After watching tonight's episode, I wondered about what happened after Mike went out to perform and why he didn't stay with Tina. Miranda, my wonderful beta, wanted an Artie/Tina comfort fic about what had happened, and I came up with this.
This is unedited, whipped up fast, so I do apologize for any errors.
Enjoy!
Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.
By the third sniff, Artie couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take just doing nothing. He could hear the opening notes of "Bubble Toes" vaguely from the stage, just a few feet down the hallway, but the sound of Tina's sniffles overpowered that. It was a quiet sound, something that most people would've just tuned out, but it sounded much louder in his ears. He remembered all the times he had heard it months before, but it seemed so much worse now. Tina had never cried the way she was now when they were together.
He knew this was mostly because he knew that 1. it was because of something that Tina had wanted so greatly and been knocked down because of and 2. he honestly didn't know if there was anything he could do about it.
When they were still together, a quick kiss and stroking her hair for a few minutes calmed her down. He noticed that Mike hadn't done that—he just held her hand…which didn't seem very comforting.
Mike went out to perform despite the fact that his girlfriend was still sitting in tears. Almost everyone in the Glee club had scattered, some going to stand backstage, others to sit in the hallway because they had nothing better better to do, and Tina was sitting alone at the make-up tables, her face buried in her arms. He and Brittany were sitting quietly in the hallway, sharing a box of saltwater taffy, though he couldn't help but keep his eye on his former girlfriend from the hallway.
Brittany seemed occupied with trying to get the taffy out of her teeth and Artie put a few pieces in his lap before going back into the choir room. He wasn't sure what was appropriate and what wasn't in these types of situations, so he simply tapped her on the shoulder, and held out a piece of taffy to her, "It's Neapolitan. Your favorite."
She sniffed again as she took the piece, carefully taking off the wax-paper wrapper, murmuring, "Thanks."
"I know everyone said it already," Artie told her, pulling on his fingers, "But you didn't deserve that."
"It was a stupid song to pick," she replied, wiping her eyes, "No one even knows who Lykke Li is."
Sniff.
He took both of her hands, even though he knew he shouldn't, and willed her to look up at him, "I do."
She gave him a watery half-smile.
"And you know what else?" he asked, rhetorically, "I wouldn't have left you here after all that. I…I know you love Mike and I have Brittany but he shouldn't have made you sit here by yourself after what happened to you."
Sniff.
"I told him to. He...he wouldn't have ever said it, but I know he'd resent me if he didn't go out there and do it."
"But did you mean it? Whether he'd be mad or not, did you want him to go?"
She thought it over for a minute before whispering, "No."
Artie put his hand on her knee despite his mind screaming at him not to. He met her eyes, "And that's what makes him different from me. I never would've believed you if you told me to go. And even if you finally did, I would've regretted it."
She looked away from him.
"I know what you're thinking," he said, "That I must be lying because I was such an ass to you—but I loved you, Tina. I shouldn't say that, because you're with Mike, but it's true. And I regret not being a better boyfriend because I was lucky to have you. Being in The Brianiacs with you…made me remember that. I'm not asking for you back, but I'm asking for you to forgive me, please…because…you seemed to have just forgotten that we happened…and I don't want you to just...repress us. I liked being your boyfriend and I like being your friend again."
She nodded, "I forgive you." She sucked on her taffy for a minute before resting her head against her hand, "So do you really think that I should've asked for him to stay?"
"I think you had every right to," Artie replied, unwrapping a piece of taffy for himself, popping it in his mouth.
"Do you think I'm a coward?" Tina asked suddenly, "I couldn't ask for a solo until now, I couldn't ask the person that I love to stay…"
"Never."
"Why?"
"Because…" he thought for a moment, "Because you're like a piece of Neapolitan taffy. You're sweet in the way that you let everyone follow their dreams before you follow your own and you're sticky in the way that you make yourself hard to figure out, and you have so many layers—the strawberry layer that everyone sees right off the back, because it's bright, but no one would immediately think to go for, because their first thought is why have strawberry when you can have chocolate or vanilla? Then you have the vanilla layer that you try to get everyone to see, the one that's like everyone else that can never quite get out, because the strawberry layer doesn't want to follow the crowd, and then there's the chocolate layer. The best layer, the best part about you, Tina. The Tina that you never let anyone ever see. The one that's talkative and opinionated and doesn't let anyone get to her."
Sniff.
She wiped her eyes on her hand, a layer of mascara and eye-liner coming with it. She kept her eyes on their feet, on her boots with the little suction cups on the bottoms. He followed her gaze, then looked back up, trying to catch her eye.
"You wanna know why you couldn't get over the hecklers while you were out there?"
"Why?"
"Because you let the strawberry layer go out when the chocolate should've."
She didn't sniffle. She smiled.