Fic: A Day in the Life
Title: A Day in the Life
Author: imagined_haven
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Puck, with a dash of one-sided (for now) Puck/Kurt
Genre: angst
Warning: possible triggers for depression, use of second person writing style
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: If I owned Glee things would look remarkably different... as they do not, I presume it is safe to assume that I do not, in fact, own Glee.
Author Notes: Apologies for the use of second person. I think on the whole it tends to sound pretentious in general, but that is how the story started flowing.
Summary: Just another day in the life of Noah Puckerman.
Word Count: 1047
You wake up.
Each day, just doing that seems a little bit harder. Your dreams are pleasant, and you wonder why you can’t stay in them. But you can’t, because every day you wind up waking up despite clinging to your dreams.
Waking up is beyond your control. Getting out of bed, however, isn’t. And it’s far harder than waking up. After all, you want nothing more than to go back to sleep, maybe forever, and getting out of bed is like admitting you can’t do that.
But you do that, too, and even though you’re exhausted and your sheets are warm and your pillow is soft you stay out of bed. The mirror tells you you put clothes on, though you don’t remember picking them out or putting them on. It also tells you you could probably use a shave, but you spent so much time getting out of bed you really don’t have any left. Besides, that would involve bringing yourself to care enough, and if getting out of bed was hard that would be an almost Herculean effort.
You don’t look at your eyes in the mirror. You’re pretty sure you don’t want to know what they’re going to be telling you.
You ignore the comb on the bathroom sink. Maybe if you were less tired you would care about how your hair really is getting a little long, and maybe you’d at least style it better or something. But right now you’re not sure how you’d manage to lift the comb to even make sure there aren’t knots or something, so you leave it be.
After all, it’s not like you’re known for caring about your appearance or something. It won’t matter. People won’t notice. You’re so good at blending in that no one would probably even give you a second look.
Maybe you want someone to give you a second look.
But really, second looks are more trouble than they’re worth. Second looks are what got you to where you are right now, after all. The last thing you need is more of them.
Shaking your head, you leave the bathroom and amble over toward the refrigerator. Maybe you should eat breakfast. After all, practice is today and you don’t want to pass out. Do you?
Do you?
In the end you decide against it. After all, fainting in the middle of practice would get you those second looks. So you pull out something that might’ve been a bagel and eat it. It’s tasteless in your mouth, utterly tasteless, like so much has been for so long. This is why half the time you no longer bother with breakfast. If it’s tasteless, why is it worth wasting what little energy you have on? That energy is better used for more important things.
Hiding is one of those more important things, and before you go out the door you find a mirror again and practice your smile. Just that takes it out of you, but you’re pretty sure it looks okay. Actually, you’re pretty sure several people will think it looks more than okay, but whatever. You’re done with that. It doesn’t matter, not really. Not anymore.
Nothing really matters anymore. You’re even pretty sure you don’t matter.
If you did matter, maybe someone would’ve told you before now that you did.
On your way out the door you grab your backpack. It’s more out of force of habit than anything else at this point, one more thing to weigh you down, but oddly enough you don’t really notice it. It doesn’t make that much of a difference, not really. You’re still tired and you’re still just trying to make it through another day.
The walk to school could be long, or it could be short. At first it seems like it takes forever, the act of putting one foot in front of the other, but before you know it you’re at the doors. Taking a breath, you step inside, ready to flash a grin at anyone who talks to you but hoping no one does.
As usual, no one really pays you any mind, and you are allowed to go to your locker without incident. With your face buried inside of it, pretending to look for your books, you allow your smile to fall to preserve what little energy you have left. School is hard, it always is, but today in particular seems harder than usual, and you don’t know why.
Finally, you have to go to class, and you do, sitting in the back and fading into the background. The day passes in a blur, and while you hope you did nothing too out of the ordinary you honestly don’t remember.
The day is almost over. Classes are done, and for that you allow yourself to breathe a sigh of relief. There is just practice to go, and that will be easy. You just sit in the back and occasionally sing along.
Then you blink as you see him.
He is everything you wish you could be. So unashamedly himself, and stunningly bright, he is like a sun to you. Even though he is mocked by many and liked by few, he still finds something to smile about every day, and it is a genuine smile. He is perfect, and yet you can’t help but feel like he should be the one feeling like you do.
He is strong enough to avoid it, though. Since his life is harder than yours, why are you so weak?
You have no answer to that question, and it only makes you feel worse.
The only thing approximating an explanation is that he is bold enough to be himself, while you are not. You have been concerned for so long with blending in that it has simply become what you do. You’re pretty sure you couldn’t allow yourself to be as open as he is.
Maybe you want to try. But you know it would be a terrible idea. And so you simply look away from the sun that brightens your day as well as showing your own shadows. You ignore him in practice. And then you go home.
Another day done. That has to be worth something, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
~*~
I might continue this; that is yet to be determined. If I do, rest assured that I will not continue using second person, because it's nasty to write in. :(