Athazagoraphobia
Written by WickedSong
Disclaimer/Note : Don't own Glee, it's owned by FOX. This fits in with, in order, my previous Samcedes stories, 'The Hardest Goodbye', 'Do I Ever Cross Your Mind' and 'You Are The Reason For The Words 'What If', taking place before the latter and after the former two.
He's walking the halls of McKinley as he usually would, waving to the people he knows as he passes. They don't wave back but he doesn't think anything of it. The corridors are always crowded at the end of the day and he doubts they can really see him.
He looks down at his watch and sees that it's almost time for rehearsal. He has nowhere he has to be immediately and at least in the choir room he can have a seat which is infinitely better than standing in the middle of the hall, alone.
Walking in he finds the choir room empty and sits on one of the seats in the front. He waits a couple more moments before Mike, Artie and Puck arrive. They're laughing about something and he says a quick hey to them, which they promptly ignore, Puck and Mike taking the seats next to where Artie puts his wheelchair, a couple of seats over from him. He's confused. His friends are completely ignoring him.
"Guys, hey, guys."
They still don't acknowlege that he's even there, so he moves over to the seat beside Puck and waves his hand in front of his friend's face, but there's still no reaction.
He waits a few more moments before Quinn, Lauren, Santana and Brittany all arrive, Quinn and Lauren discussing something while the other two are holding hands, smiling. When Quinn sits on his other side, he faces her.
"Those three are just ignoring me. Any idea why?"
She doesn't seem to notice he's there either. He does what he did to Puck moments before and waves his hand in front of her face and she has the exact same reaction as the boy on his other side, ignoring him completely.
He thinks this is crazy. He's not developed some awesome superpower and went invisible he's sure so why are they all acting like he has. He simply deduces that it's some kind of practical joke. Yeah, he assures himself, it's some practical joke. They think they're so funny.
He leans back in his chair, arms folded, waiting for some sort of laugh to start when they would all decide to stop ignoring him, when they would stop acting like he wasn't even there.
He waits and he waits until Kurt, Tina Rachel and Finn arrive. Kurt takes the seat directly behind him, while Rachel and Finn sit on two seats beside Quinn and Tina sits by Mike, giving him a quick kiss.
He looks around and tries to draw some sort of attention to himself, coughing really loudly, clearing his throat, even standing up and dancing around for a minute, making a fool of himself just to see if they will even say something. No one does and he's sure there's going to be a video in circulation of him dancing like an idiot. They can't not see him, it's all some big joke that the entire club is in on.
"Kurt, have you got any idea why no one is talking to me?" he asks and he's not surprised when Kurt also acts like he isn't even there. He doesn't even look like he heard him.
When Kurt waves his hand, he thinks that finally they're going to break and they're all going to laugh about their complete ignorance of his presence in a minute or two but then Sam turns and sees that the other boy is not waving to him.
Mercedes walks in and Sam breaths a sigh of relief. If anyone can get them to stop doing this to him, then it's her. He smiles subconsciously when he sees her, waving, but she doesn't notice him either. It takes a minute for him to twig that she's not alone either. She's with this other guy, who has his arm wrapped around her waist, he's tall and he's well built. They're laughing about something, they're laughing and smiling.
"Mercedes, hey," he says to her but she walks straight past him, taking the seat next to her best friend while this other guy sits on her other side, arm still wrapped around her. Her smile is huge at this. He feels dejected that he's not the one making her smile.
Looking around he sees that everyone is involved in their own conversations and he feels like a spare part, with nowhere he belongs. He feels completely lost in this crowd of people in glee club and he wants to scream.
So he does.
"Why are you all ignoring me! Why are you acting as if I'm not here! Have you all forgotten me!"
No one says anything, no one looks at him, no one acts as if he even said a word or even screamed at the top of his lungs. He wasn't even heard. He wasn't seen and he wasn't heard.
Mr. Schue walks in and he glimpses one look at Mercedes and she's about to kiss this other guy and he doesn't want to see-
And Sam wakes up, covered in sweat. He looks down at the bed he's laying on and takes a deep sigh of relief that it was a dream. That being ignored and forgotten by those in Glee was just a dream, a very vivid nightmare.
He looks around the bedroom in his grandparents' home in Tennessee, which he shares with Stevie and sees his younger brother is still sound asleep. He breaths in and out again.
It was all a dream, he says to himself, everyone still knows who you are. They still call and text. Do not worry about being forgotten.
But what if it eventually becomes true. What if he's eventually just Sam Evans, football player who was in Glee who no one remembers, who was just another member of New Directions, who wasn't really important. What if all his friends just completely forget everything? What if he made no impact upon the club in the time he was there?
And what if she does have a new guy? Should he really be shocked?
He lays back on the bed, grateful for his own to sleep on and not having to share covers and space with his siblings while in the motel. But he can't help but resent Nashville, Tennessee. He had found a place in Lima, Ohio and even if had taken the whole year to find it, he had a place there. He had belonged.
He might be forgotten by his friends, by those people who were like his second family and it scares him. He tries to sleep again but it still scares him a whole lot more than he'll admit.
This made me really sad to write but the idea was too good to pass up. I was torn about whether to write this about Matt or Sam but eventually went for Sam because I could fit some slight Samcedes in and the whole Chord leaving is still very prominent in my mind at this moment in time.
I can't even pronounce the title well, but I really wanted this to be about a fear of being forgotten so a quick Google search brought me to the word.
I actually like how this one came out, so please tell me what you think.
WickedSong x
P.S. As I was writing 'Billionaire', followed swiftly by 'I've Had The Time Of My Life', came on my iTunes shuffle and I wanted to cry :'(