fic: dissolution (AKA, delightedly's first foray into Gleefic)
...
After Sue finds out, she stays in bed for a day and ignores Figgins’ phone calls, at least until they start to give her a headache and she’s forced to double her protein shake intake. At that point, she hurls her phone out the window and listens carefully to hear it smash into pieces on the pavement.
Yep, Vietnam sure did do a number for her triceps.
…
A day later Sue is back to scrutinizing an attempt at an inverted pyramid of long-limbed Cheerios. An open Physics book at her feet tells her this is next to impossible, but she ignores it and tells Male Cheerleader Number Two at the bottom to stop shaking. Twenty-three seconds pass by before seven cheerleaders tumble to the ground.
“THIS ISN’T RING AROUND THE ROSES, DID I TELL YOU TO FALL DOWN? DO IT AGAIN,” Sue yells through her megaphone as she reaches into her pocket for a multivitamin, which she proceeds to pop into her mouth like a jellybean.
“Hi Sue,” pipes up a timid voice behind her.
Sue turns around. “Erin, you’ve deemed yourself fit for public consumption!” she says. “I’m sorry, your Spanish-speaking boytoy isn’t around. I’ll make sure to alert you if I see songbirds building nests in his luscious locks of hair.”
Emma flushes a violent red, lips pressed together and eyes wide as the blush reaches her fingertips. “I - I have a boyfriend,” she murmurs, more to herself than anything. Sue turns back around to face her squad, narrowing her eyes to detect signs of weakness. Male Cheerleader Number Two is no longer shaking, although he does seem slightly more blue in the face. An improvement.
“Um, I just wanted to come see you, because, um, I heard what happened, and I’m very sorry.” Emma pauses, digging around in her fuschia purse, and pulls out a flap of paper which she methodically smoothes out then sprays with a thin coating of disinfectant. “I have this, um, pamphlet, and it’s proved to be very useful with some of the kids, you know, and I know that things like this can be very hard, but I could maybe give you some, uh, guidance, when you’re ready to talk about it.”
Emma shoots the back of Sue’s head a very nervous tight smile, laying the pamphlet down on the bleacher bench. “You know where to find me!” the redhead says with a disconcerting peppiness, and navigates back down the row to the stairs where the bells on the straps of her purple heels clink weakly at each step.
Sue turns as soon as she’s gone and picks up the pamphlet. Without looking at the front flap, she crumples it into a ball and lobs it at the wobbling cheerleader on one side of the pyramid.
“YOU THINK THIS IS HARD? TRY EATING YOUR OWN KIDNEY IN A P.O.W. CAMP, THAT’S HARD.”
…
In the hallway during the break after first period Sue is accosted by a quickly-moving bundle of brown hair and energy. She vaguely recognizes the girl as Finn Hudson’s girlfriend, as well as the girl who Schuester always gives solos to. If Sue ran glee, which she sadly doesn’t any more, she would give a hell of a lot of this girl’s songs to the gay kid or Aretha. At least they’re less annoying. The way this girl naturally bobs up and down on her toes as she walks is nauseating.
“Ms. Sylvester, first I’d like to offer my deepest sympathies. Just two years ago my family had to deal with a huge crisis and I was sent into a downwards spiral of depression and self-doubt, so I definitely understand your problems and I’d really like to help.”
Sue keeps her eyes ahead, spotting an advancing football player in his letterman’s jacket. If she so much as glances at the vibrating girl beside her, Sue’s gag reflex is automatically activated. It may be the baby blue knee socks she’s wearing.
“You must be feeling the deep-rooted wave of emotion that emerges directly after the crisis. After Fluffy died, I was stricken with a sense of guilt over all the ways I’d wronged him over the years. My two gay dads had to persuade me to leave my room and eat after I cried for thirty-two hours straight. It was all very upsetting and dramatic.”
“Don’t duck,” Sue says, soldiering on forward in the midst of the hallway. Rachel stops, confused.
“What?”
And then Karofsky hits Rachel in the face with a grape slushie and she whimpers as the sticky ice drips down the front of her new white blouse.
…
Ken Tanaka is next to the coffeemaker in the teacher’s lunch room all by himself when Sue walks in to refill her mug. He looks at her, cookie crumbs down his chin. “We ran out, but I can make some more,” he says helpfully, and pulls the coffeepot away from the machine to fill it with water from the tap. She nods her head at him and sits at a table, setting down a folder and flipping it open to pore over photos from last year’s Nationals. In order to win another championship, Sue carefully combs through evidence from the last to make every move better than before.
When Ken sits down across from her, hand plunging back into his large sachet of cookies, Sue doesn’t complain. She respects Ken; much like herself, he’s a disciplinary man, coach of the football team. He knows how to treat the kids that need work, and whips them into shape. Sadly, he’s let himself go in the past few months. One thing that Sue prides herself on is that she has stayed the exact same build since the asteroids destroyed her weightlifting competition.
Sue frowns down at one photo, bringing it closer to her face, and notices the tiniest bend of a knee where a knee should not have been bent. She shakes her head, picking up her red marker and clearly circling the error. She expects more from Santana.
And then Ken starts talking.
“When I lost Emma, I lay on my couch crying for two weeks watching reruns of golf tournaments and gorging myself on Ruffles All-Dressed Chips,” he confides suddenly, ham-like hands wringing together on the table just within Sue’s line of sight. She sighs, and looks expectantly up at him.
“I still feel like there’s this giant part of me missing, and I have to fill it with high-cholesterol processed foods and a lifetime Hustler subscription,” he says sadly. “I know exactly how you feel, Sue. We can get through our despair together. I’m joined a self-help group that meets Mondays and Wednesdays in the evenings, and you’re free to come along with me whenever you can. We get free snacks.”
Staring in disgust at the way his sweat is soaking an inverted triangle on the front of his shirt, Sue decides to stand and then leaves, empty mug and folder of photographs in hand. If going without coffee for the next few hours means being several rooms away from Ken’s body odour, Sue will do it. And, as she shuts the door behind her, if enclosing herself in the trophy-lined safety of her office shields her from the sickeningly sympathetic stares of faculty and various naïve students, even better.
…
Just as she predicts, at 4:18 PM Will repeatedly slams his open palms against the door of her office, also delivering several weak kicks. Sue can see his furious expression and perfectly coiffed hair through one window and writes the time down in a column on the second to last page of her journal.
When she opens the door, Will storms through and glares at the side of her head as she walks back around her desk and leans back in her easy leather seat. She opens her mouth to say something about his hair, but he launches immediately into one of his usual diatribes.
Sue yawns a few times until he realizes that she isn’t listening, and slams his knuckles down on her desk. “For God’s sake, Sue!” he shouts, face contorted in anger. “Santana and Brittany showed up to glee club with neck braces and sprained ankles! They can hardly move after your stupid stunt in the morning! Just because your sister died -” Will’s face softens, and his forehead furrows in that look of utter concern that makes Sue feel sick to the stomach. “I know how much you’re going through, and I feel for you. But maybe it’s best for you to stay home for now. Sue, it’s such a hard time you’re going through, but you can’t take it out on the kids. I’m sure your sister’s in a much better place.”
“Well, there aren’t many worse places than being stuck in a residence all your life because of your Down Syndrome.”
Will’s face is priceless as the concept dawns across his tiny brain. He clearly didn’t know the exact circumstances, and Sue wishes she could take a photo of this moment. She stands up, and he reaches for her hand, a gesture which she ignores with disgust.
“Sue, I’m so -”
“Sorry? Yeah, yeah, heard it before, William. Now get out of my office before your shiny sculpted hair attracts the magpies.”
In an instant, his face hardens again, and he shakes his head. “I almost felt sorry for you, Sue,” he says, “But you really just don’t care, do you?”
“Care?” Sue says, raising an eyebrow. She marches over to his side of the desk, leaning aggressively into Will’s personal space. In a weak show of heroics, he does not back down, only stares loftily up at her. She grimaces at his remarkably feminine features. Schuester probably has more estrogen coursing through his body than she does.
Sue prods him in the chest with one finger. “You don’t know what caring means, William,” she says in a low voice. His eyes are fixated on her face. On another day, she might have been pleased to see a glint of what might be terror in his eyes. Today, she resists the urge to plunge her fingers into his wide brown irises.
“You teach your kids in the happy sunshine fun times club of yours that their lives are entirely up to them, that they can live up to their dreams,” Sue sneers, and he opens his mouth to say something but she ignores him.
“But you know what, William? You can’t fix any of the crap. Quinn Fabray is forever gonna be that girl who got pregnant in high school and gave it away. The crippled kid is always gonna be in a wheelchair. Sadly, no matter how much hair product you use, you can’t negate the stench of mediocrity that emanates from your follicles.”
He frowns at this, but Sue just leers closer.
“You think that’s caring? You think you’ll make their worlds brighter by getting them to believe bullshit? Think you can live your dreams through a bunch of kids, half of whom can’t pass freshman-level English? Reality is, William, half these kids aren’t going anywhere beyond a white picket fence lining the yard of some new house on the edge of town. I don’t teach my Cheerios lies, and neither should you.”
Will’s frown deepens. “At least I don’t teach my kids to develop eating disorders, Sue,” he retorts. Sue can see that the tips of his ears are turning pink, something she notes with pleasure.
“I teach my Cheerios to make the best of what they have now,” Sue shoots back, “Because likelihood is, cheerleading in high school is the only thing they’re ever gonna be good at. That’s caring, not your fairy hocus-pocus about love and dreams and happiness. Caring is getting over myself and coming to school this morning, ‘cause Jean’s in a better place than she ever could be here and there are kids that need me now. You expecting me to cry, William? The only thing I’m going to cry for right now is the stinging pain of your hairspray clouding my tear ducts.”
Sue pauses. “And that’s how Sue ‘C’s’ it,” she quips. “Now get out.”
After Will leaves in silence, Sue sits back down at her desk, and forces herself to not cry.