearing her express herself like this just makes his anger toward his former best friend grow. “I guess like you, I just want to be happy and I would be good with that.”
“And you don’t think that is gonna happen,” he asks quietly and she shakes her head.
“Honestly, when I see myself in ten years, it’s always as a huge star but also always alone.” She turns her gaze once again to him. “I guess you could say this is my fear. I’m well aware of my obvious character flaws and that I’m not an easy person to even like, much less love. I’m not sure anyone would be willing to take Rachel Berry without changing me.”
He literally wants to fucking punch Finn Hudson right now because he knows that what is coming out of her mouth is directly linked to Finn not ever accepting how fantastically awesome his own girlfriend was. And the fact that he repeatedly kept playing her, making her fall for him again only for him to freak out when he realized she wasn’t the perfectly fake little princess like Quinn fucking Fabray, makes him not just want to punch him but want to pummel him. He can’t take it.
He sits up, grabbing her arm and pulling her up to sit beside him. He turns so that he is facing her. “I think you’ve got this idea that you’re this strange person that has to trick people into liking you….It’s not true. You’re amazing. Do not fucking let the Finn Hudson’s of this world make you believe you are anything less than that. Cause I’m gonna be fucking pissed if you do.”
Her eyes narrow on him. “What?” He can feel his nerves standing on end, searing through his body and he really can’t take it. He jumps up, rubbing his hands along his jeans and then holding them out in front of him, pleading somewhat, as he looks at her.
“Rachel, yeah, you’re different. You don’t fit in here because you don’t belong here. Your loud and your bossy and your fucking irritating as hell but you’re real. Your fucking a whole lot more real than all those other girls at McKinley. They make fun of you because your different, cause you don’t fit into their cliques or their picture of how girls should be. But Jesus, Rachel, don’t you see that what makes you different is what makes you fucking special? Hudson . . . fuck Hudson!” He’s angry now, his heart pounding and his blood racing. He runs his hand over his head and starts pacing along the floor. “Hudson will never think you’re amazing because you aren’t Lima and he is. And any guy for that fucking matter that doesn’t realize how special you are, well they just aren’t worth your time, Rachel. And I hope to god that one day you will wake up and realize that too and stop giving those assholes your time. Cause they sure as hell don’t fucking deserve you.”
He’s still pacing when he feels her tiny hand on his arm. “That’s it, isn’t it,” she says softly, bringing his eyes to hers, “that’s why you’ve been so mean to me lately.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying to be mean, Rach. I just can’t stand by as you let them try to change you. I thought maybe you would stop when you finally wised up and sent Finn packing but then you just started trying to fit in with Santana or Mercedes or whoever. It pissed me off because that’s not you and I hated that every day you were a little less Rachel and a little more Lima. Figured that if I fought with you, maybe I wouldn’t care so much.”
“Did it work?”
He closes his eyes. “No.” He feels her lips on his as soon as the word escapes his mouth. Her kiss soft and sweet, just like he remembers, just like he can never forget. As soon he starts kissing her back, she falls back off of her tiptoes and steps away from him.
“What are you afraid of,” she asks with a laugh. Is she seriously fucking going back to the assignment now? Only Rachel fucking Berry could do that.
He shakes his head, once again running a nervous hand across his head. “Not afraid of anything,” he says, knowing she isn’t going to let this go, “but maybe I’m a little worried that you’re not gonna be that woman with me in ten years. Cause the truth, Rach, is that when I think about my life in ten years, you are always the woman beside me. So there’s your something personal, worrisome and secretive all wrapped up into one.”
He sees her eyes gloss over as she shakes her head and smiles. Then . . . she punches his arm. Fucking crazy.
“You couldn’t have just told me that instead of being, for lack of a more appropriate word, a dick!”
“What, you were in like fucking love with Finn. Figured you’d jump down my throat and call me a liar if I told you the truth.”
She cocks her head to the side and narrows her eyes on him. “So what is the truth? The whole truth?”
“And nothing but the truth,” he interrupts, “that I’m in love with you.” His voice is solid and strong, completely confident in what he is saying, and he sees her jump slightly. He takes a step forward so he is literally inches away from her, staring down at her big brown eyes. “That Lauren broke up with me cause she realized I wanted you, that I’ve always fucking wanted you. And I’ve tried real hard to not want you but it just seems to make me want you more. It’s fucked up. But I like your crazy. I like that you are strong and opinionated and you challenge me at every fucking level. I don’t want to change you like everybody else does. Cause I love you. You. Not some vision of who I think you should be.”
She licks at her bottom lip and beams up at him. “My secret now. I broke up with Finn because I realized that when he kissed me, it never made me feel the way it felt when you kissed me. I realized that when he touched me, it didn’t make my pulse race or my palms sweat or make me feel weak in the knees. I knew that he was trying to make me more like Quinn because Quinn is the one he should be with. She is his future. I never saw him as part of my future. But I did see you. Granted, I didn’t know in which capacity you would actually want to be in my future, because I was never very clear on what you wanted from me, but you were always there. So when I said that I was afraid someone wouldn’t want me without changing me, what I was saying was that I was afraid you wouldn’t want me. Because I know you are the only person who wouldn’t change me.”
He clenches his eyes shut, trying ridiculously hard to ward off the burning tears he feels springing in them. Fuck this emotional stuff. He is not good at it. They remain closed when he speaks again. “And you couldn’t have just told me that,” he mimics her words from before.
“Would this night have been nearly as amazing if I had?” He opens his eyes to her, shaking his head to answer her question. When he leans forward and rests his forehead to hers, she takes his hands and threads her fingers through his own. “I love you, Noah. Every single bit of you. Just like you love every single bit of me.”
He shakes his head, his nose brushing against hers as he does. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
She giggles. “Yes and you love it.”
“I do,” he says before he pulls her into him, wrapping her strongly in his protective arms.
He keeps her there for a few minutes, letting the silence fall softly between them as they just take in each other. Then he glances at the clock and chuckles. “You realize we’re pretty much done with this assignment and we have like nineteen hours left.”
She pulls back from him slightly and smiles mischievously. “I can think of something we can do to pass the time.” Fuck yeah, he loves that idea. But when he goes in to kiss her, he finds his lips smacking against her palm. “But first we have one more thing we have to do to complete the assignment.”
Stepping away from him, she scurries to her desk and digs out a camera, two pieces of paper and two markers. “I told you I would take this assignment very seriously. So let’s finish it appropriately.” Of course, his Berry would do this.
Five minutes later, he slides his arm around her waist as she does the same to him. They look up at each other, smiling brightly, with each holding a piece of paper in front of them. The timer goes off and the camera flashes.
On his paper? Secretly in love with her.
On hers? Secretly in love with him.
When they show their picture to the rest of the Glee club on Monday, he sees Shue smile and nod. Yep, he’s pretty sure that was all part of his evil plan. He’ll thank him for that later.
Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath. She trusts him so he will trust her. “Out of Lima. Writing music and strumming my guitar. Maybe singing lullabies to my badass little kid as he goes to sleep. Married. Happy.” He opens his eyes. “I don’t need much, really. I just want to be, I don’t know, different from who I am now. Different but the same.”
“How,” she asks but doesn’t move from her position.
“I don’t want to be banging cougars forever, Berry. Probably won’t have the energy then anyway. ‘Sides, imagine how old the cougars are going to be when I’m ten years older.” He hears her giggle softly. He likes the sound of it. “I can be a monogamous guy with the right girl.”
“You were with Lauren.”
He shakes his head even though he knows she can’t see him. “That’s because she would have gone all Lorena Bobbitt on my dick had I not been. Seriously that girl is scary. I mean, yeah she is cool as shit, but she is crazy shit too. And not cool crazy, like you, like I’m pretty sure she could be the woman from Misery crazy. And that’s wacked.” He runs his hand over his hawk before he continues. “So in ten years, I see myself married to some hot Jewish woman, which totally makes my ma happy. The sex is fucking awesome and she makes me breakfast in the morning but sometimes I surprise her with breakfast in bed. Followed by sex. We’ve just started what will be a large and badass family so I’m on diaper duty and I kinda love it but I won’t tell her that. I write music during the day and play sometimes at night around the city. Sometimes she gets a sitter and comes and listens to me and I play even better then. I’m happy. And I’m good with that.”
The rooms falls silent when he stops talking and he believes he might even be able to hear her breathing softly across the room. It makes him kinda nervous because he doesn’t know what she is thinking. Hell, he can’t even see her face to try to figure out what she is thinking. So he pushes himself up and strides across the room, plopping down on the bed beside her. When he looks at her, he sees she is just staring up at the ceiling.
“Did my future put you to sleep, Rach? I know it doesn’t sound very exciting.”
She turns her head to look at him, resting her cheek on the pillow. “No, it sounds very nice actually.”
He cocks an eyebrow at her, “Did I mention the awesome sex?”
“I think you did,” she giggles and the mood lightens instantly.
“What about you?”
She draws in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “I think everyone knows where I want to be in ten years. New York. Broadway.”
“Yeah but beyond that, besides being a big Broadway star, who is Rachel Berry?” He leans back against the bed and watches her as she struggles with his question.
After a few seconds, she moves her eyes to his and he believes he sees a slight bit of sadness in them. “Should I answer with how I want it to be or how I think it will be?”
He admits that her question kinda throws him. Rachel uncertain about something? He doesn’t like that because it’s not like her. She’s too confident, too sure of everything, to be uncertain. She doesn’t give him a chance to answer.
“I want to be achieving my dream on the stage in front of thousands of people. I know that will happen. It’s everything else that I’m not sure of.” She shrugs and then turns her head back to gaze up at the ceiling. “I want to be madly in love by then. Travelling with him when I’m in between shows. Sipping wine in Tuscany as he holds my hand. Watching New Years Eve fireworks above the Eiffel Tower. I want to be so certain of his love that I don’t worry every time he’s not in my sight or terrified if his ex-girlfriend calls.” He doesn’t have to ask to know that part of what she is revealing is about her relationship with Finn and how it didn’t work for her. He always thought she deserved better and hearing her express herself like this just makes his anger toward his former best friend grow. “I guess like you, I just want to be happy and I would be good with that.”
“And you don’t think that is gonna happen,” he asks quietly and she shakes her head.
“Honestly, when I see myself in ten years, it’s always as a huge star but also always alone.” She turns her gaze once again to him. “I guess you could say this is my fear. I’m well aware of my obvious character flaws and that I’m not an easy person to even like, much less love. I’m not sure anyone would be willing to take Rachel Berry without changing me.”
He literally wants to fucking punch Finn Hudson right now because he knows that what is coming out of her mouth is directly linked to Finn not ever accepting how fantastically awesome his own girlfriend was. And the fact that he repeatedly kept playing her, making her fall for him again only for him to freak out when he realized she wasn’t the perfectly fake little princess like Quinn fucking Fabray, makes him not just want to punch him but want to pummel him. He can’t take it.
He sits up, grabbing her arm and pulling her up to sit beside him. He turns so that he is facing her. “I think you’ve got this idea that you’re this strange person that has to trick people into liking you….It’s not true. You’re amazing. Do not fucking let the Finn Hudson’s of this world make you believe you are anything less than that. Cause I’m gonna be fucking pissed if you do.”
Her eyes narrow on him. “What?” He can feel his nerves standing on end, searing through his body and he really can’t take it. He jumps up, rubbing his hands along his jeans and then holding them out in front of him, pleading somewhat, as he looks at her.
“Rachel, yeah, you’re different. You don’t fit in here because you don’t belong here. Your loud and your bossy and your fucking irritating as hell but you’re real. Your fucking a whole lot more real than all those other girls at McKinley. They make fun of you because your different, cause you don’t fit into their cliques or their picture of how girls should be. But Jesus, Rachel, don’t you see that what makes you different is what makes you fucking special? Hudson . . . fuck Hudson!” He’s angry now, his heart pounding and his blood racing. He runs his hand over his head and starts pacing along the floor. “Hudson will never think you’re amazing because you aren’t Lima and he is. And any guy for that fucking matter that doesn’t realize how special you are, well they just aren’t worth your time, Rachel. And I hope to god that one day you will wake up and realize that too and stop giving those assholes your time. Cause they sure as hell don’t fucking deserve you.”
He’s still pacing when he feels her tiny hand on his arm. “That’s it, isn’t it,” she says softly, bringing his eyes to hers, “that’s why you’ve been so mean to me lately.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying to be mean, Rach. I just can’t stand by as you let them try to change you. I thought maybe you would stop when you finally wised up and sent Finn packing but then you just started trying to fit in with Santana or Mercedes or whoever. It pissed me off because that’s not you and I hated that every day you were a little less Rachel and a little more Lima. Figured that if I fought with you, maybe I wouldn’t care so much.”
“Did it work?”
He closes his eyes. “No.” He feels her lips on his as soon as the word escapes his mouth. Her kiss soft and sweet, just like he remembers, just like he can never forget. As soon he starts kissing her back, she falls back off of her tiptoes and steps away from him.
“What are you afraid of,” she asks with a laugh. Is she seriously fucking going back to the assignment now? Only Rachel fucking Berry could do that.
He shakes his head, once again running a nervous hand across his head. “Not afraid of anything,” he says, knowing she isn’t going to let this go, “but maybe I’m a little worried that you’re not gonna be that woman with me in ten years. Cause the truth, Rach, is that when I think about my life in ten years, you are always the woman beside me. So there’s your something personal, worrisome and secretive all wrapped up into one.”
He sees her eyes gloss over as she shakes her head and smiles. Then . . . she punches his arm. Fucking crazy.
“You couldn’t have just told me that instead of being, for lack of a more appropriate word, a dick!”
“What, you were in like fucking love with Finn. Figured you’d jump down my throat and call me a liar if I told you the truth.”
She cocks her head to the side and narrows her eyes on him. “So what is the truth? The whole truth?”
“And nothing but the truth,” he interrupts, “that I’m in love with you.” His voice is solid and strong, completely confident in what he is saying, and he sees her jump slightly. He takes a step forward so he is literally inches away from her, staring down at her big brown eyes. “That Lauren broke up with me cause she realized I wanted you, that I’ve always fucking wanted you. And I’ve tried real hard to not want you but it just seems to make me want you more. It’s fucked up. But I like your crazy. I like that you are strong and opinionated and you challenge me at every fucking level. I don’t want to change you like everybody else does. Cause I love you. You. Not some vision of who I think you should be.”
She licks at her bottom lip and beams up at him. “My secret now. I broke up with Finn because I realized that when he kissed me, it never made me feel the way it felt when you kissed me. I realized that when he touched me, it didn’t make my pulse race or my palms sweat or make me feel weak in the knees. I knew that he was trying to make me more like Quinn because Quinn is the one he should be with. She is his future. I never saw him as part of my future. But I did see you. Granted, I didn’t know in which capacity you would actually want to be in my future, because I was never very clear on what you wanted from me, but you were always there. So when I said that I was afraid someone wouldn’t want me without changing me, what I was saying was that I was afraid you wouldn’t want me. Because I know you are the only person who wouldn’t change me.”
He clenches his eyes shut, trying ridiculously hard to ward off the burning tears he feels springing in them. Fuck this emotional stuff. He is not good at it. They remain closed when he speaks again. “And you couldn’t have just told me that,” he mimics her words from before.
“Would this night have been nearly as amazing if I had?” He opens his eyes to her, shaking his head to answer her question. When he leans forward and rests his forehead to hers, she takes his hands and threads her fingers through his own. “I love you, Noah. Every single bit of you. Just like you love every single bit of me.”
He shakes his head, his nose brushing against hers as he does. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
She giggles. “Yes and you love it.”
“I do,” he says before he pulls her into him, wrapping her strongly in his protective arms.
He keeps her there for a few minutes, letting the silence fall softly between them as they just take in each other. Then he glances at the clock and chuckles. “You realize we’re pretty much done with this assignment and we have like nineteen hours left.”
She pulls back from him slightly and smiles mischievously. “I can think of something we can do to pass the time.” Fuck yeah, he loves that idea. But when he goes in to kiss her, he finds his lips smacking against her palm. “But first we have one more thing we have to do to complete the assignment.”
Stepping away from him, she scurries to her desk and digs out a camera, two pieces of paper and two markers. “I told you I would take this assignment very seriously. So let’s finish it appropriately.” Of course, his Berry would do this.
Five minutes later, he slides his arm around her waist as she does the same to him. They look up at each other, smiling brightly, with each holding a piece of paper in front of them. The timer goes off and the camera flashes.
On his paper? Secretly in love with her.
On hers? Secretly in love with him.
When they show their picture to the rest of the Glee club on Monday, he sees Shue smile and nod. Yep, he’s pretty sure that was all part of his evil plan. He’ll thank him for that later.