oneshot: let me be empty (rachel/jesse)
Title: Let Me Be Empty
Author: arquellania
Fandom: Glee
Pairing(s): Rachel/Jesse
Rating: T (PG-13) for drug use
Word Count: 572
Spoilers: If you've seen up to Hell-O, you should be good.
Summary: Futurefic; Jesse runs into Rachel in New York at the height of his success and discovers she's become a drug addict.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, blahblahblah.
Author's Notes: My first Glee fic - it's quite angsty, which is what I do best. I'd love some feedback!
FF.net link: Right here.
xxxx
Her eyes remain the piercing brown he remembers. The rest of her is shrouded in fog, forgotten long ago.
He passes her by in the street one day. She is faded, in the background, not the brilliant star he knows her to be.
He left her for UCLA long ago and slowly rose. A mistake? He ponders this.
Fame was stupid, he soon realized. His name in bright lights - he doesn't complain.
She's fallen into the abyss that is the city. He's floating above the city skyline.
He passes her. He walks on by, running from the cameras, the photographers screaming his name.
xxxx
He finds her again in a club, where he is nameless. He's left Jesse St. James behind for a few hours, he hopes.
Her hips leave him captivated, and she remains faceless for a moment. He's lost in the rhythm, and she is a part of the craze.
She turns, studies him. Her eyes are faded - her smile crooked, the remains of broken promises.
She backs away slowly. He lets her.
xxxx
He returns to the club once more, searching for something.
He watches her as she accepts the pain, tips her head back, washes in her misery.
His fingers trace the tracks, her silent cries.
She looks up, bewildered. She doesn't know him.
They're strangers.
He floats on his cloud, away from her.
xxxx
He can't forget. He doesn't see the girl he remembers from high school, the one who was hellbent on achieving dreams.
Now she lies in them, falling, falling.
His heart races when he sees her. A sense of terror, a need to escape.
She remains in the ashes of dreams burnt long ago.
He goes on living his.
xxxx
She goes to see his first performance on Broadway in whatever play he's drowned himself into for the moment.
She goes to see him at the stage door, to his surprise. He takes her hand, leads her away, to his home, his safe place.
She's gone - thinner, paler.
He watches her as she reveals the only thing she's brought with her. She tears at it, her hands quivering, begging for her release.
Her hands shaking, she offers up her prize to him.
This is the moment of truth, he realizes.
So he tears it away from her, tosses it all over.
She claws at the floor, screaming for it, screaming for her.
He bends down, reaches towards her, needs her, needs her.
And she cries, she cries. It's like rain, sticky and hot, and he cries, he cries.
Rachel, Rachel…
It's faint. She doesn't respond.
She's not Rachel anymore.
xxxx
He begins to fall.
She tries to meet him, rising, scouring for her own cloud.
And so he begins to glue the cracks in her world.
He falls, he falls. She rises, she rises.
And together, they reach for the sky.
xxxx
fin