But my words like silent raindrops fell

[dancnwithmyself]

Who: dancnwithmyself & morbidbubbles
What: Awkward rehearsals and overwhelming emotions
Where: Choir room
When: Tuesday lunchtime
Rating: PG for now

Comments

[morbidbubbles]

Tina's feet were as confused as her heart - they couldn't decide whether they wanted to hurry to the choir room because she was slightly late to rehearse with Artie and didn't want to be rude, or whether they wanted to amble and prolong the inevitably awkward meeting. She was extremely hungry; breakfast had been more or less canceled this morning after her mother burned it. It was partly Tina's fault for snapping at her during a disagreement, though she really couldn't care less about the guilt right now

[dancnwithmyself]

"Thanks," Artie replied, with a small smile, before shaking himself slightly, putting the guitar down. He had to focus on business, or he'd get depressed. More depressed than he was at the moment, anyway.

"I went through my iPod and youtube last night, pulling up some songs that I thought might work," he said. "Of course, the fact that a lot of duets are love songs is a problem..." He wanted to curl up and die. Why did he let his mouth get away with him again? He'd love to sing a love duet with Tina - if people like Rachel could get away with singing their emotions out week on week, why couldn't he?

[morbidbubbles]

Tina had begun walking over to the piano, but she stopped briefly at his words. There was a word she didn't need to hear, it brought up too many thoughts. Complicated thoughts. She took a few more steps, and leaned against the side of the piano, her finger absent-mindedly drawing patterns on it.

"Um, y-yeah....I noticed that, too.." she let her voice trail off, staring at the cool, black surface of the piano. "Or like, love-gone-bad type of stuff..." No, she hadn't wasted a full hour of research time listening to them and reluctantly relating. Not at all. She coughed nervously. "So, uh, anyway...what did you come up with?"

[dancnwithmyself]

Artie took in her body language. Nervous, complicated, too much for him to handle at the moment.

"Yeah, there seems to be a lot of those as well," Artie said, clearing his throat. "Um. A few ideas. There is always Simon and Garfunkel - songs like Sparrow, Hazy Shade of Winter, The Sounds of Silence..." He paused, taking a deep breath. His tastes tended towards classic rock through choice, but he was flexible. "There are any number of songs you could take and make into duets, they are flexible like that. Tom Jones did a few years ago, good album."

[morbidbubbles]

Tina nodded, thinking over the songs. None of them really moved her, though she did like The Sounds of Silence. She reached into her back pocket, fumbling with a small crumpled piece of paper. "Yeahh, um... here's what I got. I dunno about them, I mean, they're mostly....couple-y songs." That wasn't exactly the right word, but she didn't want to bring up the word 'love' again. She handed the small list to him with her arm outstretched, worrying about violating personal space.

The note, in slanted and slightly messy scrawl, read:

"You and I" - Ingrid Michaelson & some guy
"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" - Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty
"In Your Eyes" - Peter Gabriel
"It's All Coming Back To Me Now" - Meatloaf & Marion Raven

"That was pretty much all I found, except for the hundreds of country songs," she muttered, fiddling with her nails. "And I figured that...probably wasn't for either of us."

Farther down the note, in a different (and neater) handwriting, was:
"I've got this Friend" by Faith Hill & Tim McGraw

[dancnwithmyself]

"That's the problem," Artie said, flushing slightly, then looking away from her, before pulling himself together and taking the list from her.

The writing was familiar, and the sight of '& some guy' almost made him laugh aloud. So typically Tina. He glanced up at her comment about country songs. "Not really Glee material, no," he said, then frowned looking at the last entry.

"What's this?" he asked pointing at the last song. "I don't know it."

[morbidbubbles]

"What, you don't know Meatl-" Tina paused as she looked where he pointed, then frowned. In her puzzlement she couldn't restrain herself from snatching the note back to stare at it. "I....I didn't write this..." She blinked.

"I don't know it either. But I...think one of them is a country artist? I definitely didn't write this, I don't know how it got there." She paused, then guiltily handed the note back. "Er, sorry about that, that was kind of rude..."

[dancnwithmyself]

Artie quickly moved his hand back into his lap as Tina snatched the note, momentarily terrified he'd done something else wrong. "Why would anyone else write on there?" he wondered. "I'm curious now."

He pulled out his cell phone and started to search on youtube. "Here," he said, finding it, and pressing play.

[morbidbubbles]

"I don't know," Tina replied, moving to sit down on the piano bench as the song began to play. She was kind of curious too, and she let the curiosity for the song take prevalence over wondering 'who the hell wrote that?'

It was definitely a love ballad type of song, but Tina didn't find herself hating it. And it didn't really sound country, which was a blessing in her mind. As the song finished, she didn't know why her heart was beating faster but she ignored it. "It's...not bad," she commented. "Kinda nice, actually."

[dancnwithmyself]

Artie watched the video of the song, his head tilted slightly to one side as he listened. "It's not really country," he commented, though he did wonder if she actually listened to the words. It was hammering home a little hard how like the two of them it was - well, before their argument.

[morbidbubbles]

Tina sat there quietly for a moment, and the meaning of the song began to sink in. Her stomach twisted. "Oh that is so not cool...who the hell is stalking me and suggesting songs about my life?" The more she thought about it, the more upset she felt. It was a nice song, but she couldn't sing it - not with things between her and Artie still being so up in the air.

Tina stood up suddenly, her fingers accidentally hitting discordant notes on the piano. "You know what? I-I don't know if I can do this." She felt a lump in her throat and she was teetering between between two very strong emotional reactions. "Can we please talk about what happened the last time we were here?"

[dancnwithmyself]

Artie jumped when Tina stood up, not expecting her sudden movement. It was an odd reaction from her. "We don't have to sing that song..." he started, but stopped as she glared at him. His stomach churned uncomfortably, and he wished he hadn't had the sandwich for lunch that his mother had made.

He tried to look up at her, but he found he couldn't. He knew he'd screwed up, but then, she had too, right? After all, she was the one who'd lied. "I..." he started, then stopped. "I don't know what there is to say about it."

[morbidbubbles]

Tina moved away from the piano bench, trying not to lash out. She looked at Artie and shook her head, her voice indignant. "NO. That is not an answer and you know it! You've had two damn weeks to think about it, now please have the decency to say something!"

[dancnwithmyself]

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, frowning at her. "That I'm sorry that you didn't tell me the truth long ago? That I'm sorry you get to be normal?" He took a deep breath, fighting back the emotions that had never been far away since their fight. He wasn't entirely sure what he was saying anymore. "I'm glad you feel you don't have to hide behind the stutter now. You can get on with your life, fit in, be the same as everyone else. Leave me behind like everyone else I've ever gotten close to." He shook his head. "I got scared, okay? I like you, Tina. I've never liked anyone as much as you. You were my best friend and for a moment there, I thought we could be something more. But you felt you had to hide that from me, and it hurt. A lot."

[morbidbubbles]

Tina felt like her heart had been stabbed from all sides. "What, and you think I went skipping off happily after I told you? It hurt me, too, Artie! It's been hurting me for a really long time - I wanted to tell you but I was afraid of how you would react." She rubbed at her eyes, refusing to cry.

"Maybe I picked a really lousy time to tell you, but I thought because of that moment that you'd understand! I thought if anyone would understand it would be you...I mean, when I thought about it I always planned on telling you first. Always. But it was so hard, and I kept chickening out because I was afraid you'd hate me." She scoffed, slightly bitter. "Apparently I was right."

She stepped toward him, glaring. "Normal? What the hell does 'normal' have to do with anything? You want to talk about hurting, how about the fact that you're lumping me in with strangers because I came out of the vocal closet?! I'm still me!"

[dancnwithmyself]

Artie shrank back into his chair slightly. He hadn't really stopped to consider how Tina had been feeling about it all, and the answer was bad. He couldn't look at her, not yet.

"When everyone you've ever gotten close to does that to you, it's hard to move past it," Artie said in a quiet voice. "People who you thought meant a lot continually walk away, because they don't want to know the cripple." People like Quinn. Artie could pretend it didn't hurt, but it did. He rubbed his eyes, trying not to cry himself. "I do understand, but it's hard for me too, okay?"