A/N: Okay, I know by now that I can't make any sort of fanfic-related promises. Cue glance at three unfinished fics. Anyway, this time I've really wrote out the first three or four chapters beforehand and I think this could be a working strategy. Maybe. I know I'm crazy to write about this theme again (you'll realize once you read on), but please know I am not entirely insane. Cough.
Sort of inspiration but really I just want to plug awesome stuff: movie - The Greatest; book - The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman; glee fanfic - Just Like Last Tuesday, Except With Zombies by angel-dawes.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything Glee.
"Tina." She turns to see Mike Chang hurrying toward her. She turns around and he gives her a quick peck on the cheek, which she shies away from. If he notices, he doesn't say anything. She tries to subtly glance at her wristwatch - 15 minutes late - but he sees her doing it and gives her an apologetic smile.
"Traffic", he says, quick to make an excuse, and it's getting tiresome.
Tina smiles, a little thinly, and nods, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Traffic? The same traffic she had to get through even though the apartment is a full hour away (and she thoroughly blames him, because he picked the stupid place)? She came on time, didn't she?
He takes a seat and she copies him, sitting on the identical chair beside his. A man smiles at them and asks if they're ready.
They exchange a glance and say, maybe give us a minute.
The same thing happens three months later except they're sitting in a lawyer's office instead of a fancy restaurant. Tina's teeth are slightly clenched, partially out of nervousness (or, dare she say it, anticipation) but mostly out of pure annoyance. He really couldn't have come on time?
She glances pointedly at her watch a second time, but he doesn't notice, and she grinds her teeth a little at this. Give it to him to be irritatingly observant in some areas but idiotically oblivious in others. She pulls in her chair a bit and waits.
He pushes the papers over to her, and she signs her long motherfucker of a name (which is a goddamn curse, especially in the grocery store, when the line is a mile long and everyone is humming and hawing while they wait for her to finish). She wonders, briefly, if she should change it, as always, but, as always, decides against it. She puts down the pen and flips the page, the motion causing the pen (which had been resting, barely, on the paper's edge) to roll off the floor (and thankfully land on the rug, not on the hardwood, which she is sure is some absolutely ridiculous extinct wood that costs millions).
Tina blushes (bad habit) and ducks down to retrieve it before she makes a fool of herself. But she thinks she still has some foolishness left to spend in the day's quota. After all, Mike was the one late. She clears her throat and signs some more (definitely feeling that nice awkward silence), before finally flipping the last page back and pushing the papers forward.
She leans back in her chair, trying to inaudibly release a sigh and turns to see Mike giving her a small smile. She smiles back, sort of, but she is lost in her thoughts because she has just made two earth-shattering (okay, not) realizations.
One: this stupid thing is finally over.
Two: she has wasted years of her life because of this.
And the second makes her want to bolt from the room at the earliest possible moment.