Drabble Prompt Meme Fill
Okay I'm heading to bed now, but couldn't resist one more fill. I have to work tomorrow and I was hoping I could just spend the day ficcing, but such is life... money comes first. :(
“WILL YOU JUST COME HOME? I CAN’T… I CAN’T SLEEP WITHOUT YOU.”
Honestly, she thought it was just going to be another fight, where they went to bed angry, he appears on her doorstep the following morning, they make up, make out, and they’re back to normal by 11:45. Three days later, when she’s leaving for school in her own car instead of being picked up by him in his truck, and she’s feeling horribly alone, the beating of her heart loud in her chest as it breaks, she has the strange realisation that this time, it might be it.
It’s over.
She finishes sobbing to the tune of her broken heart as she parks in the student parking lot, and realises for the first time in over nine months, she’s walking in alone, no longer Noah Puckerman’s girlfriend, and all she has left is to watch him undoubtedly surround himself with easy blonde girls in tiny cheerleading skirts who have spent nine months waiting for this very moment.
Santana and Brittany flank her as she walks in, one on each side, and she goes through the motions of a school day, avoiding everyone who gives her the apologetic gazes, Finn who offers her a hug and seems to think this is his chance (and it most definitely is not, nor will it ever be again) and avoiding Puck every time he refuses to look at her.
Lunch in the cafeteria is awkward. Even Brittany notices the tension, as she blabbers on about ducks and kittens and a trip to the zoo in San Diego, as Puck tries not to look at Rachel and Rachel tries to ignore the fact that she’s actually in so much pain she’s not sure how she is still even breathing at this moment.
Glee Club is possibly the worst part of her day, and usually it’s the best. Santana holds her hand and squeezes it every so often as she tries to sing her heart out and be strong and powerful and throw everything she has into every song, when all she wants to do is go to bed with her pyjamas and cry, because she’s never felt so alone, and that includes all those times she stood covered in sticky, cold, coloured ice.
She’s not sure how she can act and sing about how she’s falling in love with someone, when he’s the one who picked a fight over something stupid (and honestly, how many times has he told her that so and so is one “fuckin’ hot chick? All she said was that at one point, before Finn, before Puck, before Glee Club was Glee Club, she thought Matt was hot and talented, as she knew him from her dance classes, and a total sweet heart, and had a bit of a crush on him. It’s not like she slept with him or even did anything with him. Unlike Noah and his ridiculous laundry list of girls.) and walked out and called it over.
She still can’t believe this is real, really. And now that she knows it is and this is possibly the most awkward Glee session of her entire life, all she wants to do is curl up and cry to Celine Dion and all she can hear is lyrics about breaking hearts with the slamming of doors.
She leaves before he can say anything to her, or before she can find out he never intended to say anything to her at all.
--
It takes five nights before she lets herself believe it’s over.
She can’t believe she’s become so used to having him in her life, having him in her heart, having him in her bed.
Apart from the occasional greeting or farewell, the only words they’ve spoken to each other in five days is Glee Club related, or him returning song sheets she’d left in his bedroom, which he’d done today, in the middle of the hallway, as if it was perfectly normal and as if this … situation … wasn’t affecting him at all.
She’d stood in front of her locker, arms wrapped tightly around her middle, trying to hold herself together. He was standing there shoving the pieces of paper at her because he “thought she might need them or want them or whatever” and all she wanted was to scream at him that she needs and wants him, not stupid pieces of paper she has copies of anyway.
But as he walked away and she let the sheets fall to the floor, she found herself being kind of glad he hadn’t returned anything else that belongs to her that he’s sure to have.
(She’s still sleeping in his McKinley High jersey, because she’s that pathetic and lost and broken.)
On Friday night, the night they usually spend together watching movies in her bed or celebrating a McKinley win if it’s a game night, she goes to bed alone, and realises for the first time in nine months just how big her bed is without him in it.
It’s not even warm any more.
She moves to one side, she moves to the middle, she spreads out like a starfish, and all she can hear is the sound of her own breath and nothing else. There’s no sighing or huffing or a half-grumpy, half-asleep voice telling her to just stop moving as he pulls her into his arms and holds her tight.
There’s just her, alone in a bed that no longer smells like him, and she realises just how much time they’ve spent together in the nine months of their relationship, and the little bit before where they weren’t together, but they weren’t not together, either.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever spend that much time with someone again, because she never wants to wind up alone in a bed feeling empty with only her broken heart for company.
She wonders if he’s having the same trouble sleeping she is. But it leads to thoughts of him with other girls for company, sleeping in his bed with someone who is decidedly not her, and she’s determined not to cry herself to sleep tonight, so she settles for staring at her ceiling and the faded glow in the dark stars she stuck there when she was seven and already dreaming of her name in lights.
Santana comes in a little after eleven, smelling a little of alcohol and beaming with the celebration of a McKinley win. She slides in bed beside Rachel, and pulls her into a hug, the way only a best friend can, but Rachel’s still not feeling comforted. The bed’s still too empty, the hugs not as strong, or as warm, or as comforting.
It’s just not him, and he’s broken her in too many ways, because all she wants is him, even with her broken heart.
“I can’t believe it’s over.” Rachel says, and she knows she sounds pathetic and like a broken record, but she really, really can’t.
Santana says something that sounds like, “I know.” And then continues to tell her that Puck was definitely not on top form tonight and seems miserable too, but it doesn’t offer Rachel any comfort.
She doesn’t want him to be miserable or unhappy or sad without her, because obviously he couldn’t be with her, either, and apparently she wasn’t making him happy, so, he should be running around the field screaming for joy and freedom.
“If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” Santana offers, but Rachel’s seen the end, saw it from the moment she woke up on a Monday and didn’t see Puck’s truck pulling into her driveway and knew their relationship was officially with an insane conversation that had no real meaning except just, “once upon a time I had a crush on Matt, the end.”
She’s seen the end and it’s her, alone in a too big bed that she’s spent far too much time in with a boy who left her feeling this way, utterly and completely miserable who sings through her pain and drinks too much water because she’s at a loss of what else to do.
She wakes up the morning after with tired eyes and Santana, and it just feels wrong, somehow.
As flattering as it is when her best friend flirts with her to make her giggle as they lie in bed, it’s just not the same as waking up beside Noah who usually has his hands up her top and cuddled up beside her, because as tough as he is, boy is a major cuddling fan.
She pictures him waking up in bed with some blonde girl who resembles Quinn but is supermodel gorgeous, and she wants to throw up.
Instead, she works out through her pain, ties her hair up, and drags Santana for a run so she’s forced to breathe in and out and keep going.
--
On Sunday night, she knows enough is enough. One entire week has gone past, one week and two days to be specific, and they’re still over.
She’s not sure she can go another week seeing him living his life without her, feeling lonely and tiny in a bed that needs him in it, having awkward conversations at lunch time and in Glee Club, trying to act like she’s not broken hearted over the fact that he’s ended things between them as she sings about how she loves him and everything is wonderful. (Even though it’s really, really not.)
(Mr Schue is apparently sadistic.)
She’s alone in her bed, staring at a phone that is frustratingly silent, and all she can hear is the rustle of her sheets as she moves around trying to find a warm spot. (She won’t. She’s been trying for nine days.) She calls him, hoping he’s alone, half hoping he won’t pick up.
Her heart beats faster with every ring of the phone, and she’s just waiting to hear his voice on the other line, conjuring up all sorts of reasons, some possible, some irrational, of why he’s not answering.
When she gets to wild nights with Playboy Bunnies, she knows it’s time to hang up the phone.
She tries to fall asleep as she listens to Love Songs Til Midnight on the radio, and she’s almost there when her phone vibrates.
She tries to ignore how hard her heart is beating when she recognises his name on her caller ID.
“Hello?” She asks, and everything she wanted to say when she called him over half an hour ago has completely gone from her mind. Damn him and his unfailing ability to render her absolutely speechless. And seriously, what has he been doing for the past forty two minutes? (Or is that who?)
“Rachel? Are you okay? Just saw you called.” She wants to believe that’s worry she hears in his voice. She hopes like hell she’s right, because all she wants is a sign he still cares, and that he’s not planning to ambush her in the hall tomorrow with a box of nine months of her stuff that has accumulated in his bedroom.
“This is ridiculous.” She informs him, and her voice cracks slightly as she fights back tears, because even hearing his voice on the line makes her feel alone and aware that he’s not hers any more, that they’re over and this is real and that heart break hurts like hell, more than Finn kissing her and telling her to keep it a secret and being drenched in egg as Jesse strands her in a car park with only the never ending sound of laughter in her ears.
“What is?” He asks, and she hates him a little because he knows. He’s not an idiot.
“This.” She says, and if she wasn’t in bed, she’d be stomping her foot until he got the point.
“How’s Matt?” He asks in a bitter tone, and she wants to slap him. She really, really does.
She thinks this conversation could be good for her, if she continues to just hate him a little more every time he adds something to this conversation.
“You’re an idiot if you think I want Matt. God, you’ve slept with most of the goddamn Cheerios, and not once did I walk away from you, knowing that. I was fifteen, Noah, I also had a crush on Zac Efron and had posters of the Backstreet Boys on my walls. It wasn’t like I was going to actively pursue anything with Matt, or the Backstreet Boys. I wanted you, I loved you, and that’s what makes this whole thing ridiculous. I can’t believe we’ve broken up over me having a crush on someone else ONCE UPON A TIME. That’s like me breaking up with you and ending a perfectly happy and good nine month relationship because you think Kendra Wilkinson is hot and you tell me on a regular basis how you’d bang her, given the chance. That’s what is ridiculous, Noah Puckerman.”
She’s breathing hard, because if she stops focusing on that, she’ll burst into tears while he tries to conjure up a reply.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and she listens to his breathing on the line, and feels a little less alone.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’s fallen asleep listening to him breathe.
She knows her voice is breaking as she asks him something, because god, she just wants to sleep easily, she’s sick of trying the impossible - sleeping with a broken heart. She never thought her life would become an Alicia Keys song.
“Will you just come home? I can’t… I can’t sleep without you.” She doesn’t want to beg him, she doesn’t want to be that desperate girl he makes fun of with his teammates in the locker room tomorrow afternoon. But she’s sick to death of being exhausted and spending more hours of the night awake than asleep.
“I can’t either.” He says, and there’s a long pause. She hears him moving around, probably in his room, and if he’s cleaning or playing a video game while she’s laying her heart on the line, she’s actually going to kill him.
There’s a click and the line goes dead, and she wants to call him back, but the dial tone sort of says everything she never wanted to hear.
--
Ten minutes later, her phone is vibrating again, and she’s still listening to what Santana calls, “Songs to slit your wrists to” on the oldies station, because sappy love songs always make Santana want to gag. She’s about to pick it up when it stops, and then there’s a tap on her door.
Santana’s going to make a lot of fun of her when she comes in and sees Rachel in Eeyore pyjamas listening to Roy Orbison sing, “only the lonely.”
Except it’s not Santana’s face that slides into bed beside her.
“I’m sorry.” Noah says, pulling her into his arms as he kisses her head, her cheek, her lips, anywhere he can reach. “I’m an idiot.” He adds.
He’s filling out her bed in all the right ways, his arms are tight around her, and he keeps apologising.
He pauses as she tells him its okay and that she loves him, and leans back to look her in the eyes.
“Backstreet Boys, really?” She nods her confirmation.
“Baby, we need to get you some better taste in music.”
“WILL YOU JUST COME HOME? I CAN’T… I CAN’T SLEEP WITHOUT YOU.”
Honestly, she thought it was just going to be another fight, where they went to bed angry, he appears on her doorstep the following morning, they make up, make out, and they’re back to normal by 11:45. Three days later, when she’s leaving for school in her own car instead of being picked up by him in his truck, and she’s feeling horribly alone, the beating of her heart loud in her chest as it breaks, she has the strange realisation that this time, it might be it.
It’s over.
She finishes sobbing to the tune of her broken heart as she parks in the student parking lot, and realises for the first time in over nine months, she’s walking in alone, no longer Noah Puckerman’s girlfriend, and all she has left is to watch him undoubtedly surround himself with easy blonde girls in tiny cheerleading skirts who have spent nine months waiting for this very moment.
Santana and Brittany flank her as she walks in, one on each side, and she goes through the motions of a school day, avoiding everyone who gives her the apologetic gazes, Finn who offers her a hug and seems to think this is his chance (and it most definitely is not, nor will it ever be again) and avoiding Puck every time he refuses to look at her.
Lunch in the cafeteria is awkward. Even Brittany notices the tension, as she blabbers on about ducks and kittens and a trip to the zoo in San Diego, as Puck tries not to look at Rachel and Rachel tries to ignore the fact that she’s actually in so much pain she’s not sure how she is still even breathing at this moment.
Glee Club is possibly the worst part of her day, and usually it’s the best. Santana holds her hand and squeezes it every so often as she tries to sing her heart out and be strong and powerful and throw everything she has into every song, when all she wants to do is go to bed with her pyjamas and cry, because she’s never felt so alone, and that includes all those times she stood covered in sticky, cold, coloured ice.
She’s not sure how she can act and sing about how she’s falling in love with someone, when he’s the one who picked a fight over something stupid (and honestly, how many times has he told her that so and so is one “fuckin’ hot chick? All she said was that at one point, before Finn, before Puck, before Glee Club was Glee Club, she thought Matt was hot and talented, as she knew him from her dance classes, and a total sweet heart, and had a bit of a crush on him. It’s not like she slept with him or even did anything with him. Unlike Noah and his ridiculous laundry list of girls.) and walked out and called it over.
She still can’t believe this is real, really. And now that she knows it is and this is possibly the most awkward Glee session of her entire life, all she wants to do is curl up and cry to Celine Dion and all she can hear is lyrics about breaking hearts with the slamming of doors.
She leaves before he can say anything to her, or before she can find out he never intended to say anything to her at all.
--
It takes five nights before she lets herself believe it’s over.
She can’t believe she’s become so used to having him in her life, having him in her heart, having him in her bed.
Apart from the occasional greeting or farewell, the only words they’ve spoken to each other in five days is Glee Club related, or him returning song sheets she’d left in his bedroom, which he’d done today, in the middle of the hallway, as if it was perfectly normal and as if this … situation … wasn’t affecting him at all.
She’d stood in front of her locker, arms wrapped tightly around her middle, trying to hold herself together. He was standing there shoving the pieces of paper at her because he “thought she might need them or want them or whatever” and all she wanted was to scream at him that she needs and wants him, not stupid pieces of paper she has copies of anyway.
But as he walked away and she let the sheets fall to the floor, she found herself being kind of glad he hadn’t returned anything else that belongs to her that he’s sure to have.
(She’s still sleeping in his McKinley High jersey, because she’s that pathetic and lost and broken.)
On Friday night, the night they usually spend together watching movies in her bed or celebrating a McKinley win if it’s a game night, she goes to bed alone, and realises for the first time in nine months just how big her bed is without him in it.
It’s not even warm any more.
She moves to one side, she moves to the middle, she spreads out like a starfish, and all she can hear is the sound of her own breath and nothing else. There’s no sighing or huffing or a half-grumpy, half-asleep voice telling her to just stop moving as he pulls her into his arms and holds her tight.
There’s just her, alone in a bed that no longer smells like him, and she realises just how much time they’ve spent together in the nine months of their relationship, and the little bit before where they weren’t together, but they weren’t not together, either.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever spend that much time with someone again, because she never wants to wind up alone in a bed feeling empty with only her broken heart for company.
She wonders if he’s having the same trouble sleeping she is. But it leads to thoughts of him with other girls for company, sleeping in his bed with someone who is decidedly not her, and she’s determined not to cry herself to sleep tonight, so she settles for staring at her ceiling and the faded glow in the dark stars she stuck there when she was seven and already dreaming of her name in lights.
Santana comes in a little after eleven, smelling a little of alcohol and beaming with the celebration of a McKinley win. She slides in bed beside Rachel, and pulls her into a hug, the way only a best friend can, but Rachel’s still not feeling comforted. The bed’s still too empty, the hugs not as strong, or as warm, or as comforting.
It’s just not him, and he’s broken her in too many ways, because all she wants is him, even with her broken heart.
“I can’t believe it’s over.” Rachel says, and she knows she sounds pathetic and like a broken record, but she really, really can’t.
Santana says something that sounds like, “I know.” And then continues to tell her that Puck was definitely not on top form tonight and seems miserable too, but it doesn’t offer Rachel any comfort.
She doesn’t want him to be miserable or unhappy or sad without her, because obviously he couldn’t be with her, either, and apparently she wasn’t making him happy, so, he should be running around the field screaming for joy and freedom.
“If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” Santana offers, but Rachel’s seen the end, saw it from the moment she woke up on a Monday and didn’t see Puck’s truck pulling into her driveway and knew their relationship was officially with an insane conversation that had no real meaning except just, “once upon a time I had a crush on Matt, the end.”
She’s seen the end and it’s her, alone in a too big bed that she’s spent far too much time in with a boy who left her feeling this way, utterly and completely miserable who sings through her pain and drinks too much water because she’s at a loss of what else to do.
She wakes up the morning after with tired eyes and Santana, and it just feels wrong, somehow.
As flattering as it is when her best friend flirts with her to make her giggle as they lie in bed, it’s just not the same as waking up beside Noah who usually has his hands up her top and cuddled up beside her, because as tough as he is, boy is a major cuddling fan.
She pictures him waking up in bed with some blonde girl who resembles Quinn but is supermodel gorgeous, and she wants to throw up.
Instead, she works out through her pain, ties her hair up, and drags Santana for a run so she’s forced to breathe in and out and keep going.
--
On Sunday night, she knows enough is enough. One entire week has gone past, one week and two days to be specific, and they’re still over.
She’s not sure she can go another week seeing him living his life without her, feeling lonely and tiny in a bed that needs him in it, having awkward conversations at lunch time and in Glee Club, trying to act like she’s not broken hearted over the fact that he’s ended things between them as she sings about how she loves him and everything is wonderful. (Even though it’s really, really not.)
(Mr Schue is apparently sadistic.)
She’s alone in her bed, staring at a phone that is frustratingly silent, and all she can hear is the rustle of her sheets as she moves around trying to find a warm spot. (She won’t. She’s been trying for nine days.) She calls him, hoping he’s alone, half hoping he won’t pick up.
Her heart beats faster with every ring of the phone, and she’s just waiting to hear his voice on the other line, conjuring up all sorts of reasons, some possible, some irrational, of why he’s not answering.
When she gets to wild nights with Playboy Bunnies, she knows it’s time to hang up the phone.
She tries to fall asleep as she listens to Love Songs Til Midnight on the radio, and she’s almost there when her phone vibrates.
She tries to ignore how hard her heart is beating when she recognises his name on her caller ID.
“Hello?” She asks, and everything she wanted to say when she called him over half an hour ago has completely gone from her mind. Damn him and his unfailing ability to render her absolutely speechless. And seriously, what has he been doing for the past forty two minutes? (Or is that who?)
“Rachel? Are you okay? Just saw you called.” She wants to believe that’s worry she hears in his voice. She hopes like hell she’s right, because all she wants is a sign he still cares, and that he’s not planning to ambush her in the hall tomorrow with a box of nine months of her stuff that has accumulated in his bedroom.
“This is ridiculous.” She informs him, and her voice cracks slightly as she fights back tears, because even hearing his voice on the line makes her feel alone and aware that he’s not hers any more, that they’re over and this is real and that heart break hurts like hell, more than Finn kissing her and telling her to keep it a secret and being drenched in egg as Jesse strands her in a car park with only the never ending sound of laughter in her ears.
“What is?” He asks, and she hates him a little because he knows. He’s not an idiot.
“This.” She says, and if she wasn’t in bed, she’d be stomping her foot until he got the point.
“How’s Matt?” He asks in a bitter tone, and she wants to slap him. She really, really does.
She thinks this conversation could be good for her, if she continues to just hate him a little more every time he adds something to this conversation.
“You’re an idiot if you think I want Matt. God, you’ve slept with most of the goddamn Cheerios, and not once did I walk away from you, knowing that. I was fifteen, Noah, I also had a crush on Zac Efron and had posters of the Backstreet Boys on my walls. It wasn’t like I was going to actively pursue anything with Matt, or the Backstreet Boys. I wanted you, I loved you, and that’s what makes this whole thing ridiculous. I can’t believe we’ve broken up over me having a crush on someone else ONCE UPON A TIME. That’s like me breaking up with you and ending a perfectly happy and good nine month relationship because you think Kendra Wilkinson is hot and you tell me on a regular basis how you’d bang her, given the chance. That’s what is ridiculous, Noah Puckerman.”
She’s breathing hard, because if she stops focusing on that, she’ll burst into tears while he tries to conjure up a reply.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and she listens to his breathing on the line, and feels a little less alone.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’s fallen asleep listening to him breathe.
She knows her voice is breaking as she asks him something, because god, she just wants to sleep easily, she’s sick of trying the impossible - sleeping with a broken heart. She never thought her life would become an Alicia Keys song.
“Will you just come home? I can’t… I can’t sleep without you.” She doesn’t want to beg him, she doesn’t want to be that desperate girl he makes fun of with his teammates in the locker room tomorrow afternoon. But she’s sick to death of being exhausted and spending more hours of the night awake than asleep.
“I can’t either.” He says, and there’s a long pause. She hears him moving around, probably in his room, and if he’s cleaning or playing a video game while she’s laying her heart on the line, she’s actually going to kill him.
There’s a click and the line goes dead, and she wants to call him back, but the dial tone sort of says everything she never wanted to hear.
--
Ten minutes later, her phone is vibrating again, and she’s still listening to what Santana calls, “Songs to slit your wrists to” on the oldies station, because sappy love songs always make Santana want to gag. She’s about to pick it up when it stops, and then there’s a tap on her door.
Santana’s going to make a lot of fun of her when she comes in and sees Rachel in Eeyore pyjamas listening to Roy Orbison sing, “only the lonely.”
Except it’s not Santana’s face that slides into bed beside her.
“I’m sorry.” Noah says, pulling her into his arms as he kisses her head, her cheek, her lips, anywhere he can reach. “I’m an idiot.” He adds.
He’s filling out her bed in all the right ways, his arms are tight around her, and he keeps apologising.
He pauses as she tells him its okay and that she loves him, and leans back to look her in the eyes.
“Backstreet Boys, really?” She nods her confirmation.
“Baby, we need to get you some better taste in music.”