Quiet Backstage: A Series of Lippa Oneshots

Sleep It Off

savedaturtlesk hi, Love! I know that this isn't the oneshot you requested, but I was so inspired to write this, and you deserve the best! So this one's dedicated to you, love! Xx

Lin fumbled around the hallway. He had been tossing and turning for the past four nights, barely getting a wink of sleep.

Life was starting to pile up. The work was becoming so overwhelming. Between the stress of putting Hamilton back up and fleshing out his Disney contract, Lin had felt like nothing would ever end.

Pippa had been gone that night away on a night shoot for a movie she had been working on, leaving Lin completely alone in the apartment with nothing more than the footsteps of upstairs neighbors and his racing thoughts.

Lin hadn't caught any sleep tonight and he had had enough of it. He stumbled into the bathroom and, in his exhausted state, flung open the medicine cabinet. His fist gripped around the bottle of AdvilPM and he hastily opened the cap.

Lin knew that he usually took one or two of the pills at maximum, but tonight he knew he needed something stronger. His anxiety was rising indefinitely. He wanted to fall asleep and stay asleep, at least for a little while.

Without looking, he dumped a handful of pills into his palm and took the first couple without water. Deciding that dry swallowing would probably hurt him worse in the long run, he set the next four pills down and filled a Dixie cup up with water. Having yet to think it through, Lin took four more of the pills, grabbed the bottle and sulked back to the bedroom. He set the bottle on the nightstand for safe keeping before simply falling onto the mattress.

~~~~~

Pippa cringed as the rusty door hinges squeaked. It was so late and she feared she was waking Lin up with the noise. He needed all the sleep he could get. The poor guy was working himself to death.

Pippa set her things down and got herself ready for bed. Changing from her jeans to sweatpants, and stripping from her sweater. She brushed her teeth and headed to her shared bedroom with Lin.

She frowned in confusion as the light was still on. It was weird, Lin had to be asleep, right?

"Lin?" She asked in a whisper, but froze at the sight of the room. Lin was collapsed on the bed, his limbs hanging lazily off of the edge. "Lin?!" She shouted, running up and shaking him.

Her heart sunk as he didn't respond. Pippa scanned the room and saw the AdvilPM bottle on the nightstand.

No. She thought. No. No. No.

Pippa turned the bottle over and only one pill tumbled out. There was like ten last time she saw the bottle open, and that wasn't too long ago. Shit, did Lin take all of those?

Two AdvilPM's was a typical Friday night, but eight?! Was he asking to die?!

"Come on, Lin! Wake up, please!" Pippa shook roughly at his shoulder. When he didn't respond, her worries only increased. "Come on!" She cried, patting her palm against his face, as if that could help. Nothing.

Pippa vaguely remembered that in a CPR class she learned to rub the sternum of an unresponsive patient. Something about stimulating them. "Shit, Lin, sorry if this hurts." Pippa whispered as she fisted her hand and started roughly rubbing at Lin's sternum.

"Wake up!" Tears welled in Pippa's eyes.

Eventually, Lin started groaning lightly, and he reached forward to weakly push Pippa off of him.

"Lin!" Pippa gasped, a wave of relief washing over her. He was still sort of responsive. "Lin, come back!" Pippa cried as he started to fall back asleep again.

"Pippa?" Lin asked, his voice low and heavy with exhaustion.

"Babe, what's going on?"

"I'm so...dizzy." Lin stated, trying to sit up, but absolutely failing.

"Yeah, no shit! Did you take all of those pills? How many did you take?"

"Mmhmm..." Lin hummed. "Like seven or eight."

Tears dripped past Pippa's eyelashes. "Oh, baby...you know that's not the answer. But c'mon, let's get you sleeping that off."

Lin nodded and had no qualms with falling back asleep.

"Let's hope you can sleep this off." Pippa muttered.

~~~~~

Lin was able to sleep off the effects of all the medicine, and was surprisingly fine the next day. Pippa still made a mental note that he might need to go get checked out, just in case.

"Lin, baby, we got to talk about what happened. What's going on?" Pippa coaxed, grabbing at Lin's hands across the table. "Tell me. We're going to get married, you can trust me."

"It just never ends!" Lin cried. "I'm so tired...just so tired."

"Tell me." Pippa pried once more.

Lin sighed. "It's just...everything. There's so much work and not enough time for it all."

Pippa mimicked his sigh. "Babe, we talked about you getting overcommited. You can drop out of some of these smaller projects, I promise."

Lin shook his head. The perfectionist in him was raging. "No, I-I can't."

Pippa took a deep breath. "So what are you going to do? Work yourself to death at 29? Take two many sleeping pills and not be able to come back from it?! Lin, you terrified me! I genuinely thought I was going to lose you!"

Lin shook his head as tears welled in his eyes. "No, no, no. You're not going to lose me. That was a stupid mistake, and I wasn't thinking. I didn't think any of it through. I was just so exhausted. I won't do that again."

"You better not." Pippa whispered.

"I won't." Lin smiled a soft, reassuring smile.

Pippa mirrored it, but it fell when she saw that Lin had barely touched his plate. "Babe, you gotta eat something. You had a lot of medicine in your system last night. Food's going to help absorb all that."

Lin nodded, though he wouldn't tell Pippa that he was still feeling dizzy and wonky from the events of the previous night. "I know, I know." He kissed her knuckles as he picked up his plate. "I'm gonna take it back to the office and eat there. I have to work on some stuff for Disney."

Pippa was hesitant, but she let him go. "Alright." She watched him stand and leave with a weak smile.

When she was sure she had heard the office door close, Pippa crossed into the bathroom next to their bedroom. She flung open the medicine cabinet and took hold of every bottle of painkillers in there.

After pouring every bottle down the drain, she smiled softly to herself. There was nothing left in the home for Lin to sleep off.