post break-up
Summary: And if Cinderella left the dance, before midnight came and went, the world would never know. / Sequel to under pressure, precious things can break. Ross/Laura. Raura with a bit of a twist ;)
Prompt: Will the Raia ever stop? No? I guess not.
A/N: A present to all my fellow Raura shippers suffering under the wrath of our current raiapocalypse (Chloe's words, not mine) phase :) I hope this cheers you up! And if it doesn't, well, at least writing it cheered me up. PS – the title, summary, I'll explain later, but it's from the song Cinderella by Steve Moakler :)
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer is applied.
Laura wonders how people can still stay friends after a huge break-up. She really does. Like, with all the lingering feelings, and unspoken words, how exactly can you stay comfortable in the presence of someone who you used to think would be yours forever.
She sighs, powdering her nose, as her eyes stare right through the girl in the mirror. The girl who used to be a little insecure, and cared so much about what the world thought. That's not her anymore. And if she could thank anybody, just anybody, for upbringing her confidence, she wishes she could thank someone who's not him.
He made her into who she is now. The girl fearless over love, and the girl who believed in herself – even if the whole world didn't. And she hates that. Because it reminds her that this artificial strength she found, came from a guy who, right now, could care less about her. And she feels filthy, because it almost seems like she just borrowed this confidence from him, and yet she hasn't given it back – specially now that they've broken up and she feels indebted to him.
But, they're still friends, she guesses. It's just, hard. Hard to be around someone who used to hold her when things went wrong, and someone who used to kiss away all her fears. How the actual fuck does one get used to fact that you can never have that closeness, that kind of relationship, with that person, back in your life.
Her thoughts are startled to a stop by a sudden knock on the door. She drops the powdered brush to the ground, with all the whites spilling slightly over the carpet. Her head turns just as the door opens, revealing the devil himself.
"Hey." He softly hollers, taking small and careful steps towards her dressing room.
"Ross." She smiles politely – the kind of smile that hurts her cheeks, and doesn't show teeth.
"We're, um, needed on-set." He stumbles over his words, and she wonders when exactly did it start to get so difficult, to even just say a word to each other.
"O-oh, okay." She squeaks, dusting away bits of powder that littered her Ally Dawson outfit, whilst standing up.
She walks over to him, awkwardly almost tripping over her chair, and slightly slipping on the forgotten brush that lay on the ground. But he catches her, giggling slightly at her clumsy state.
Yes, Ross Lynch giggled.
"I'm sorry." She apologizes frantically, trying to help herself off of him, with her face all flushed and embarrassed.
"It's cool." He grins, and suddenly, it doesn't feel all that awkward anymore. And she can finally breathe again.
They start walking towards the door, and his arm lazily slung over her shoulder, like it was the most casual thing in the world. It's not; she knows it's not. But she pretends she doesn't hear that nagging voice inside her head, and instead she goes along, sighing in content as they walked out the door.
"Ross?" She mumbles softly, eyes staring down on the floor.
"Hmmm." He hums in response, not looking down her way.
"Thank you." She says in a quiet tone, and she prays to God he gets it – or didn't hear it – because she really does not want to explain herself to him right now.
"It's okay Laur." They come into a halt, just before the hallway leading to the set ends. He turns to face her, a small smile on his lips. "You'll always be my friend, Laura. Nothing – not even one silly break-up – can change that."
She nods in response, turning away to go on ahead without him.
She knows it's not just a silly break-up. She knows that there are still so many things between them left undone. But she also knows that, from this point on, there's not going to ever be, another awkward moment between them.
xoxo
She sits at Starbucks by herself, hood up, sunglasses on, sipping down on her iced caramel macchiato, reading the last of Jenny Han's summer series(1). There's a long line at the till, and her eyes shift towards the back of a tall guy who, seems oddly familiar. She thinks over it for a second, before letting it go, bringing back her concentration to her book.
A minute later, she's standing up throw her unfinished drink, only to bump, and dump it all onto someone's rock-hard chest – not to mention they're clean white shirt. She gasps, her "disguise" falling apart, as lands on her ass down the ground.
"Shit." A deep voice mutters, and she looks up to meet striking brown eyes with that familiar olive swirl.
"Yo—you." She stutters out. The cameras are flashing, taking long-lasting pictures of this very embarrassing situation.
The boy looks up, staring right at her through his thick brown lashes, before a sense of recognition takes over him. His eyes turn wide, and his lips went agape, as he stood himself up.
"Laura?" He speaks in disbelief, carefully offering his hand over to her, which she gratefully accepted.
"Oh my gosh, Noah." She exclaims; her hand still holding his calloused one. "It's—it's a surprised to see you here!"
"Yeah, it's been awhile." He grins a very familiar grin, and she feels butterflies suddenly flutter inside her stomach. A feeling she knows was never there, the last time they met.
"It has, hasn't it?" She couldn't stop herself from smiling as she looked up at him. A smile he gladly returned.
The crowd around them has started to disperse, but cameras still went flashing and clicking, taking in this very moment. But neither of them two cared. All they saw was the other, standing right in front of them.
All of a sudden, Laura becomes aware of the big light brown stain on his shirt, and she instantly felt guilty. And he sees it; he sees her eyes go wide as they drop down on his shirt. But he shakes it off with a smile.
"It's okay." He tells her, still smiling.
"Oh my goodness, no it's not!" She exclaims, hand on her heart as her free arm start to dab on his stained shirt. But, a second later, he felt her freeze, and his eyebrow shoots up in question.
Shyly pulling her hand away, she looks everywhere but at him as a furious blush spread across her cheeks. She's leaving him confused, but the feel of his hard and muscly chest sent uncontrollable shivers up and down her spine.
And she knows, she hasn't felt this in a while. The butterflies, the feverish blush, and that tingle in her skin – the last time she's ever felt this was when she was with Ross. But this time's different. It's a good different. Because it's not Ross.
It's oblivious Noah Centineo with the sweet smile and kind eyes. The guy she never had to do a double-take on – until now.
"Would you, like me to buy you dinner?" She whispers to him, finally able to give him a shy look in the eyes. "You know, to pay for your ruined shirt."
"Well…" He breathes deeply, giving a mock of a long thought. "I am craving Chick-Fil-A(2) so, what the hey."
"Great!" She exclaims, taking him by the arm, and leading him out to through the glass doors. "We can catch-up while we're at it."
"Yeah."
xoxo
She spends more time with Noah more than ever – going everywhere with him, and inviting him freely to her home. They have movie dates, and talk on the phone all night. She'd never admit it but, this has been the best she's felt all month.
They haven't exactly put a label on it yet, and she thinks they never will. Because even though she still feels the butterflies, and still blush every time he's around her, she knows there's nothing more to it than just two people – relatively close friends – hanging out, and keeping each other company. She recalls starting out her relationship with Ross like this, but she swears she won't make that same mistake again.
She never told anyone about Noah, except for her family, and her close school friend Trevor. They understood why Laura did what she did, and they didn't question her on it either. And she was really glad and thankful for it. But, it was only a matter of time before those pictures taken in Starbucks got leaked out.
The day the pictures of her bumping into Noah, and staring at Noah, and having Noah help her up, hit the home page of Just Jared Junior's(3) site, was the day her flip phone would not stop buzzing. She was getting calls from everyone. And her Twitter mentions, a complete wreck.
So she did her best to avoid any social media, or social interaction with anyone. Not Raini, not Calum, not even Noah, and specially not him. Instead, she snuck her way out of her house, and drove to Trevor's house as he, willingly took her in.
"I needed to get away." Was the first thing to slip out of her mouth as she saunters her way into his living room.
"I can see that." He chuckles, leaning against the door frame, whilst eying her carefully.
"I don't know want to lie." She flops herself down the couch, an anxious expression plastered all over her face. "But I don't want to confront the truth either."
"If you knew this was going to happen, why didn't you just tell them, Laur? Instead of them hearing about it from a website." He slowly walks over to her, sitting down beside her, and placing a comforting hand on top of her knee.
"I just—I don't know." She admits, burying her face into her hands as she let out a long and strangled groan. "I hoped it wouldn't get out – I really did. But things like this can't be avoided with fame."
"I know you're only worried about one person's opinion. His." Tapping her knee to get her to look at him, he scoots himself closer to her.
"I wish you weren't right. I wish I could just tell you to your face that you're wrong." Her eyes get watery as she peeks at him through the gap of her fingers. "I wish, I wish I didn't care about his opinion, at all."
She breaks down and leans into him for a hug as he, being the good friend that he is, wraps his arm around her shoulder, and pulls her closer into him, rubbing circles around her back in a comforting manner.
They stay like that for a few minutes, before his cellphone rings in the annoying tune of Miley Cyrus' We Can't Stop. He pulls away and she gives him a very questioning look.
"Really? That song?" She eyes him up and down, her stare mocking as he just stuck his tongue out at her.
Leaving the room with an "excuse me", he went to take his call. And now on her own with nothing but just her searing thoughts, Laura dwells over how much of an idiot she's been the past week. Trevor was right. Why didn't she just tell him in the first place? Why did she have to hide it – specially when there really was nothing to hide.
Her moping is then interrupted when she came face with Trevor's iPhone.
"It's for you." He mouths, handing it to her, before leaving the room , wordlessly.
Unsure of what just happened, Laura carefully placed the phone close to her ear, before speaking out in a breathy, "Hello?"
"Hey." She hears his voice on the other line and gasps, holding the phone away from her. How he got Trevor's number, she'll never know.
Quickly composing herself, she placed the phone back against her ear, and breathed out an almost inaudible "hi".
"So, Noah, huh?" His voice is dead and very edgy, making her wince a little bit. But she kept herself grounded.
"So, you and Maia, huh." She mockingly talks back at him, almost biting her tongue for having such a rude response. Why she did it, she never really will know.
"Laura, I'm not having this argument with you again." He snaps irritably and she feels offended that he, of all people, had the nerve to be irritated.
"Excuse me Ross, but who said we were?!" She snips back at him, a little more force in her voice.
"Well, then let that whole Maia thing go Laura. That's the past, and this is the present, and in this present it's Noah we're talking about." He hisses at her and she's having a hard time breathing properly. This state they're at right now is nowhere near awkward but, it sure as hell isn't comfortable.
"You know what, it is different. It's very different. Because right now, me and Noah? We're just friends." Her tone is dangerously low, and she can feel her bottom lip quivering as she speaks. But she'd never let him have the satisfaction of hearing her cry over the phone, because of him – no.
"And so are me and Maia!" He yells and it takes her slightly aback.
"You—you never yell at me." Her voice becomes meek and scared, as if all the anger drained away with just that one statement. She hears him curse but she doesn't give him a chance to explain himself. Instead, she speaks on, despite that lump on her throat. "You and Maia, weren't friends back then. When we broke-up that first time, friends don't make-out."
He feels as if all her words are jumbled, but he gets exactly what she's trying to say. And she's right. She's very right. But pride won't let him admit that.
"You know what Ross, back then, if you told me about you and Maia right after you came back from Puerto Rico(4), I probably would not have given you a second chance." Her tone is hesitant, but it cut deep right through his heart. "God, you were lying all this time, how could you?"
"This conversation is going full circle back to our break-up." He grunts, and she nods, even though he can't see.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Ross. I was afraid of what you'd think. Like, you'd act the way you're acting now." Laura mumbles quietly, feeling tired as she leans her head back onto the couch.
"And I'm sorry I went all out crazy at you." His anger has washed away, and she finally hears the sincerity and concern laced through his voice. "I never meant to yell. And you know I never would want to."
"I know." She answers and silence follows straight after.
Unspoken words linger through the air and all they can hear is each other's heavy breathing. Things feel a little more relaxed now but, they both know this war's not yet finished. Ross' voice breaks through the quiet, his tone both comical and serious as he spoke.
"So, you're really not going out with Noah, huh?" He asks in a hopeful manner, and Laura could not suppress the smile that forced it's way to her lips.
"No." She says, softly as ever.
And with that, the conversation ended.
xoxo
Her fingers laced through his, and she looks over her shoulder to stare at him and his olive-tinted eyes. She holds a sad smile, but lets it flicker away with one blink of an eye. Leaning his head onto her shoulder, he sings the tune of his current favorite song.
"All I am, is a man, I want the world, in my hands(5)." He sings in tune as best as he could, and she laughs at him, throwing her head back, goodheartedly.
"I love that song." She comments, giggling slightly. "You see, no one likes it much because the tune is a little weird, but the lyrics are so good."
"And this is why, I like you." He leans in to boop her nose and she feels a sense of familiarity, and longing. And all of a sudden, her, sitting down on the grassy park, hand holding Noah's – it all felt so wrong.
She clears her throat, gaining his attention as he turns to look at her, with a happy grin. Her heart clenches, already feeling guilty of what she's about to do – say.
"Do you—do you ever feel like, you're with someone, and you're having the best time of your life. But, you think to yourself, and you feel as if, you wish this someone, was someone else instead." She breathes out heavily, each word a stick through her heart, and a flinch on his face.
"Erm, Laura—"
"Noah, I'm not a fan of rejection. And I hate beating around the bush. But, this is something really hard for me to say because, I really liked you." She cuts him off abruptly, feeling as if she needed to let it all out before he says anything at all. "I don't want you to think you're just a rebound. Because you're not. You're so much more than that. And, you deserve someone who, when they're with you, they don't think of anyone else but you."
He's silent for a moment, and an unreadable mask covers his face. His lips are in a tight line, and Laura's feeling all her resolve weaken. How could she, do this to him, when all he ever was, was be good to her.
"I should've known that you and Ross…still have unresolved feelings for each other." He whispers, almost feeling sorry for himself. "I thought to myself, yeah, this is okay, when it obviously wasn't. It's not the right time, and I can't tell if I'm the right person. But I really liked you, and I have liked you since we first started working together."
"Noah—"
"I saw you, before he did. Before you changed your wardrobe and exchanged those plain jeans for skin-tight pastel ones. Even before you wore those high wedged heels that you don't really need because, let's face it – short is adorable. But, I never acted on it. And he got you first." He says like a litany, never letting her say a word.
"I—I never knew." She mumbles, and he pats her head.
"But, it's okay. I know." He breathes in deeply, and she stares down the ground. Things get awkward fast and they say nothing more.
But after ten or so minutes of complete and awkward silence, Laura says her last possible words to him, and she does not regret it one bit.
"I wish you got me first."
xoxo
"And if Cinderella left the dance, before midnight came and went, the world will never know(6)." Ross sings softly, strumming the guitar with his calloused hands.
His dressing room door opens, and in came the girl that's all been in his mind for the past twenty-four hours.
"Hey." She softly says, sitting herself down on the couch beside him. He scoots over, making more room for her as he sets down his guitar on the floor.
"Feels like déjà vu." He comments, smiling a little as he recalls a week ago when he intruded her dressing room.
"Ahhh, I know." She smiles too, think back over the same thing.
They sat in silence for a little while, not really knowing what to say. But it's not awkward. It's not the silence she felt when she turned down Noah, nor was it the same silence she felt when he came into her dressing room a week ago, for the first time since their break-up. It's the kind of silence where, they're just waiting – waiting for the right moment to say what they needed to say.
"I—I don't regret, you know, giving you a chance." She admittedly mumbles. "I was mad that it took you so long to tell me about it. But, I never regretted getting back together with you."
"I know, Laur." He understands. He really does.
"In a way, I'm thankful that you hid it from me back then. Because if you didn't, and I didn't give you a chance, we wouldn't be where we're at right now." She continues on, as if he said nothing at all. "I wouldn't be who I am now."
"Like the song I just sang?" Nudging her shoulder, he smiles down at her before taking hold of his guitar once again. "How, if Cinderella left the dance early, she'd never meet prince charming, and she'd never know what it would be like, you know."
"Kind of like that." Chuckling, she leans her head down on his shoulder as he opened up his arm to wrap it around her shoulder. "What's wrong with us?"
"We're just not ready." He sighs.
"No one's ever ready for a relationship Ross. They just, do it." She deadpans.
"Maybe, we just caught ourselves at the wrong time. And we rushed things so much, we never did question where we were heading." He adds on and he feels her shrug under his hold.
"Which is surprising for me because I'm the organized one." She chortles in sarcasm and he couldn't help but smile.
"We're friends, definitely. But we don't have to be a couple now." He suggests and she huffs at him.
"But I want us to be." She sounds like she's whining, and he finds it quite adorable. But the conversation is serious and he has to stop himself from doing so.
"Me too." His voice is inaudible, and she can hear his heart beating hard against his chest over it. "Maybe, we just need to take things slow. No more rushing into anything, no more wreckless actions and making stupid decisions. Maybe then, we can give us, another chance."
"Maybe, maybe we can." Laura says, eyes closed and lips curved into a smile. They don't say anything anymore.
Because words don't need to be spoken for them to understand each other. That's how it's always been, and that's how it always will be when it comes to them. They know what they're doing, they really do.
A/N: I know, crap ending. Sue me, I'm tired. And I need to pee. And writing is a pain in the ass. But, it sure did make me feel better about a certain news related to Raia. If only fanfictions dictated real life events. Sigh, sigh, sigh. Anyway, I haven't re-read this yet so I probably made a lot of typos and mistakes so I'm sorry about that. I'll fix it, soon enough :)
Title – The title is inspired by my gifset which I named "Auslly → post break-up"
1 – I love that series so much ;_; Jenny Han is a wonderful author and I am in love with all three of the books from "The Summer I Turned Pretty" series. I ship Belly and Conrad so much like, it's unbelievable. Mostly because every time I read it, I picture Belly as Ally and Conrad as Austin eeeeeep.
2 – It's an American fast food or something that I do not own.
3 – Real website but you guys probably already know that. I don't own it, not at all.
4 – There's a video where Ross is like bitchin' and sayin' "What happens in Puerto Rico stays in Puerto Rico" well I just assumed, for this fanfiction, that by that he meant he made out with Maia while him and Laura were on a break. Heh, Friends reference and also, similar to how Jere cheated on Belly in the third book of the Summer series welp.
5 – Sweater Weather by the Neighborhood. Amazing lyrics, though I'm not too fond of the tune. I like to listen to Debby Ryan's version of it :)
6 – Cinderella by Steve Moakler. AMAZING song. Like, literally. It would be better if you listened to the song or searched up the lyrics but I'm going to explain this as best as I could. See, what we have here is the line "and if Cinderella left the dance, before midnight came and went, the world would never know" which basically is like what Ross said in the fanfiction that if, they never gave it a chance back then, they would've never known how right they were for each other. Also, the song co-ordinates with the theme because it's about the guy and he had like the best time with this girl but he messed up and he felt life without her and he didn't like it, and well, the song is basically him telling how much he misses her and to give him one more chance because they would never know how well this second time could work out if they never gave it a try. Hence the line. That's just my two cents on it.
Yeah, that's about it. Hoped this made you feel better guys! SMILE :) And, ohp, please review :) Also, I was meant to add stages to this whole thing like the first part is acceptance then the next is moving on then the next is jealousy and then realization and then coming back but eh.