Author's Note: Pretty random drabble, but I hope you like it anyway.
Blue Skies for Black Hearts
Tina's parents were both reasonably popular as children.
So naturally, they assume that when they return from long business trips to be greeted with teachers' concerns that their daughter has a speech impediment and isn't out there making friends with the other kids in the sandbox, there may be something wrong with her. They decide that along with a speech therapist, their daughter needs an outlet of sorts (she's sure now that they read this somewhere) and buy her both amateur cookbooks and kiddy paints. Tina has heard of people who bake when they're sad, but she figures from an early age since she manages to burn water, she'll paint instead.
(Plus that just fits perfectly into her little loner stereotype now doesn't it?)
She considers the expensive kits a consolation present from Mommy and Daddy Dearest as if the price of the gift will substitute whatever she feels in their absence. And considering the way she almost forgets how lonely she is as she paints the world away, maybe it's working.
She finds she'd rather color in what she observes than be a part of it all; it seems to sting a lot less that way. As she continues to drown out the world around her with headphones and a paintbrush, she continues to fake her stutter through middle school. She had thought it would push away her classmates (you think they would've come up with something more creative than 'Stutterfly' by now) and make her parents stick around more, so she guesses one out of two isn't bad.
Most days she likes to take the old vinyl records from her parents' room and sing along while she dips the tip of a brush into her favorite shade of blue. And when she's too aching to sing it out, she lets the paintbrush do it for her.
She doesn't know whether it's funny or sad that her parents didn't even know she could sing until she joined Glee.
On her first day of high school she witnesses the outspoken girl with the manic smile and the habit of singing show tunes as she prances down the hall get slushied, so she keeps her mouth shut. She opens it once and her old lie is spewing out in stutters. Nobody else makes her say a word.
While she's doodling in her notebook during a math lecture, she meets a boy named Artie. He's sweet and he knows all the lyrics to her favorite songs and suddenly her paintings are a lot brighter than they used to be.
When that same boy doesn't speak to her for weeks, she can't paint at all. Well she can, but they're just these dark strokes of black that desperately scream for comfort and color and understanding, but she can't give it to the canvas because she needs to keep all those things for herself.
The day Artie forgives her only to tell her she has to drop her Goth look to be with him, she takes all her paints out of their neat little boxes and dumps them onto the floor. She picks out the brightest, most obnoxious colors and holds them tight in her grip as she glares at the blank canvas, wondering just how to attack the task of demonstrating how she's feeling.
She ends up painting a colorless, nameless girl in an orange dress clutching a bright red umbrella, this serene little smile in place as she plunges downwards off a bridge into the clear waters below (Yeah, it's like Mary Poppins gone wrong). She paints a crowd of faceless onlookers all in black and white standing on the bridge watching her fluttering descent, and she marvels at how she made that face so carefree as her eyes are closed and her dark hair flies around her, her individuality shining brightly for the world to see. Even til the very end.
It's pretty morbid and she keeps it in her closet afraid her parents will make her go back to therapy if they see it, but there's something about it that makes her feel this calm kind of proud. Makes her know she can still be herself, no matter what anyone says even if it's hidden just for her to see, even if she's not entirely sure what that even means yet.
She figures sticking up for yourself is better than admitting a lie just to live another one.
(Because really, Artie? It's not like she's claiming she can't love him unless he ditches his sweater vests and grandpa-shoes.)
When Artie goes back to pretending she's part of the air around him, she throws her expensive paints (this particular set from the time her parents missed Glee's Invitational) against the wall and watches in a trance while the colors bleed into one another as they drip down. She doesn't paint over it, as if keeping it there will remind her that she'd rather have an array of colors than a blank wall, as if it reminds her it's okay to feel betrayed and sad and just so damn lonely—at least she's feeling anything at all.
Her next painting is just red. The same shade of red of the anger that surged through her when she came to a point in his shunning-spree where she thought about how all she wanted was for him to be the one person she was honest with and how that all blew up in her face. She feels blue but sees red, so that's what she paints, that's the next shade she dyes her hair.
She keeps painting red portraits for a week as if this proves a point, as if anyone is even there to see them.
Artie calls her and she's no longer sure she wants to pick up.
(She's beginning to think she's passive-aggressive.)
She's more than ready to hide in the corners of a page of sheet music or underneath the colors splashed onto the board of a paint palette, but it's different this time. She's not the only one.
Kurt comes over on his mother's death anniversary. He makes a quick comment about giving his poor father some space and not being able to deal with Mercedes' prodding before scrunching his nose and calling her painting smock the most hideous piece of fashion he's ever witnessed.
He sits there in silence for a while watching Chicago, the stubborn etches in his face that she identifies as either vulnerability or pride ever present. Whatever they are, she can't exactly get them down on paper, so instead she sits by his side and offers him popcorn (he declines; he doesn't believe in butter) while he offers her his coke (she declines too, since she doesn't believe in diet soda). As the credits roll, he tells her about an old white armoire in a room that smells like lilies with a distant smile gracing his face.
She immortalizes it with colored pencils and lets him redecorate her room.
Quinn Fabray has her baby and hands her to the adoptive parents with tears streaming down her face.
When she visits her in the hospital, Tina sings her a cheesy song while she sketches her with a rice paddy hat and a sickle just to make her smile.
That same week she stumbles upon Noah Puckerman in an empty classroom, shaking with an anger and grieving a loss he doesn't even understand. His initial threats and glares dissolve into a worn-out sigh as he slumps against the wall and slides down. They sit there sharing the earbuds of her iPod as she lets him ramble and he lets her draw.
There isn't much more to that, but she kind of likes how none of them are really alone anymore.
When Artie corners her in the music room with a real apology and a smile, she realizes she no longer needs to hide from the world behind a stutter or even a paintbrush. She pulls back from their kiss and takes in that look of truth and acceptance and adoration that crosses his features—without a doubt, even without it being captured on paper, she's sure she'll remember this forever.
So instead of painting herself a wall to hide behind, she sings with a group of friends and doesn't feel so alone.
And the best part, by far, is Artie, because he's looking at her like he sees her—like really sees her—and it's like the smoke has cleared so she can finally breathe again.
Maybe that's what she was waiting for all along.
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