Hey guys, so I tried to get this one up a bit faster to make up for my slacking these past couple of weeks so I hope you enjoy…
Just a quick forewarning, this chapter and the next is going to be mostly focused on Noah and Santana just because I'm trying to integrate her a bit more into this story because she is going to be playing a huge roll with Noah, and a bit with Rachel to a little bit down the line… Also, another quick warning, these next couple of chapters, particularly those with Noah are going to wander into a little bit of a higher rating… violence, language, the whole nine yards, so this is hereby my disclaimer for that.
Thank you, as always, for being so great.
Noah Corcoran – November 2011
(Part III)
The moment that the room has finally begun to spin beneath his very feet ultimately, is the moment that he knows that he doesn't have much of a choice other than to leave.
He is more than aware of the fact that he had promised a much earlier presence at Lima Memorial; the hospital that was currently containing his desperately ill sister and continuously distraught mother, but with precious little for him to celebrate these days, Noah had been easily roped into the notion of a party designed specifically to celebrate his heroic acts at the night's state semifinals…
His intentions had been to merely sick around for an hour, maybe two before heading towards the hospital for the night, but that one hour had quickly turned into four, one or two beers had quickly turned into ten and a strict no shot policy had fallen victim to an entire bottle of Jameson…
To say that he was drunk would be a vast understatement… He couldn't recall ever feeling this hopelessly incapacitated, at such an utter lack of control since he was a freshman, still boarded up inside of that godforsaken correctional high school…
Slowly losing the ability to remember why it was that he had left this lifestyle behind in the first place, Noah stumbles through the back doors and onto the deck of his friend's home, escaping the head splitting agony of the raging party inside.
He shouldn't be doing this; he shouldn't be doing this for the sake of his frantic mother who doesn't even know where he is right now, or his sick sister holed up in the hospital… He shouldn't be doing this right now; this is not the place that he needs to be.
The idea alone is enough to make him start drinking even harder.
He sits himself on a plastic lounge chair, much too close to its edge so that he damn near catapults himself off the back, the furniture piece pitching forward like a damn see-saw, spitting Noah back up and onto his feet the same way that he had just entered.
Noah stumbles briefly for but a brief handful of seconds before ultimately finding solace in a stable straight back chair, sitting himself securely down before taking a healthy sip from his can of cheap beer, grimacing at a taste that not even his healthy buzz can disguise.
Shivering harshly, he can't help but to become suddenly aware of the freezing chill in the air that nightfall has since blanketed across this November, Ohio night…
He's now committing himself to the multitasking course of consuming alcohol in order to both stay warm and kill off a handful of selected memories.
Reaching into his pocket, Noah withdraws a pre-rolled blunt that his cornerback had passed along to him at the beginning of their party as a token of being the star of tonight's game… It is a trophy that his teammates valued much higher than the game ball already sitting at the bottom of Noah's bag…
At the time, Noah's will power in combination with his sober mentality had simply shoved the thin wrapper wordlessly into his pocket, not even bothering to tell the young junior that smoking was a habit that he had given up on years ago… But now, with both of these qualities distantly inhibited by an alcohol bath, the decision it seems is growing to be less and less under his control.
The paper hangs loosely from his lip, the wrapper's artificial grape flavor flooding his senses as he lifts the flame of the lighter against the tip just as the sound of the sliding back door catches the attention of his poised ears.
"I'm not really in the mood for conversation right now!" He shouts over his shoulder, choking slightly as he speaks through a natural inhale that sends a billow of smoke straight into his lungs, leaving a residual burning all the way down the length of his esophagus…
He is not entirely certain who it is that is approaching him, but he does know that he isn't in the mood to talk to much of anybody right now.
"Do you know how many things out here can kill you right now?"
Noah sighs heavily in an outwards response towards hearing Santana's voice… If he wasn't in the mood for so much as casual conversation, then he sure as hell wasn't in the mood to talk to Santana Lopez…
Rolling his eyes, Noah chooses to respond wordlessly, instead, throwing his head back, knocking down the remainder of his half-full beer in one swift gulp.
"I guess that's a yes…" She retorts to his silence, moving slowly forwards before seating herself besides her ex, settling perfectly against the same chair that had all but assaulted Noah mere moments before, "Listen, I'm not here to yell at you, okay?"
"What are you here to smack me across the face again?" He scoffs, but even in his haze, Noah knows that this wasn't exactly the right thing for him to say… But still, he doesn't correct himself, instead, stands his ground as Santana casually plucks the blunt from his mouth and commits to her own extended drag, the interaction exchanging wordlessly between both parties.
"I'm sorry, Noah…" Smoke billows from between her lips as she offers her apology only after a lengthy silence, "I'm sorry for pushing you away like I did… It wasn't fair of me."
"No… it was my fault…" Noah sighs, waving off Santana's exhibition of her uncanny ability to make him feel badly even while he was so unbelievably pissed at her… She was one of the very few people who actually possessed the capacity to do this to him, the only other two being his mother and his sister, "It's always my fault."
"Not this time…" Santana shakes her head, taking one last, quick inhale of the soothing smoke before passing the source back towards Noah who accepts it gratefully, "I acted out… I'm impulsive, you know that… I heard one side of the story and I reacted… I talked to Finn, okay, and he told me what happened. It was an accident, Noah, and Karofsky… well Karofsky is an asshole anyway… I don't blame you, things like this; they're bound to happen sooner or later."
"Jesus, do you see what all these freaking girls in my life turn me into…" His heart is pounding as he shakes his head, half sarcastic and half serious at the same time as his lips turn upwards into a smile around the thick joint resting against the corner of his mouth… His eyes are clouded by smoke but still, he can sense that Santana is returning his smile through the thick columns.
"It's all for you, you know." She informs him gently.
"I'm still sorry for outing you to the entire school…" Noah watches her carefully, analyzing her body movements as she shrugs her shoulders and attempts to detract her eyes despite the idea that no matter which direction by which she turns, Noah still manages to catch her gaze; a trait that he has inherited flawlessly from his mother.
"Who knows," Santana shrugs, her mouth turning upwards but her eyes still impossibly sad, "Maybe I deserve it."
"Nobody deserves that." Noah shakes his head.
"Just like nobody deserves being lied to." Santana counters, the two reciprocating mutually like nothing that they have ever done before, even when they were engaged in an active relationship with one another, ""Not like I did anyway."
Her words silence Noah instantly in a frozen haze, his face sliding downward as he processes them, soaks them in… Even if he was stone sober, Noah is certain that he wouldn't have the slightest clue as to what to say in response to Santana's confession… if he was even supposed to say anything at all.
"I've known… I've known I liked girls forever, Noah…" Santana sighs heavily, progressing in her explanation in response to Noah's thick, determined silence, "Ever since elementary school when all of the girls were fawning over the members of NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys and I couldn't manage to keep my eyes off of Brittney…"
Noah shoots her a curious look, his eyebrows arched in a confused wonderment towards the deeper meaning behind her words as he eyes her heavily.
"Spears, Noah…" Santana clarifies quickly, "Brittney Spears… Jesus, I should have known then and there… Anyway, Brittney… my Brittney, I mean, she moved to Lima in eighth grade, remember?"
"From Indiana…" Noah confirms his knowledge of this apparent life changing event for his ex-girlfriend.
"Indianapolis…" Santana nods her head in the quick confirmation, "I knew that I was in love with her the first time that I ever saw her… I just… I was still getting used to the idea at the time… Hell, I didn't know how to tell whether or not a girl… you know, would like another girl back then, if there even was girls out there besides me that were like that, forget what all of the people would have to say about it…" Santana rambles incessantly, her hands flying animatedly in front of her in an effort to propel her explanation before finally, she falls flat, deflating like a balloon through a steep, exhausted exhale, "After that I sort of just got used to knowing how to cover my tracks, I got comfortable… It fell into habit pretty quickly after that."
"Because of me…" Noah speaks, his voice dropping accusingly in a tone that he immediately regrets.
"No offense, Noah, but you were kind of an easy target…" Santana laughs, clearly spotting the remorse behind his eyes, "You are the most popular kid in school, the one that all of the girls fawn over, the star of the football team… You, my friend, are the perfect cover for a closeted lesbian…"
Noah's face can't help but to brighten in a smile; he has been called a lot of things in his life but never before has he heard it put quite like that…
"I took a stupid home pregnancy test that day in September and it came out positive…" Santana's face swells seriously through a shrug so that the smile vanishes rapidly from Noah's eyes… He has been awaiting an explanation for nearly a week now, but suddenly, now that it was suddenly right here in front of him, he isn't so certain that he wants to hear it… especially under these conditions, "I was terrified, Noah, this isn't a problem that people like… that people like me are supposed to have. And then we started drifting apart and I promise you, the only thing that scared me more than having a kid was having a kid that I had to raise by myself."
"I never would have ditched you, San I –"
"I know that Noah…" Santana cuts the boy off, raising her hands in an expression of surrender before the boy fell apart completely all around her, "A part of me did, anyway… but then there was that little, tiny, miniscule part of me that couldn't help but to worry and, well… you know just how fast even the smallest part can take over…"
"I guess…" Noah shrugs, downplaying his answer exponentially… The truth is that he knows exactly how quickly that miniscule portion can take over, how it can surround you, overwhelm you with its fear and guilt and a shit ton of other emotions, all of which become rapidly undistinguishable in their magnitude.
"I made Brittney come with me to the doctor a few weeks after that and when he told me… when he told me that I wasn't pregnant, that the test must have just been a false positive, I freaked out…" Santana shrugs, but Noah can tell that the casual motion is made simply to cover up the tears as they begin to well deep inside of Santana's eyes, "We were starting to get close again Noah, we were starting to go back to the way that things used to be… I didn't want to ruin that again, I didn't want to lose you… I couldn't lose you, don't you see that?"
"I guess that we're both starting to hope that maybe we can just forget what it is that we even fought about to begin with…" Noah nods in his understanding, "That's what I'm trying to do anyway."
Santana shakes her head slowly turning her tear riddled eyes from Noah so that the shine flashes across them… She inhales only to exhale shakily once more, Santana clearly not wanting to discuss this any longer.
I'm sorry about your sister, Noah," Santana tells him, desperate for an opportunity to change the subject, "I don't think that I ever actually told you that…"
"Thank you…" He breathes, never entirely certain how it was that he should respond to this kind of statement, especially when it catches him so off guard as this, "I'm just starting to get the impression that our private lives are just one big inside joke that I'll never fully understand… that nobody will ever fully explain to us."
"I don't think that joke is exactly the right word for it…" Santana releases a laugh, but the motion is harsh, insincere.
"I'm gonna take care of you, Santana…" Noah stabilizes himself firmly against his chair, making his bold statement with the most sincere of looks behind his eyes that he can possibly muster under these conditions, "We'll take care of each other… I'm not gonna let anybody fuck with you just because of who you are…"
"Easy there, Hot Rod." Santana laughs quickly, except this time, it is a motion laced with sincerity as she shakes her head rapidly in a motion that makes even her own head spin…
"We can live like this, you know…" He risks the words, Santana silencing around him so that her laughs quickly dissipate into nothingness.
"But for how long?" Their eyes meet, lingering against one another for what seems like the first true time in either of their lives… Never before has he noticed how strikingly similar their color scheme was until this moment…
In a motion that sweeps across him seemingly out of nowhere, Noah is suddenly reminded why it was that he had ever fallen in love with Santana to begin with… He is overcome with the desire to reach out to her, to touch her, to stare into the eyes of one of the very few people that has ever managed to see what little good that there actually was inside of him…
In his momentary stupor, his drunken haze, Noah forgets himself, he loses his train of focus, all of the judgment and willpower that he possessed and he leans forward, moving closer and closer into Santana until finally, their lips meet, meshing harsh and sloppy against each other…
It feels like an eternity, but the actuality is that Santana pushes Noah away from her just as quickly as he had latched on in the first place.
"Noah, what the hell are you doing?" Santana shrieks, placing her palms flat against Noah's chest in an effort to provide him with an almighty shove that has him practically falling from his seat in his complete lack of any sort of a sense of balance at the moment…
It takes him a moment or two to recompose himself, his arms outstretched to their full wingspan in an effort to maintain his center of gravity as it scurries shakily across his body… He wobbles, but ultimately stands his ground, turning to eye Santana, his eyes slanted in regret as she recovers from the shock that his sudden movements have caused her.
She moves slowly, rising to her feet… Noah doesn't speak, he doesn't even breathe, he knows that Santana needs to be the first person to say something, it can't be him…
Standing directly before him, Santana straightens herself out quickly, wiping her hands, covered in ash and dirt along her dark skirt before she hovers above Noah's seated form, leaning forwards until her lips are lingering just above his ear.
"Don't lose yourself along the way, okay?" Her voice is barely above a whisper, but he hears her so that she might as well have been screaming, "Remember to take care of yourself sometimes too."
Santana leans forwards, allowing her lips to graze across Noah's hair, kissing the top of his head before lingering in a motion that he knows is meant to tell him not to worry about his previous flub… Of course, his face still can't help but to burn with embarrassment, heat glowing off of his cheeks as he ducks out from underneath her and shoots upwards and into the hair so that suddenly, he's much taller than her once more…
Santana is all but forced to pull away from him.
"Yeah," He responds positively, but his tone is all but convincing as he throws the roach of his kicked blunt down onto the wet ground beneath his feet, stamping it out for good measure before shoving his hands deep inside of his jeans pocket, dragging his feet along the stone deck towards the back door.
"Where are you going?" Santana calls after him; she's concerned, yet he still can't seem to bring himself to understand why, even after all that they have just discussed.
"I'm going back to the hospital," Noah shrugs as if to convince the both of them that this is a move that he should be making right now, "I told my mom that I'd meet up with her and Rachel right after the game… I'm already about six hours late."
"Okay, first of all, you're not driving anywhere," Santana reaches outwards, manages a strong grasp against Noah's wrist that stops him directly in his tracks and forces him to turn and face her, "Second, it's four o'clock in the morning and you are in no state to go inside of that hospital right now… Rachel doesn't need that, Noah and neither does your mom… think about it, okay?"
He does think about it, he has been thinking about it; that seems to be the biggest problem at hand, how they had gotten here in the first place.
"Will you drive me then?" He sighs through a shrug of defeat, willing to compromise with her, stubborn despite the fact that even his subconscious knows that she is entirely right, "I need you to get me out of this place, San."
"Sure," She nods, indicating for him to follow her around the side of the house and towards the street with her hands, "Come on, I'll take you home.'
He has to walk three blocks down – stumble, actually being the more accurate word - just to get to Santana's car thanks to all of the vehicles parked up and down the street, a path of evidence placing a clear-cut arrow directly towards their underage party…
Santana's car is identifiable from a mile away seeing as how its bright yellow save for the replacement black hood that he had put on it, still there from when she had rear-ended somebod8y at a stop light nearly a year and a half ago now…
He is purposeful in making it a process of his entering the car, making absolute certain of his comfort as he situates his body in the seat, adjusts it, buckles his seatbelt… It is a ten second process that he easily elongates into ten minutes, and even when he is finally settled, he remains certain that it isn't nearly enough.
He wants more time, no, he needs more time and no matter what he does, or how hard he tries, he seems to be committing to nothing but running short, coming up empty… Of course, Noah isn't entirely shocked by this; he is typical in his failures, or so he believes… but that it seems, is just about all that he is consistent with.
"What are you thinking about, Noah?" Santana breaks the heavy silence as it permeates between them, continuous in her generous delay of starting her car until he is ready, understanding that he can't go home.
The last thing that he needs right now is yet another reminder as to why it will be otherwise empty.
"I guess that I'm just trying to see the big picture is all…" His eyes are pale and determined as he stares fixatedly out the window, somehow still managing to catch Santana's reflection through the glass.
"Do you want some advice?" She offers, watching as he nods slowly, eyes still expertly trained upon the familiar scenery outside, "Stop trying," She laughs, but she is serious, a seemingly common feature of their conversations as of late, "It's far too big."
"What do you mean?" Noah eyes her, genuinely confused towards her words as he turns for the first time since he'd entered the car, and meets her eye to eye in her entirety.
"Your eyes can't ever open nearly wide enough."
6 a.m. practices have never been particularly high on his priority list.
Monday mornings are difficult enough as it was without having to wake up at 5:30, plus, the hangover that he is still nursing from Friday night, not to mention the extended headache that the verbal berating he'd received from his mother for his actions leading to said hangover aren't exactly helping.
But he is on the college radar now… Being at the top of the heap was a good excuse towards his slacking off all throughout high school, but now, he is back to being at the very bottom of the pile… Laziness has simply no longer become an option.
He is the only person in his house awake at this ungodly hour which of course, is not saying much… Rachel is still in the hospital, the same hospital that she is going to be seeing a lot of these days seeing as her scheduled return home for a few days' recovery has been postponed indefinitely following a particular brutal weekend in which the only person that had been throwing up more than she was, was Noah, who has since vowed never to drink whisky ever again…
Shelby was completely out of the picture so long as Rachel was; no, as long as Rachel was in the hospital, his mother would be hard pressed to leave her side, that much was for damn certain.
His aunt remains fast asleep in the guest bedroom besides the living room… Noah doesn't even bother to wake her up; it would be a worthless cause save for a fraction of personal pleasure in regards to not having to be the only asshole that has to be wide awake right now…
The burnt toast that pops black and smoldering from the toaster tells him that maybe he could at least get her to make him something edible to eat, giving his apparent inability to do so himself…
He considers the option for a relatively significant portion of time, drowning what little free time he does have in wasteful energy… Noah nibbles at his burnt breakfast just long enough to reconsider the idea, ultimately deciding to leave his lone remaining family member in peace before turning away from the potential commotion, straight out the front door…
He's makes a habit of moving slowly from the very beginning…
It's 6:00 in the morning and nobody is exactly at their peak performance, but he is the last one out of the locker room by a long shot, and by the time he does finally trek towards the fifty yard line in an effort to help his fellow co-captains lay down the practice's game plan, his teammates are already waiting for him, none looking all too pleased with his tardiness.
The Cheerios are practicing on the track to his immediate right, their uniform, rhythmic chanting doing absolutely nothing for his ever-increasing headache… He isn't so sure how much longer that he will actually be able to tolerate this day and it has barely even started yet.
"You're late, Corcoran…" His coach says it before anybody else can, which in all fairness, is lucky considering that his teammates wording of the situation probably wouldn't have been nearly as kind.
"I know I'm sorry Coach Tanaka, I…"
"I don't want to hear any of your excuses," He is cut off abruptly by his coach; a nervous wreck even in a normal game situation, a looming trip to the State Finals is doing absolutely nothing for Ken Tanaka's already shot nerves, "You owe me a mile run after today's practice."
"Yes, Coach…" Noah sighs, hiding his prominent eye roll from underneath his helmet as he straps it onto his head and ducks through the crowd towards the center of his team.
"Glad you stopped jerking off in the locker room long enough to actually join us, Corcoran…"
"Shut up, Karofsky…" Noah snaps; he's tense as it is, add the idea that his previous altercation with the boy from just last Friday is still fresh inside of his mind and Noah finds himself growing dangerously heated already.
"Alright guys, just relax… We have a lot to do today." Finn steps in between the two sworn enemies, quickly neutralizing their verbal exchange before it could escalate into something more, as all knew it had a tendency to do, "We're gonna split up to start up with. I want the defensive line down by the end zone, offense, stay with me and Puck"
There's a soft muttering; a growling of crude words under ones breath, a darting glare or two, but the fight dissipates quickly as David Karofsky and his blood red practice jersey retreat towards the rest of his defensive line while Noah, adorning white, remains with his offense.
But still, a terrible feeling brews deep inside the very pit of Noah's gut, just as it so often does once David Karofsky declares his determined warpath against him… an occurrence that seemed to be growing in frequency as of late…
Noah eyes the boy carefully, eyes drilled straight into the back of his head as he walks slowly down the sideline and towards the end zone.
He is being stupid, Noah attempts to convince himself; he is being a damn fool for worrying himself over something as stupid as a kid that has been pushing his classmates around since elementary school… But then again, it seems as if he has been being stupid about a lot of things these days, he knows.
With a heavy sigh, Noah finally turns away from David and back towards his responsibilities as team captain… Finn is standing ten yards in front of him, eyeing him with a curious concern, silently asking for a reason behind Noah's unusual delay… With a shake of his head indicative of the idea that he doesn't want to talk about it, Noah takes one tentative step forwards, before finally he hears it..
"Bet you like being at the bottom of that pyramid, huh Santana?"
The accusation catches within the wind, filters straight through Noah's perked ears so that his heart immediately begins to pound from inside of his chest, fueled by the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
"No wonder you've been a cheerleader for so long, you get to feel up chicks every day."
David Karofsky releases a crude, guttural laugh towards his own joke just as Noah's body snaps back around, his pupils constricting into pinpoints as his vision narrows inwards upon Karofsky, who is walking slowly passed Santana, her face glowing red, trembling as she holds Brittney at the bottom of a cheerleading pyramid.
It hurts him to see the young Latina, typically so strong reduced to nothing by mere words… He can only imagine what it must feel like for her.
Noah's eyes narrow dangerously inwards, his body frozen but for a brief moment as if to fuel the tirade that he is methodically planning against David Karofsky… True to the word that he had committed to Santana late on Friday night – his conversation being one of the few things that he actually remembers from that evening – Noah storms forwards, ripping the helmet off of his head and throwing it down against the turf as his feet begin to move faster and faster with every step that he takes.
Karofsky senses his threatening presence before he so much as has the time to say a single word. He catches Noah barreling towards him through his peripherals, turns just in time to duck beneath a punch that contains a force strong enough to break his jaw easily.
"When are you gonna learn how to shut your fucking mouth, Karofsky?" Noah grabs the boy by the jersey, rendering his arms immobile in a strategic force of protection, pulling him inwards and towards him until they're standing chest to chest.
"I'll shut my mouth when you stop making it so easy for me to open it." Karofsky spits, using his full body weight to shove Noah aside so that the boy stumbles backwards only briefly before regaining his ground once more, "And as long as you are known around here as the fag that almost knocked up the dyke, I won't shut my mouth… That shit is way too golden."
Karofsky grows quickly aggressive, offering Noah a series of small shoves against his shoulder pads, throwing him around in an effort to force Noah to make the first move, to force Noah to throw the first punch that truly hits home…
They begin to move further and further up the sidelines just as a small crowd begins to formulate in a tight circle around them; the football players, water boys, even the Cheerios, save of course, for Santana, who Noah's eyes remain constantly trained upon as she lingers in the background, arms crossed silently in front of her chest, eyes glistening with tears…
There are a million people all around him, but Santana is the only face that he can actually see… He had asked, no, he had begged her for some perspective mere nights ago… Well, here it was.
He can hear the frantic calls of the coaching staff around him through what is rapidly becoming an out-of-body experience… Ken Tanaka, Russell Haggerty, their offensive coordinator, even Sue Sylvester is attempting to push through the crowd in an effort to get into the middle of these two boys, notorious in their ability to turn the simplest of scuffles into a war zone.
"What's the matter Corcoran, not in the mood to fight back today?" Noah closes his eyes through yet another strong push as Karofsky sends him careening into a group of his teammates, how promptly give him a supporting shove forwards…
He is trying; Noah is praying to whoever will listen, that the world will know that he's trying… He's trying to remember the encouraging words, adhere to the advice, follow through on the guidelines that so many people have offered him in regards to these kinds of interactions…
"Noah, you need to realize that not all people understand about the things that are happening to our family…" His mother's voice rings trite and true through his head as if she were standing directly over his shoulder, whispering to him inside of his hear as if it hadn't been nearly a decade since she'd last spoken these exact words, "It scares people sometimes… and sometimes, when people are scared or when they're angry they say and they do things that they don't really mean."
His face scrunches with frustration towards his conflicting viewpoints on the matter… He had been six years old at the time his mother had given him that speech, surely its statute of limitations had run out… But then again, this was his mother that they were talking about here….
The words are steamrolling across his brain, pounding into every pore and orifice, streaming inwards directly alongside his thumping heart… But he is growing ever-increasingly certain that even Buddah himself would have been able to block out this ever-persistent action…
He is letting himself be shoved around by David Karofsky, and Noah has a reputation about this school that does not pin him as one who will easily be willing to back away from an obvious fight.
"Cut the bullshit, Karofsky…" Noah makes an attempt to duck from beneath the constant heckling, slapping Karofsky's hands away from him, "We have a practice to finish."
"Yeah, figures that you would be pussying out…" Karofsky sneers, making it suddenly obvious just how badly he is looking for Noah to react violently… probably for some sort of twisted redemption regarding last Friday's failed altercation, "Seeing as you hang out with nothing but dykes and that freak show of a sister that you have all day long."
Noah freezes suddenly; it appears that David Karofsky has finally – after a decade of persistent feuding – found the fuel that he truly needs to ignite that fire beneath Noah and allow it to burn… Mention of Santana is enough as it is to make Noah's blood positively boil over, Karofsky knows this, but the abrupt, unexpected addition of his sister's name into the equation is enough to put Noah over the edge in his entirety.
"Don't you dare…" Noah growls, his voice low, threatening… It makes his intentions very clear, provides the slightly older boy standing before him with an appropriate warning to stop while he still could, to avoid taking this any further, across into hazardous territory. "Watch where you're headed Karofsky, I swear to God you better leave my fucking sister out of this."
"Or what?" Karofsky is adamant in his refusal to back down and Noah is suddenly finding it ever-increasingly difficult for him to simply just ignore it, "You know, Corcoran, rumors get around this school pretty quickly, especially, well, you know, rumors about why it is that Rachel dropped out of school…"
"She didn't…"
"You know what I heard through the grapevine?" Karofsky speaks through Noah's words, rendering the boy completely silent… As much as he doesn't want to hear a single thing that Karofsky had heard through any rumor mill, there is a slightly stronger urge that does, simply to know what it is that people are saying across the halls of William McKinley High School about Puck Corcoran's little sister…
Karofsky lingers in his silence, studying his surroundings carefully as he toys briefly with Noah before finally leaning inwards, closer and closer towards the boy, like a predator preparing to bite the neck of its prey…
He is half expecting the pain of sharp teeth sinking into his jugular when a sharp breath of air transmits Karofsky's harsh whisper directly into his ear…
"I hear that she's dying."
Noah's heart begins to pound immediately against his ribcage, performing an impressive cadence that he wouldn't be surprised if Karofsky felt through the thin gap between their two bodies…
Sweat is breaking out along his forehead, tiny droplets that bead and sting as they drip into his wide eyes, his limbs literally begin to shake… And his reaction does not go unnoticed by David Karofsky either, as made evident by the boy's face as it turns upwards into a sick, sadistic smile.
"Back off Karofsky…" Finn warns, barricading his way through the crowd, "You have absolutely no idea what the hell you're talking about."
"Yeah, well I know enough… And do you wanna know how I know all this?" Karofsky is simply egging Noah on at this point, he knows it, Noah knows it, hell, the entire crowd must know it, "My dad words in records over at Lima Memorial, and he told me that this was all your faggot of a father's fault… According to him, your dad died when you guys were just kids… he had an affair with a man and caught AIDS because of it. And now… he passed it along to Rachel."
There isn't so much as a second's hesitation before Noah commits to the action that he has been threatening since he'd walked onto the practice field this morning… He pounces so quickly that absolutely none of them have the time to so much as react, Karofsky included, who is so overwhelmed by the sudden presence of a body on top of his own that he stumbles over his own two feet, the entirety of Noah's body weight bearing down on top of him as he wails his fists down upon the boy, not caring where he hit as long as he hit something, and caused pain.
And for Noah, the most terrifying part is that not a single person ever tries to stop him.
The young football star's mind is blank, dead in its emptiness… He thinks of absolutely nothing as his fists crash down upon Karofsky's head and padded chest… He isn't aware of his surroundings, he isn't aware of the sharp pain in his knuckles, or the blood that runs slick through the cracks between his fingers, no longer distinguishable between being his own or Karofsky's.
He doesn't even care about the trouble that this will be bound to cause him, he doesn't even care if he positively kills Karofsky right here and now… hell, he almost hopes it does…
It doesn't seem to matter; besides, trouble has been tracking Noah Corcoran down ever since the day that the boy had been born… Of course this timer… well this time was remarkably different.
This time, nobody pulls Noah off until David has stopped moving in his entirety.
Cameo45 – Thank you! Mostly I'm just glad that that part is over with haha. Also, congratulations on graduation, that's absolutely amazing!
Miriami – I'm so glad it's not getting dull for you! Things will be a bit calmer for me these next few weeks so updates will definitely come quicker. I feel bad for Noah too, but things have got to get worse before they get better so a resolution isn't exactly around the corner but in the distant future maybe… There will be a scene of Shelby telling Rachel about Hiram a few chapters down the line but I've got one more Noah chapter coming up and then Rachel. Thank you so much for your amazingly kind words, I can't even tell you how much they mean.
Amandaes417 – Sorry to keep you waiting for so long! I hope it was worth it.
Ballerina03 – No need to apologize after how long I took to put the thing up haha, and don't worry I understand, I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off these past couple of weeks… I had no idea you were Canadian, I've never been, don't really get out of New York all that much but it is definitely on my list of places to visit. We can all use some amazing news every once and a while, I'm glad some came your way but I'll try not to heckle you to make your secret harder to keep :) I'm a rugby player plus a natural born klutz so injuries just sort of come with the territory I am glad it's healing up quickly though… My guilty pleasure is little Noah and little Rachel, there will be a lot more down the line and a bit of insight as to how the two of them grew so close. Good luck on your exams, I'm sure you'll be fine. I can't describe how much your reviews mean so thank you times a million!
Anon – Thank you! Sad little Noah always breaks my heart but he's so great to write that I can't help but to come back to it… Noah and Rachel are going to hit a bit of a bump in the road (a bit of that which will have to do with a development between Finn and Rachel) but the best part about a fight is the resolution, right? Thank you beyond thank you for the review!
