5 Times Mike Chang Accidentally Found Himself A Bro
Title: 5 Times Mike Chang Accidentally Found Himself A Bro
Pairing: Mike Chang/various friendships
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Through S2.
Summary: Mike isn't really the get-the-girl type, per se.
A/N: For Lynne's birthday. It's only like a week late. XD But at least it's here!
1
Meeting Santana Lopez is just about the scariest thing that has ever happened to him.
It has little to do with the reasons that will eventually pile up against her-the obsession with social tyranny, the sexual discipline, the way she can roll her eyes and make a guy feel like he’s got nothing to offer this world-and more to do with how hard she can throw a damn baseball. At thirteen years old, Santana Lopez is not exactly the tomboy to end Ohio, but nor is she Quinn Fabray’s picture-perfect daddy’s-little-girl doll. She straddles that middle line with terrifying ease, and none of the boys are sure what to do with her.
Especially during summer pick-up games.
The teams are uneven; with the sun going down, some of the usual suspects aren’t allowed to stay out long enough to finish the ninth inning. Mike feels like there’s something especially girly about Finn Hudson only being able to play until dinnertime, but moms can be loony-he of all people gets that. And with Finn down, the opposing team has picked up…
Santana.
He swallows hard.
Pitching is fun most of the time; he doesn’t love running, and he doesn’t care a whole lot about how hard he can hit the ball, but he’s got better aim than anyone else out here. Plus, he’s shorter than most people his age (the Asian gene is working against him something fierce, he thinks with frustration), so he doesn’t usually have to duck to avoid getting pelted in the face by line-drive specialists like Noah Puckerman (he does it on purpose, Mike is sure of it; Noah’s kind of a dick sometimes). It just makes sense to put him on the mound.
And he likes it just fine-it’s fun to watch the faces of guys who could totally beat him up if they wanted to contort in shock as he strikes them out one by one. The only part that isn’t so fun is going up against a girl who will smile flirtatiously at him in one breath and chase him with the bat in the next.
That Brittany Pierce likes to hangs out on the sidelines, picking flowers and practicing her cheerleading in the name of her terrifying best friend, doesn’t really help his nerves. Brittany is pretty-a little dim, but he doesn’t mind-and he hates looking like an idiot in front of her.
Especially when it’s Santana’s fault.
She’s up to bat now, and it takes more courage than he wants to admit not to back down and throw the game then and there. His team is actually winning (rare, since he and Matt Rutherford aren’t much of a match against the Hudson/Puckerman dream team), but that doesn’t rule out Dave Karofsky being on third behind him. That’s really the only thing keeping him in the game; Karofsky’s the kind of douche who, if Mike gives in now, will let him live it down sometime around eleventh grade.
If he’s lucky.
Besides, Santana’s scary as hell, but she’s still a girl. He can take a girl. Probably.
She winks at him from behind the plate, baseball cap turned backwards over her ponytail, and shuffles her feet around. Biting the inside of his cheek nervously, Mike hefts the ball, spinning the laces against his palm. He can hear Puckerman wolf-whistling. Also not helpful.
“You gonna stare at my beautiful face all night, or are you gonna throw?” Santana jeers, elbows primed to knock the ball into the slowly emerging starscape above them. He closes his eyes for a moment and draws in a deep breath.
The first throw is wild, sailing right over her head. She pops her hip, eyebrow arched, every inch of her expression screaming, Seriously? Puckerman whoops.
“Psych him out, babe!”
“Call me babe again and I’m gonna score a homer off your big dumb head,” Santana returns smartly. Despite himself, Mike grins.
All he has to do, he reasons with himself, is throw a fastball. No one has been able to take out his fastball all summer, not even Puckerman. He would use it more often, but it’s sort of a new development, and he doesn’t trust himself to get it right each and every time.
Tonight, though. Tonight, it’s his secret weapon. Santana’s never faced down the Changster before. It’ll be boss-he’ll get her and Karofksy out, win the game, and Brittany will finally be able to look away from Santana long enough to see how cool he really is. It’s going to be-
Thwack!
Oh, hell, he thinks miserably, half a second before the ball he’s just whipped comes sailing back to catch him in the eye.
He’s on his back before he knows it, listening to Karofksy round home plate as his teammates scramble to retrieve what should-despite his throbbing head-technically be Mike’s ball. A long cheer rises from where Puckerman was last spotted, a sound that could only mean Santana has just drilled someone with her elbow and flown around the bases at record speed. Great.
There really doesn’t feel like much of a point to standing up under the circumstances. His whole head feels massive, his eyes watering, and if he has to make eye contact with Karofsky or any of those other stupidly-muscular apes, he thinks he might just lose his mind. Plus, the longer he stays down here, the less likely Brittany will be to notice him at all. It’s better to be invisible than a complete loser.
The hand that appears above him is startling, tan and tipped with blunt black-painted nails. He blinks dumbly up at it.
“It’s supposed to rain tonight,” Santana informs him, her free hand on her hip. The front of her t-shirt is smudged with dirt, as if she slid into home to prove a point. Knowing her, she probably did.
“So?” he mutters, staring determinedly past her head. Unfortunately, it does look a little cloudier than a few minutes ago. He kind of hates it when Santana’s right about stuff.
“So stop laying around like a wuss,” she commands, grabbing his wrist without asking and yanking him to his feet. He scowls as she brushes the dirt off his back a little harder than he would generally like before looking him dead in the eye.
“I really busted your face, huh?”
“I guess,” he grumbles, kicking a rock. She grins.
“You have to admit it was awesome.”
Shaking his head, he looks up at the sky again. “They’re gonna make fun of me for weeks.”
Surprisingly, he feels a tug on his collar; when he meets her eyes again, her smile has faded.
“No, they won’t.”
He wants to ask why she sounds so certain about it, like she’s already taken care of business (what business that might be is exactly why he’s afraid to ask; Santana Lopez is, as previously mentioned, scary as hell). Instead, he shrugs a little.
“You hit my fastball,” he points out grumpily. “Nobody’s done that before.”
“Yeah, well.” She surprises him, reaching up to adjust the hat that sits rather crookedly atop his head as her shoulders lift and drop carelessly. “It was kind of a shitty fastball.”
It’s not funny-especially given how painfully his eye is throbbing-but he finds himself smiling stupidly anyway. “I’m still working on it.”
Her eyes sparkle in the semi-darkness, gazing up at him, and for a brief, heart-stopping second, he thinks he’s about to receive his first kiss. He has always imagined the girl in this position to be a little taller and a lot blonder, but somehow, with how pretty her eyes are, he doesn’t feel like he would mind this instead.
Not that he has to worry about it, because all Santana does is cuff him playfully on the shoulder and turn away. “Let me know when you get it down,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ll be happy to black the other one for you.”
Leave it to Santana Lopez to break his face and leave him laughing in the darkness five minutes later.
Really, she’s super terrifying.
2
He really doesn’t know how to feel about Noah Puckerman sometimes.
On the one hand, the kid is kind of a monster. He runs around talking shit about absolutely everybody, he obsesses about his reputation as the resident bad boy to unhealthy degrees, and that mohawk is ridiculous. And that isn’t even mentioning the way he treats girls.
If Mike were to get half the action Puck sees, he’d have already hawked his CD collection and a ream of baseball cards, and picked up a paper route just to pay for all the flowers and chocolate a girl could possibly want. He’s planned this to the nines for the day it finally pans out and he stops losing out to…
Well. To guys like Puck.
Sometimes he thinks he kind of hates the guy, with his sneering face and his stupid Star Wars jokes. Not that he hates Star Wars. Or jokes, for the matter. It’s just that, when Puck is around, those things suddenly become a lot to handle.
But nobody is all bad, he’s realized over the years, and that includes fourteen-year-old, mega-jackass Noah Puckerman.
Particularly on rainy days. When he finds himself here.
Puck’s room isn’t big-it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest the kid sort of lives in a closet-but there’s something homey about it. Mike definitely isn’t Jewish, but he finds the menorah-print wallpaper endearing all the same. Not that he could ever say so to Puck out loud without getting a knuckle sandwich in return.
The point is, as little as he likes Noah Puckerman sometimes, there is something really awesome about hanging out with the guy. Just as long as they’re completely alone. He’s found Puck cares less about how he looks when other people aren’t staring over his shoulder-and when Puck doesn’t care how he looks, he mostly winds up looking like a trash-talking video game fiend with a sincerely disquieting weakness for Pepsi products.
All of which Mike can happily relate to.
“You’re going right the fuck down,” he hears in his left ear, two seconds before his Bond explodes on the screen. Frustrated, he turns sideways and glares daggers at that stupid mohawk.
“We’re on the same team.”
“Since when?” Puck asks genially, tapping the controls and smirking. Mike rolls his eyes.
“Since you insisted on playing as Dominique, jerk.”
“What?” Puck shrugs, bumping him a hair too vigorously with one meaty shoulder. “She’s got a great rack.”
Mike shakes his head. “Just…aim for a ninja or something, will you?”
Okay, even on his own, Puck can be something of a blockhead. Mike supposes these things can’t be helped.
Even so, the atmosphere is cozy in a way Mike doesn’t find often. Edged on Puck’s cot-like bed, squinting at his tiny television set, he feels more free than just about anywhere else.
It’s high school that’s getting to him, he thinks as he picks up a sentinel and takes up station on a rooftop corner. High school is supposed to be all pretty girls and rocking the football team with his Speedy Gonzalez skills, but they’re midway through October, and so far, all Mike has seen are apologetic rejections and face-fulls of turf. He’s not as bulky as the other guys, or as quick with a joke, or half as comfortable talking to anybody outside of Matt-and Matt practically doesn’t even count, since their longtime friendship is based mostly around pizza and customized sign language anyway. He understands how Matt works.
It’s the rest of McKinley he takes issue with. High school is pretty much the opposite of everything he so foolishly dreamed, and it sucks. That considered, it’s really nice to forget about it for a while. Just sit in this room and-
“Damn it,” he growls, stamping a sock-clad foot down. Puck grins.
“Keep your eyes open next time, dude.”
Mike grits his teeth. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Live by it, bro,” Puck replies cheerfully, turning his sniper on someone from the opposite team for the first time all afternoon. Mike sighs. This is the quirk about hanging out with Puck: he can’t even get pissed when the guy does stupid shit. Stupid shit is pretty much Puck’s calling card, after all; Mike figures he’d be concerned if ever he started acting like a normal person.
Besides, he can’t deny that there’s a certain simplistic happiness in this room. Comfortably clad in sweatpants and a torn hoodie, Puck looks content-an expression not worn easily on a guy whose dad ditched out before he could accomplish jack. Mike knows he shouldn’t feel sorry for Puck-it’s not like the dude would respond well to normal-person sympathy-but he sort of does anyway. Secretly, he wishes he could share his own father, but he knows Puck wouldn’t go for that either. It takes a special person to deal with the epic amount of Asian in his household (sometimes, it’s even too much for Mike himself to handle), and if that were to be piled upon Puck’s classically overbearing Jewish mother…
Things happen for a reason, he settles for reminding himself, dodging a grenade blast. Puck may not have a dad, but maybe that’s okay. Finn Hudson doesn’t have one either, and he seems to be turning out all right.
Although neither boy seems to have an IQ much higher than that of a fire hydrant…something to consider, he supposes.
“Ohh!” Puck shouts, fist pumping in the air as he makes the last of the necessary kills to end the game. Mike shakes his head again, smiling a little.
“Half those kills were me, dumbass.”
“And they were beautiful.” Grinning, Puck chucks his controller off the side of the bed and flops backwards. “Man, this shit is the life. They should pay me to do this.”
“Kill Asians?”
The good-natured punch catches him off-guard as Puck laughs. “Don’t get all butt-hurt about it, Changster. You know you’re my boy.”
It’s a struggle to keep his features arranged in a placid expression when, really, all Mike wants to do is stare at Puck like a slack-jawed yokel.
“Your boy, huh?”
“Not in a gay way,” Puck rushes to amend, hooking his arms behind his head. “Just. Y’know. You’d back me up in a fight, and stuff. That’s cool.”
It’s quite the bold statement; Mike, as a rule, isn’t much of a fighter. He’s not yet been asked to step up to that particular plate, even with the sheerly fascinating number of Neanderthals running around McKinley, and he’s been silently praying he will never have to. He likes to think he’s just likable enough-and has just enough friends like Puck-to avoid getting his face mashed in.
But Puck seems to really believe what he’s just said about Mike being his boy, so he slowly nods and accepts it. Fact is, Puck is one of the coolest kids in school. He can take care of himself, but his reputation means he doesn’t have to-which in turn means Mike will probably never have to worry about this whole debate.
The part that really counts is how Puck just called him cool.
He wants to say something about it, make this moment a turning point for the rest of his high school career, but making a huge deal out of the situation would pretty much make it crash and burn altogether. He scratches his neck.
“Yeah. S’cool.”
“Totally,” Puck confirms, stretching and reaching again for the controller. “So. Round two? I wanna see if I can make your pansy ass cry like a woman.”
Yeah, he really should think about making friends with less abusive people.
In the meantime, revenge is pretty damn sweet.
3
Quinn Fabray is untouchable.
She’s seriously the most perfect thing in this school. He doesn’t even like her that much, honestly-liking a person usually requires speaking to them at length, and the longest conversation they’ve ever had centered around a pencil and a pop quiz in Algebra that had her rolling those gorgeous eyes his way-but he can’t deny it. She’s a goddess. Everyone knows it.
He thinks sometimes about what it would be like to date someone like Quinn Fabray. Not Quinn herself, per se, since he knows that’ll never happen. Girls like Quinn-girls who go fishing for the head cheerleader position from the first day of ninth grade-don’t date guys like Mike Chang. Not that he isn’t a catch, he reminds himself steadily, because he is. Fall semester was a little rough, but he really has the hang of things now that February has rolled around. He has plenty of friends, and sometimes girls actually come to him instead of the so-very-awkward other way around.
Still, Quinn’s different. That breed of girl just wasn’t meant to date guys like him. She’s practically tailor-made to hang on the arm of the quarterback-a position Mike knows all too well he will never hold.
Not that he wants to. He gets sacked enough as Just Another Dude on that field, thanks. Leave the QB brutality to someone who cares less how many blows to the noggin he receives.
He doesn’t think he would ever even get a chance to talk to her if they weren’t in three of the same classes. Of course, two of the three also contain one Santana Lopez, who hasn’t really diminished in ferocity since the summer she blacked his eye. She seems to like him about a third of the time (it’s possible that, under all the fangs and venom, there does beat a friendly heart…maybe), but she is still the most intimidating girl in the school.
Apart from Quinn herself, anyway.
So two of the three are automatically out. The third wouldn’t be much of an option either, since Finn Hudson is always making eyes at her when they should be reading Shakespeare-Finn being That Guy, the reasonably nice dude who doesn’t mind getting conked over the head as many times as it takes to lead them kicking and screaming to a win. As long as Finn, hulking, dumb, and destined for quarterback greatness, is around, Mike doesn’t have a shot in hell.
It’s at the tail end of February that he gets lucky: Finn gets nailed with the world’s nastiest head cold, knocking him out of school for a solid week. The same week, fortune has it, set aside for partnered projects on the tragedies.
Which is how Mike Chang, so nervous he could puke, finds himself at the Fabray table with his eyes glued to Othello.
He doesn’t remember asking her to be his partner. He has absolutely no memory whatsoever of standing up, striding to her desk, and spitting out that particular proposition. If someone were to inform him that an alien strongly resembling one Michael Chang had done the deed for him, he would not be remotely surprised.
Either way, it changes nothing. Someone put the concept on the table. Quinn accepted, all pursed lips and dainty hands. And here they are.
He really, really hopes he doesn’t throw up.
“So, I was thinking we could discuss Desdemona’s, um, lack of agency in light of Othello’s…” He trails off, staring so hard at the page that his vision blurs. From the very edge of his periphery, he sees her raise an eyebrow.
“One-way ticket to crazy town?”
He nods mutely and hears her sigh, followed by the scrape of her chair. Glancing up, he sees her fold her legs beneath her body, wrapping one arm around her knee.
It’s strange to see her here, out of her ever-present Cheerio uniform. This whole house is a little bizarre-definitely the most straight-laced living area he has ever seen, with nary a speck of dust out of place-and she looks…
Like she doesn’t fit in. Which is especially baffling, because Quinn Fabray fits in everywhere.
Still, sitting here in a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, hair brushing around her face with just a hint of static cling, she looks…human. More than that, she looks young. A little bored, a little tired, completely and utterly fourteen.
He realizes with a jolt that he never thinks of her that way. Hasn’t in a couple of years, in fact. It’s weird, but in his mind, Quinn Fabray has been beyond age since the sixth grade or so.
Except she’s really not. She’s just like him-albeit much more beautiful-and right now, she looks like she would rather be anywhere else.
“You okay?” he hears himself ask hesitantly. There’s no way to tell what has possessed him to say such a stupid thing, and from the way her head snaps up, eyes blazing, he regrets it. You don’t call into question Quinn Fabray’s state of being. You just don’t. That’s like asking God if He has the flu; it’s dumb as hell, and no one would ever think to do it.
“Fine,” she replies coolly. The tips of his ears go red hot in response.
“Cool,” he mumbles, shoulders instinctively rolling up as if to protect from an incoming blow. She sighs again.
“Group projects are lame.”
He’s not positive they qualify as a group, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t agree with the lame part either, but catches himself nodding all the same. It’s weird, he thinks, that he can’t seem to stop himself, as if disagreeing with Quinn is so horrifying a notion that his own opinions cease to matter as long as he is inside her home. What would Puck say about this?
He bites the inside of his cheek, shaking his head subtly. It’s a stupid question. Puck wouldn’t say anything-or at least, not anything productive.
Even more hilarious is the idea that Puck would ever be allowed in this house-that’s something that is just never going to happen. Mike needs to cast off his What Would the ‘Hawk Do bracelet and handle this on his own.
Which is…terrifying. Because Quinn is watching him steadily right now, eyebrows hitched to her hairline, and crap, how long has he been sitting here with his nose in this book, anyway?
“Um,” he begins shakily, “so, how do we want to, uh…PowerPoint?”
“You sound like Berry,” she observes, eyes narrowed. He can’t see how that could be true; for one thing, Rachel Berry has never, in his memory, delivered a sentence with quite so many ‘um’s. Plus, it’s common knowledge that Quinn hates Rachel-in that truly special, utter loathing kind of way-so the comparison is…less than glittering.
“Do I freak you out?” she asks, somehow abrupt and calm at the same time. The way a queen ought to speak.
“No?” It bothers him that it comes out like a question. Her head tilts a fraction of an inch.
“Intimidate, then? You’re not looking well, Mike. Either I’m scaring you senseless or you’re coming down with mono.”
She’s making fun of him. He sinks down in his chair, weighted by the realization.
“Speak up,” she prompts. “Do I scare you?”
“Yes,” he replies meekly, eyes reading and rereading Iago’s inflammatory, misogynistic remarks until they burn into his brain. Across the table, her chair scrapes again.
“Mike.”
He doesn’t move. This was such a bad idea. He should have left it, should have let someone else take over, or invented a time machine to prevent Finn from getting sick in the first place. He shouldn’t be here right now. Quinn Fabray does not give the time of day to guys like him.
“Look at me, you weirdo.”
His eyes jerk up without the consent of his brain, pinned in an instant by her serious expression. She’s beautiful, and powerful, and a little sad. He figures that’s a pretty standard combination for McKinley’s resident sweetheart.
“Let’s get this straight, okay?” she begins forcefully, surprising him. “You’re in my house, and in my house, my rules go. So stop sitting there looking like you’re waiting for the axe to fall, all right? We’ve known each other since the first grade. You should know by now I stopped biting when I was, like, eight.”
A joke-he thinks. Warily, he allows himself a brief smile.
“Seriously,” she presses on, waving an impatient hand. “I’m popular, not the pope. Chill out, will you? We have to give this presentation on Monday, and it’s not going to happen if all you can do is stand there gaping in terror.”
She has a point. It’s not quite enough to break the spell, but his shoulders do slump a little, fingers slackening around the book. For the next thirty minutes, they are distressingly productive, and the one time he stammers, she does not call him out on it. It’s actually kind of nice.
In a treading-on-landmines kind of way.
He doesn’t know why he asks it. He’s already tried to walk this road once today, and it didn’t end well. He should be learning from his mistakes, especially with a girl like this one. All the same, the question spills out.
“Are you happy?”
This time, she doesn’t bother looking up. Surprisingly, her lips curve into an almost-smile. It’s just as pretty as anything else on her.
“Strange question to ask, Mike Chang.”
“Not really,” he denies, tapping the end of his pen against the table. “I’m just curious.”
“About me being happy,” she replies calmly, scratching out a few notes and flipping the pages in her book. “I don’t know. Seems pretty weird to me.”
“You’re not answering,” he points out, wondering as he does if he has really lost his mind. He shouldn’t be pushing this. It’s her home, and her life-she has all the right in the world not to respond. Hell, she has all the right in the world to just up and kick him out. She should be with someone else anyway, someone like Finn, someone who will dutifully do his job and give her a smile and maybe ask her out for pizza and bowling right before he walks home-
“No,” she says softly. He looks up just in time to see her bite her lip, wearing a tiny, self-deprecating smile.
“No.”
“Not even a little bit,” she says, and starts to laugh. It’s a melodious sound, equal parts heartbreaking and gorgeous, and he thinks it will haunt his dreams tonight. He doesn’t mind.
“You should probably work on that,” he advises her, grinning a little himself. She crumples a piece of paper and lobs it at his head.
“Thank you, Mike Chang. That is some really sage advice.”
He shrugs, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth until the grin fades away. “Someone’s gotta give it, right?”
Her eyes are almost green, he notices, as she stares him down across the table. The silence hangs between them for a moment, just long enough for doubt to creep back in and clutch around his heart.
She shakes her head, smiling the saddest smile he has ever seen on a ninth grader.
“I guess so.”
He wonders if Finn would have asked something like that.
4
Rachel Berry is a complete enigma in his eyes.
She’s something of a damn contradiction, really. He has never met a person with that much ambition in his life-wouldn’t know how to contain such a vast ego in his own body, much less that miniature frame-and yet he hears from reliable sources (Santana, Kurt Hummel, Quinn Fabray) that she spends every single day doing…this.
He wonders why nobody has said something before now.
Because someone should speak up when they see stuff like this, shouldn’t they? That’s the normal, compassionate reaction to watching…
But then again, he’s never commented before either. So maybe he’s not perfect. So maybe none of them are. Rachel certainly isn’t. She’s loud, possesses an egregious amount of vocabulary words no one else would ever use, and flounders horribly in social situations. The common descriptor (from Santana, Kurt Hummel, Quinn Fabray) is ‘obnoxious’. She seems to have a sincere knack for driving the world insane.
Still…
There’s something really unappealing about people who will back a five-foot-two girl in a rainbow-patterned sweater against a fence and hold her there, sneering. It’s worse that they’re people he knows, somehow; that makes it so much less…
He’s not sure what to do about it.
Because these are guys he plays with on the team. Guys who are-still, always, the curse of his Asian heritage-more muscular. More confident. More…
Douchey.
Karofsky, Azimo, even Puck-they’re all guilty of it. He shuffles his books under one arm uneasily and watches as one kid slams an open palm against the chain-link, laughing like a maniac when she flinches. They’re not actually touching her, as far as he can see, and maybe that makes it worse. The constant trepidation, hovering on the edge of certainty, waiting forever for a blow that never comes-
Girls shouldn’t have to deal with this shit.
Not that dudes should either, he thinks somberly, jaw clenched. No one should. It’s just as bad when Artie Abrams’ chair is wedged into small spaces, or when Kurt Hummel gets rammed into the flagpole. It sucks that this is how their school chooses to maintain its hierarchy, and it sucks worse that Mike himself would become a target if he even thought about stepping in.
Except right now? He’s thinking about it.
Because Rachel is irritating, absolutely. Her eyes shine a little too brightly for comfort, her tongue moves a little too fast around words just a little too grating. But she’s a fifteen year old girl.
And he really won’t be able to look his mother in the eye tonight if he walks away now.
He crosses the yard in a few long strides, reassuring himself on the way that they might be stronger, but he has always been lighter on his feet. When he’s three feet away, Puck’s head tilts to the side, a kamikaze grin stretching across his features.
Mike likes Puckerman often enough, but sometimes it’s undeniable: the kid can be a real sociopath.
“Chang! You wanna do me a favor and go pick up a slushie?”
The slushie regime: the pride and joy of McKinley uber-jocks. Mike shakes his head. It seemed like a decent idea at first-a way to bully without physical harm. A zero tolerance policy would be a hell of a lot better, but he knows this school. Principal Figgins is utterly useless as an authority figure-and, actually, as anything other than a font of random presidential trivia-and no one else, not even Will Schuester or the sweet-but-creepy school counselor, is willing to pick up that slack. In that light, bullying becomes inescapable.
Slushies were supposed to be a kind alternative to swirlies and broken noses, but lately, Mike’s not so sure. He’s seen the looks on the faces of the victims; it doesn’t look pretty.
Well, actually, the colors are usually really vibrant and impressive. That part’s kind of neat.
But otherwise, highly distressing.
“Chang?” Puck gives his shoulder a hard little shake. “You look freaked, dude. Mr. Ryerson get you alone in his office or somethin’?”
“That homo gives me the creeps,” Karofsky announces. Under his arm, Mike sees Rachel stiffen.
Right, because that’s the other thing-the part of Rachel Berry’s existence that soaks up the most laughter, right after her big mouth and uncoordinated wardrobe: her two gay dads.
It’s the part that makes the least sense to Mike. Nobody makes fun of Finn for having a dad who died in the war, or Kurt for losing his mom to cancer a few years back. So why do they always come back to this with Rachel?
Karofsky leans down, putting his face right up against Rachel’s until their noses almost brush. “Your daddies hang out with that closet case fag? Huh? I bet he comes over for dinner all the time.”
“As a matter of fact,” she begins, the admirably prissy edge to her tone doing little to detract from how hard she’s shaking. He slams his hands against the fence again, grinning when she jumps and shuts up.
“That’s enough,” Mike murmurs. Puck slides him a curious frown.
“What’d you say?”
“That’s enough,” he repeats, barely any louder. “You guys are done here.”
They turn as one, staring at him like they can’t believe it, and that makes him feel sicker than ever. It only cements his fear: no one does this. No one stands up to these guys, not ever. Especially not for her.
“You serious?” Puck demands. Mike tenses. This could be the moment, he knows, when everything changes. The moment when just being on the football team won’t be enough to save him from an icy greeting each morning. He waits.
“Yeah. I’m serious.”
Karofsky looks like he’s itching to speak up, judging by the sneer on his lips, but Puck reaches out and smacks him in the chest before a word can be spoken. It’s Puck who’s in charge, he knows-at school, Finn Hudson calls the shots, but after that bell tolls, it’s all about the ‘hawk. Which can be really bad, since Puck has all the imagination of any sadistic Midwestern delinquent.
It can also be very good.
The other boy shrugs, clapping a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Whatever. I gotta clean some gutters anyway. See you tomorrow?”
Wordlessly, hands trembling, Mike nods. They disperse, a few grumbling, others debating the nearest Burger King. He is left standing there, backpack slipping off one shoulder, facing Rachel Berry.
He didn’t really think this part through.
It’s awkward for a long moment; her eyes are closed, her head tilted back against the fence as she slowly gathers herself. He feels weird facing her, like he’s supposed to be saying something. In Rachel’s world, words tend to solve everything.
Or songs. But he’s really not in a musical mood.
“So, um.” He runs his fingers through his hair uncomfortably. “I guess I should…”
She doesn’t speak. That’s freakier than anything else.
“Do you have a ride or something?” he presses, barely gratified when she gives a short nod. He sighs. “Look, Rachel, those guys-“
“I appreciate your assistance,” she says abruptly, her tone clipped. Mike shuffles.
He’s probably going to regret this, but whatever; it’s not like the rest of the afternoon hasn’t been stupendously unparalleled.
She jumps when his hand touches her elbow, eyes flicking open and burning warily into him. He shrugs.
“Come on, I’ll walk you.”
He doesn’t remember why he knows where she lives; probably a fourth-grade birthday party or something. His mom has always been good at forcing him out of the house for courtesy’s sake. At any rate, her house isn’t too far from his. And it’s the polite thing to do.
He grimaces. Polite is going to be cold comfort if Karofsky decides to kick his ass in the morning.
It takes two blocks for her to stop doing her best Matt impression, and by then he’s feeling really unsteady about the whole situation. Rachel has been in his life, technically speaking, for years, but he can’t remember the last time they made eye contact. The girl is weird-unabashedly so-and as far as he can tell, she hasn’t had a friend since elementary school.
It makes him sad for her sake, but it doesn’t mean he wants the job. Saving a girl from getting tormented is one thing, but friendship?
Not that she seems to see the distinction.
“I really do appreciate you stepping in like that,” she yammers, beaming her megawatt, gonna-be-a-star-someday smile up at him as they trudge along. “You’re a really nice guy, Mike. I would even go so far as to call you a hero. No one ever wants to stick their neck out that way, not with boys like David and Noah standing in the way. I’m really honored that you would-“
He feels bad for tuning her out, but seriously. The girl has a mouth like that robot on Star Wars, and he’s starting to think she breathes just as infrequently.
“And I really would love to repay you,” she’s saying when he stops staring at the wispy clouds long enough to listen again. “Maybe…I mean…”
That she’s stuttering over the words confuses and worries him. He kicks a rock and glances sideways, curious. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe you could…” She takes a deep breath, like she’s about to go over a cliff, and the next words come out in a steady cluster: “YoucouldhavedinnerwithmyfathersandIifyouwantedto.”
He scratches his head. Dinner with the Berry family? If anyone ever found out, he’d be crucified. Strung up for days on the flag pole. It would be a social catastrophe.
But does he care? She’s looking at him so hopefully, her bottom lip between her teeth, the anxiety in her eyes telling him what he already knows: she doesn’t risk this very often. Maybe she hasn’t done so in years; maybe the rejections were just too much.
If he says yes, things will get harder than they used to be. She will think they’re friends. She’ll start following him around, hanging on his sleeve, pressing him to join Glee or something equally uncool. She might even try to convince him to be her boyfriend.
Her smile is so hesitant, so unlike the expressions he’s used to seeing on the girls at school. She looks nearly desperate, like his answer will make or break her in an instant.
He feels himself nod.
5
Nobody can dance like Brittany Pierce.
He’s known her since they were kids, and even back then, there was a certain synergy between her body and the atmosphere around her. She’s always been graceful, beautiful, and totally alluring.
He has pondered being in love with her since they were eleven.
Not that he ever really got what love was back then; truthfully, he’s not sure he knows now. Sixteen is not old enough for forevers and marry-yous and all the other little details Puck sneers at and Rachel swoons over. Sixteen is barely old enough for anything.
But at sixteen, Brittany is a glorious blonde specimen with inhumanly perfect legs and hips that can do the impossible. He might not be in love with her, but there’s definitely something he can’t shake.
Whatever it is, it’s gotten worse since they all joined Glee. He sees her, laughing and high-fiving the others after a particularly brutal round of choreography, and it’s all he can do not to fall down on his knees then and there. He never does, of course, or will, because that sort of crap would scare a normal girl senseless. Not that Brittany is normal. Not that he wants her to be.
It’s a giant mess.
He would love to be suave enough to say something about it, but there’s one major problem that goes beyond a little shyness: that girl is never, ever alone.
She practically lives in that Cheerio skirt, and that means never leaving the bubble of scary-hot that includes Quinn Fabray and Santana Lopez. Specifically Santana. They’ve been inseparable since the dawn of time, and while he likes Santana okay, Mike is so not willing to cut in the middle of that.
So he stands with Matt and the other football guys, occasionally giving Puck a subtle glare or Rachel a nervous shake of the head when she gets too close, and Brittany remains where she is. Beautiful. Graceful. Not his.
Not that he’s been sulking about it.
The weeks drag on, every rehearsal tugging a little on his heart, and no one seems to notice. No one seems to notice him much in general, actually; he doesn’t have the kind of voice the rest of the guys do, and Schuester doesn’t care so much about dancing unless he’s the one doing it, so Mike has grown used to standing on the sidelines. He and Matt make a game of rocking out on their own time, ignored by the rest of the team in favor of Rachel’s powerhouse ballads or Mercedes’ gospel soul. It’s pretty okay. He doesn’t ask for more.
It surprises the hell out of him when, one afternoon after practice, that changes.
He’s sitting by himself in the choir room, waiting for his mom to brave the rainstorm charging outside, when a hand falls unexpectedly on his head. He jumps, positive for a moment that the football team has finally decided to stop whaling on Finn and take to tormenting him instead.
When all he sees are a pair of bright blue eyes and a stunning smile, he can’t help but stare.
“Hiya,” Brittany greets him, ruffling his hair like they do this all the time. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah,” he agrees dazedly. “Why are you?”
She shrugs. “Waiting for S. She’s at a meeting with Coach. I could’ve stayed, but sometimes I like to be surprised later by Coach’s plans. It’s like a present.”
Everybody knows that Sue Sylvester’s plans generally revolve around the destruction of Glee, so Mike’s not sure ‘present’ is the right word for the situation. Still, it puts Brittany here-without her permanently-scowling bestie on her arm-so he doesn’t see the point in complaining.
“Glee was good today,” she says companionably, leaning on his shoulder for balance. He resists the temptation to shrug.
“Sure.”
Her eyes narrow knowingly. “You didn’t dance.”
He’s baffled that she’s acting like she noticed; no one ever does. “I danced a little,” he argues, perturbed when she gives his head a playful shove.
“Not the way you usually do. Not the way you should.” Rocking his shoulders from side to side, she beams. “You’re a dancin’ machine, Mikey.”
He’s not sure he’d go that far. Just because he can keep rhythm well, and twirl with startling ease, and sometimes the flexibility of his limbs disturbs his mother a little…
Okay, maybe a little.
“It’s no big deal,” he tells her, embarrassed. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes like she thinks he’s just being aggressively modest, but that isn’t it at all. He genuinely doesn’t think of himself that way. He’s just Mike Chang; he likes music, and he likes to move, but that doesn’t make him special or anything.
He’s definitely not like her.
She makes a grab for his wrists, and before he can blink, she has hauled him to his feet and is swaying from side to side. He frowns, hands going instinctively to his pockets.
"What are we doing?"
"What's it look like?" she fires back, eyes twinkling merrily. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
"I don't really feel like--"
"Don't care," she sing-songs. "You didn't get it out during practice, so you're getting it out now. People like us need this, Mike. Otherwise the music will build up and explode somewhere weird. Like a football game. Or the eye doctor."
There's probably a story there. He decides now isn't the time. There's something a little more essential:
People like us.
"You like me, don't you?" she breezes on abruptly, forcing him to spin her in a triad of sharp, small circles under his arm. Unprepared for the mild accusation, Mike jerks.
"Well, sure. I mean, you're...you're cool and stuff--"
"I mean like me," she clarifies, tossing a grin over her shoulder. "The way Finn likes Quinn, and Rachel likes Finn. The way I like Santana."
The way I like Santana.
Well, if that isn't utterly devastating.
"I don't know what you're--"
"It's sweet," she says calmly, performing an on-the-spot kind of quick step and motioning for him to parrot it back to her. He's so flustered, he trips over himself three times and nearly face-plants on the last kick-turn.
"Sweet isn't...what a guy usually likes to hear, Britt."
"But it is," she insists, cheerful as ever. "You're a sweet guy, Mike. Maybe the sweetest. If I didn't have San, I would totally date you."
It's not the most comforting thing he's ever heard, probably because the day Santana Lopez deserts Brittany Pierce will likely coincide with Noah Puckerman's entrance into the Christian priesthood.
Brittany, however, seems to think she's doing him a grand favor. She pushes at his chest, giggling when he instinctively spins away, swinging his arms for balance.
"Why are we talking about this?" he asks, a little breathlessly. Brittany shrugs.
"You always look like you're waiting for something. Waiting hurts. I wanted to fix it. Santana says helping a boy is kind of like cutting his balls off, but I think she's just being silly."
There are few things in this world that strike him as less silly than Santana Lopez talking about cutting man-junk. Containing his shudder, he runs his fingers shakily through his hair.
"So now what?"
Blue eyes blink confusedly back. "What do you mean?"
"What are you expecting me to do now?" he asks, feeling a little deflated and suddenly exhausted. Ignoring her outstretched hand, he backs up a few paces and sinks down in his chair again, less than pleased when she brushes her bangs off of her forehead and follows.
"For one thing, I think you should be dancing more."
Chuckling uncomfortably, he shakes his head. "Dancing. That's what you're focusing on?"
"That's what matters," she observes bluntly. When he tilts his head at her, eyebrows knitted, she waves a hand in the air. "Dance is...awesome. And you're awesome at it. You should always do what you're awesome at."
It's bizarre logic; he has absolutely no idea how it fits together with her at-ease rejection. Then again, Brittany isn't really known for making a lot of sense.
"I don't know if I see the point right now, Britt."
Her eyes flick to the door, ears apparently picking up on the sneaker treads echoing down McKinley's empty halls. Incoming.
"You will," she tells him, seconds before Santana appears in the doorway with a scowl and a jerk of her head. "Can't stop the motion, Mikey."
He frowns at the floor, arms folded across his lap, feeling considerably less optimistic than he did ten minutes ago as he listens to her footsteps fading across the choir room floor.
He barely has time to register their return when her arms fling around his neck, a warm mouth pressing tenderly to his own for mere seconds. By the time he's able to really feel it, she has pulled away again, casting a steady smile down.
"Kinda getting mixed messages," he murmurs shakily, touching his lips with two trembling fingers. She giggles.
"I can't date you, Mike." Her voice unexpectedly lowers to a stage whisper. "I'm in love with Santana."
He nods dazedly, watching the pleats of her uniform sway as she gives a cheery little wiggle.
"But like I said, you're sweet. And I figure maybe a kiss will tide you over until, y'know. You find someone you can be in love with too."
It's faulty logic. All of Brittany's logic is faulty. But honestly, he thinks he likes that about her.
Watching her walk away, looping an arm through Santana's and laughing her full-body laugh, is not the easiest thing he has ever done. A definitive part of him aches to leap up and run after her, risking life and limb to tear her from her best friend's grasp and beg her to stay with him instead. For the space of a single heartbeat, he almost gives in.
There's just something about the two of them that stops him before he can leave the chair--something that rushes through him like wildfire. Santana is smiling, the way Santana almost never does, like her whole world is standing right here in this room. And Brittany, she looks just as euphoric--maybe even more so.
He can't deny that he likes her a lot, but damn, he has never felt anything like that.
Five years of crushing have just gone straight down the toilet, and he can't even complain. Because that is what love is supposed to look like.
Sweet guy. That was probably meant to help, and a couple of days or weeks from now, he thinks it really might. Sweet guys might not be the biggest or the baddest around, but according to the movies, they always get the girl. Eventually.
Sighing, he taps the toe of his sneaker against the ground and leans back again to wait.
Pairing: Mike Chang/various friendships
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Through S2.
Summary: Mike isn't really the get-the-girl type, per se.
A/N: For Lynne's birthday. It's only like a week late. XD But at least it's here!
1
Meeting Santana Lopez is just about the scariest thing that has ever happened to him.
It has little to do with the reasons that will eventually pile up against her-the obsession with social tyranny, the sexual discipline, the way she can roll her eyes and make a guy feel like he’s got nothing to offer this world-and more to do with how hard she can throw a damn baseball. At thirteen years old, Santana Lopez is not exactly the tomboy to end Ohio, but nor is she Quinn Fabray’s picture-perfect daddy’s-little-girl doll. She straddles that middle line with terrifying ease, and none of the boys are sure what to do with her.
Especially during summer pick-up games.
The teams are uneven; with the sun going down, some of the usual suspects aren’t allowed to stay out long enough to finish the ninth inning. Mike feels like there’s something especially girly about Finn Hudson only being able to play until dinnertime, but moms can be loony-he of all people gets that. And with Finn down, the opposing team has picked up…
Santana.
He swallows hard.
Pitching is fun most of the time; he doesn’t love running, and he doesn’t care a whole lot about how hard he can hit the ball, but he’s got better aim than anyone else out here. Plus, he’s shorter than most people his age (the Asian gene is working against him something fierce, he thinks with frustration), so he doesn’t usually have to duck to avoid getting pelted in the face by line-drive specialists like Noah Puckerman (he does it on purpose, Mike is sure of it; Noah’s kind of a dick sometimes). It just makes sense to put him on the mound.
And he likes it just fine-it’s fun to watch the faces of guys who could totally beat him up if they wanted to contort in shock as he strikes them out one by one. The only part that isn’t so fun is going up against a girl who will smile flirtatiously at him in one breath and chase him with the bat in the next.
That Brittany Pierce likes to hangs out on the sidelines, picking flowers and practicing her cheerleading in the name of her terrifying best friend, doesn’t really help his nerves. Brittany is pretty-a little dim, but he doesn’t mind-and he hates looking like an idiot in front of her.
Especially when it’s Santana’s fault.
She’s up to bat now, and it takes more courage than he wants to admit not to back down and throw the game then and there. His team is actually winning (rare, since he and Matt Rutherford aren’t much of a match against the Hudson/Puckerman dream team), but that doesn’t rule out Dave Karofsky being on third behind him. That’s really the only thing keeping him in the game; Karofsky’s the kind of douche who, if Mike gives in now, will let him live it down sometime around eleventh grade.
If he’s lucky.
Besides, Santana’s scary as hell, but she’s still a girl. He can take a girl. Probably.
She winks at him from behind the plate, baseball cap turned backwards over her ponytail, and shuffles her feet around. Biting the inside of his cheek nervously, Mike hefts the ball, spinning the laces against his palm. He can hear Puckerman wolf-whistling. Also not helpful.
“You gonna stare at my beautiful face all night, or are you gonna throw?” Santana jeers, elbows primed to knock the ball into the slowly emerging starscape above them. He closes his eyes for a moment and draws in a deep breath.
The first throw is wild, sailing right over her head. She pops her hip, eyebrow arched, every inch of her expression screaming, Seriously? Puckerman whoops.
“Psych him out, babe!”
“Call me babe again and I’m gonna score a homer off your big dumb head,” Santana returns smartly. Despite himself, Mike grins.
All he has to do, he reasons with himself, is throw a fastball. No one has been able to take out his fastball all summer, not even Puckerman. He would use it more often, but it’s sort of a new development, and he doesn’t trust himself to get it right each and every time.
Tonight, though. Tonight, it’s his secret weapon. Santana’s never faced down the Changster before. It’ll be boss-he’ll get her and Karofksy out, win the game, and Brittany will finally be able to look away from Santana long enough to see how cool he really is. It’s going to be-
Thwack!
Oh, hell, he thinks miserably, half a second before the ball he’s just whipped comes sailing back to catch him in the eye.
He’s on his back before he knows it, listening to Karofksy round home plate as his teammates scramble to retrieve what should-despite his throbbing head-technically be Mike’s ball. A long cheer rises from where Puckerman was last spotted, a sound that could only mean Santana has just drilled someone with her elbow and flown around the bases at record speed. Great.
There really doesn’t feel like much of a point to standing up under the circumstances. His whole head feels massive, his eyes watering, and if he has to make eye contact with Karofsky or any of those other stupidly-muscular apes, he thinks he might just lose his mind. Plus, the longer he stays down here, the less likely Brittany will be to notice him at all. It’s better to be invisible than a complete loser.
The hand that appears above him is startling, tan and tipped with blunt black-painted nails. He blinks dumbly up at it.
“It’s supposed to rain tonight,” Santana informs him, her free hand on her hip. The front of her t-shirt is smudged with dirt, as if she slid into home to prove a point. Knowing her, she probably did.
“So?” he mutters, staring determinedly past her head. Unfortunately, it does look a little cloudier than a few minutes ago. He kind of hates it when Santana’s right about stuff.
“So stop laying around like a wuss,” she commands, grabbing his wrist without asking and yanking him to his feet. He scowls as she brushes the dirt off his back a little harder than he would generally like before looking him dead in the eye.
“I really busted your face, huh?”
“I guess,” he grumbles, kicking a rock. She grins.
“You have to admit it was awesome.”
Shaking his head, he looks up at the sky again. “They’re gonna make fun of me for weeks.”
Surprisingly, he feels a tug on his collar; when he meets her eyes again, her smile has faded.
“No, they won’t.”
He wants to ask why she sounds so certain about it, like she’s already taken care of business (what business that might be is exactly why he’s afraid to ask; Santana Lopez is, as previously mentioned, scary as hell). Instead, he shrugs a little.
“You hit my fastball,” he points out grumpily. “Nobody’s done that before.”
“Yeah, well.” She surprises him, reaching up to adjust the hat that sits rather crookedly atop his head as her shoulders lift and drop carelessly. “It was kind of a shitty fastball.”
It’s not funny-especially given how painfully his eye is throbbing-but he finds himself smiling stupidly anyway. “I’m still working on it.”
Her eyes sparkle in the semi-darkness, gazing up at him, and for a brief, heart-stopping second, he thinks he’s about to receive his first kiss. He has always imagined the girl in this position to be a little taller and a lot blonder, but somehow, with how pretty her eyes are, he doesn’t feel like he would mind this instead.
Not that he has to worry about it, because all Santana does is cuff him playfully on the shoulder and turn away. “Let me know when you get it down,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ll be happy to black the other one for you.”
Leave it to Santana Lopez to break his face and leave him laughing in the darkness five minutes later.
Really, she’s super terrifying.
2
He really doesn’t know how to feel about Noah Puckerman sometimes.
On the one hand, the kid is kind of a monster. He runs around talking shit about absolutely everybody, he obsesses about his reputation as the resident bad boy to unhealthy degrees, and that mohawk is ridiculous. And that isn’t even mentioning the way he treats girls.
If Mike were to get half the action Puck sees, he’d have already hawked his CD collection and a ream of baseball cards, and picked up a paper route just to pay for all the flowers and chocolate a girl could possibly want. He’s planned this to the nines for the day it finally pans out and he stops losing out to…
Well. To guys like Puck.
Sometimes he thinks he kind of hates the guy, with his sneering face and his stupid Star Wars jokes. Not that he hates Star Wars. Or jokes, for the matter. It’s just that, when Puck is around, those things suddenly become a lot to handle.
But nobody is all bad, he’s realized over the years, and that includes fourteen-year-old, mega-jackass Noah Puckerman.
Particularly on rainy days. When he finds himself here.
Puck’s room isn’t big-it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest the kid sort of lives in a closet-but there’s something homey about it. Mike definitely isn’t Jewish, but he finds the menorah-print wallpaper endearing all the same. Not that he could ever say so to Puck out loud without getting a knuckle sandwich in return.
The point is, as little as he likes Noah Puckerman sometimes, there is something really awesome about hanging out with the guy. Just as long as they’re completely alone. He’s found Puck cares less about how he looks when other people aren’t staring over his shoulder-and when Puck doesn’t care how he looks, he mostly winds up looking like a trash-talking video game fiend with a sincerely disquieting weakness for Pepsi products.
All of which Mike can happily relate to.
“You’re going right the fuck down,” he hears in his left ear, two seconds before his Bond explodes on the screen. Frustrated, he turns sideways and glares daggers at that stupid mohawk.
“We’re on the same team.”
“Since when?” Puck asks genially, tapping the controls and smirking. Mike rolls his eyes.
“Since you insisted on playing as Dominique, jerk.”
“What?” Puck shrugs, bumping him a hair too vigorously with one meaty shoulder. “She’s got a great rack.”
Mike shakes his head. “Just…aim for a ninja or something, will you?”
Okay, even on his own, Puck can be something of a blockhead. Mike supposes these things can’t be helped.
Even so, the atmosphere is cozy in a way Mike doesn’t find often. Edged on Puck’s cot-like bed, squinting at his tiny television set, he feels more free than just about anywhere else.
It’s high school that’s getting to him, he thinks as he picks up a sentinel and takes up station on a rooftop corner. High school is supposed to be all pretty girls and rocking the football team with his Speedy Gonzalez skills, but they’re midway through October, and so far, all Mike has seen are apologetic rejections and face-fulls of turf. He’s not as bulky as the other guys, or as quick with a joke, or half as comfortable talking to anybody outside of Matt-and Matt practically doesn’t even count, since their longtime friendship is based mostly around pizza and customized sign language anyway. He understands how Matt works.
It’s the rest of McKinley he takes issue with. High school is pretty much the opposite of everything he so foolishly dreamed, and it sucks. That considered, it’s really nice to forget about it for a while. Just sit in this room and-
“Damn it,” he growls, stamping a sock-clad foot down. Puck grins.
“Keep your eyes open next time, dude.”
Mike grits his teeth. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Live by it, bro,” Puck replies cheerfully, turning his sniper on someone from the opposite team for the first time all afternoon. Mike sighs. This is the quirk about hanging out with Puck: he can’t even get pissed when the guy does stupid shit. Stupid shit is pretty much Puck’s calling card, after all; Mike figures he’d be concerned if ever he started acting like a normal person.
Besides, he can’t deny that there’s a certain simplistic happiness in this room. Comfortably clad in sweatpants and a torn hoodie, Puck looks content-an expression not worn easily on a guy whose dad ditched out before he could accomplish jack. Mike knows he shouldn’t feel sorry for Puck-it’s not like the dude would respond well to normal-person sympathy-but he sort of does anyway. Secretly, he wishes he could share his own father, but he knows Puck wouldn’t go for that either. It takes a special person to deal with the epic amount of Asian in his household (sometimes, it’s even too much for Mike himself to handle), and if that were to be piled upon Puck’s classically overbearing Jewish mother…
Things happen for a reason, he settles for reminding himself, dodging a grenade blast. Puck may not have a dad, but maybe that’s okay. Finn Hudson doesn’t have one either, and he seems to be turning out all right.
Although neither boy seems to have an IQ much higher than that of a fire hydrant…something to consider, he supposes.
“Ohh!” Puck shouts, fist pumping in the air as he makes the last of the necessary kills to end the game. Mike shakes his head again, smiling a little.
“Half those kills were me, dumbass.”
“And they were beautiful.” Grinning, Puck chucks his controller off the side of the bed and flops backwards. “Man, this shit is the life. They should pay me to do this.”
“Kill Asians?”
The good-natured punch catches him off-guard as Puck laughs. “Don’t get all butt-hurt about it, Changster. You know you’re my boy.”
It’s a struggle to keep his features arranged in a placid expression when, really, all Mike wants to do is stare at Puck like a slack-jawed yokel.
“Your boy, huh?”
“Not in a gay way,” Puck rushes to amend, hooking his arms behind his head. “Just. Y’know. You’d back me up in a fight, and stuff. That’s cool.”
It’s quite the bold statement; Mike, as a rule, isn’t much of a fighter. He’s not yet been asked to step up to that particular plate, even with the sheerly fascinating number of Neanderthals running around McKinley, and he’s been silently praying he will never have to. He likes to think he’s just likable enough-and has just enough friends like Puck-to avoid getting his face mashed in.
But Puck seems to really believe what he’s just said about Mike being his boy, so he slowly nods and accepts it. Fact is, Puck is one of the coolest kids in school. He can take care of himself, but his reputation means he doesn’t have to-which in turn means Mike will probably never have to worry about this whole debate.
The part that really counts is how Puck just called him cool.
He wants to say something about it, make this moment a turning point for the rest of his high school career, but making a huge deal out of the situation would pretty much make it crash and burn altogether. He scratches his neck.
“Yeah. S’cool.”
“Totally,” Puck confirms, stretching and reaching again for the controller. “So. Round two? I wanna see if I can make your pansy ass cry like a woman.”
Yeah, he really should think about making friends with less abusive people.
In the meantime, revenge is pretty damn sweet.
3
Quinn Fabray is untouchable.
She’s seriously the most perfect thing in this school. He doesn’t even like her that much, honestly-liking a person usually requires speaking to them at length, and the longest conversation they’ve ever had centered around a pencil and a pop quiz in Algebra that had her rolling those gorgeous eyes his way-but he can’t deny it. She’s a goddess. Everyone knows it.
He thinks sometimes about what it would be like to date someone like Quinn Fabray. Not Quinn herself, per se, since he knows that’ll never happen. Girls like Quinn-girls who go fishing for the head cheerleader position from the first day of ninth grade-don’t date guys like Mike Chang. Not that he isn’t a catch, he reminds himself steadily, because he is. Fall semester was a little rough, but he really has the hang of things now that February has rolled around. He has plenty of friends, and sometimes girls actually come to him instead of the so-very-awkward other way around.
Still, Quinn’s different. That breed of girl just wasn’t meant to date guys like him. She’s practically tailor-made to hang on the arm of the quarterback-a position Mike knows all too well he will never hold.
Not that he wants to. He gets sacked enough as Just Another Dude on that field, thanks. Leave the QB brutality to someone who cares less how many blows to the noggin he receives.
He doesn’t think he would ever even get a chance to talk to her if they weren’t in three of the same classes. Of course, two of the three also contain one Santana Lopez, who hasn’t really diminished in ferocity since the summer she blacked his eye. She seems to like him about a third of the time (it’s possible that, under all the fangs and venom, there does beat a friendly heart…maybe), but she is still the most intimidating girl in the school.
Apart from Quinn herself, anyway.
So two of the three are automatically out. The third wouldn’t be much of an option either, since Finn Hudson is always making eyes at her when they should be reading Shakespeare-Finn being That Guy, the reasonably nice dude who doesn’t mind getting conked over the head as many times as it takes to lead them kicking and screaming to a win. As long as Finn, hulking, dumb, and destined for quarterback greatness, is around, Mike doesn’t have a shot in hell.
It’s at the tail end of February that he gets lucky: Finn gets nailed with the world’s nastiest head cold, knocking him out of school for a solid week. The same week, fortune has it, set aside for partnered projects on the tragedies.
Which is how Mike Chang, so nervous he could puke, finds himself at the Fabray table with his eyes glued to Othello.
He doesn’t remember asking her to be his partner. He has absolutely no memory whatsoever of standing up, striding to her desk, and spitting out that particular proposition. If someone were to inform him that an alien strongly resembling one Michael Chang had done the deed for him, he would not be remotely surprised.
Either way, it changes nothing. Someone put the concept on the table. Quinn accepted, all pursed lips and dainty hands. And here they are.
He really, really hopes he doesn’t throw up.
“So, I was thinking we could discuss Desdemona’s, um, lack of agency in light of Othello’s…” He trails off, staring so hard at the page that his vision blurs. From the very edge of his periphery, he sees her raise an eyebrow.
“One-way ticket to crazy town?”
He nods mutely and hears her sigh, followed by the scrape of her chair. Glancing up, he sees her fold her legs beneath her body, wrapping one arm around her knee.
It’s strange to see her here, out of her ever-present Cheerio uniform. This whole house is a little bizarre-definitely the most straight-laced living area he has ever seen, with nary a speck of dust out of place-and she looks…
Like she doesn’t fit in. Which is especially baffling, because Quinn Fabray fits in everywhere.
Still, sitting here in a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, hair brushing around her face with just a hint of static cling, she looks…human. More than that, she looks young. A little bored, a little tired, completely and utterly fourteen.
He realizes with a jolt that he never thinks of her that way. Hasn’t in a couple of years, in fact. It’s weird, but in his mind, Quinn Fabray has been beyond age since the sixth grade or so.
Except she’s really not. She’s just like him-albeit much more beautiful-and right now, she looks like she would rather be anywhere else.
“You okay?” he hears himself ask hesitantly. There’s no way to tell what has possessed him to say such a stupid thing, and from the way her head snaps up, eyes blazing, he regrets it. You don’t call into question Quinn Fabray’s state of being. You just don’t. That’s like asking God if He has the flu; it’s dumb as hell, and no one would ever think to do it.
“Fine,” she replies coolly. The tips of his ears go red hot in response.
“Cool,” he mumbles, shoulders instinctively rolling up as if to protect from an incoming blow. She sighs again.
“Group projects are lame.”
He’s not positive they qualify as a group, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t agree with the lame part either, but catches himself nodding all the same. It’s weird, he thinks, that he can’t seem to stop himself, as if disagreeing with Quinn is so horrifying a notion that his own opinions cease to matter as long as he is inside her home. What would Puck say about this?
He bites the inside of his cheek, shaking his head subtly. It’s a stupid question. Puck wouldn’t say anything-or at least, not anything productive.
Even more hilarious is the idea that Puck would ever be allowed in this house-that’s something that is just never going to happen. Mike needs to cast off his What Would the ‘Hawk Do bracelet and handle this on his own.
Which is…terrifying. Because Quinn is watching him steadily right now, eyebrows hitched to her hairline, and crap, how long has he been sitting here with his nose in this book, anyway?
“Um,” he begins shakily, “so, how do we want to, uh…PowerPoint?”
“You sound like Berry,” she observes, eyes narrowed. He can’t see how that could be true; for one thing, Rachel Berry has never, in his memory, delivered a sentence with quite so many ‘um’s. Plus, it’s common knowledge that Quinn hates Rachel-in that truly special, utter loathing kind of way-so the comparison is…less than glittering.
“Do I freak you out?” she asks, somehow abrupt and calm at the same time. The way a queen ought to speak.
“No?” It bothers him that it comes out like a question. Her head tilts a fraction of an inch.
“Intimidate, then? You’re not looking well, Mike. Either I’m scaring you senseless or you’re coming down with mono.”
She’s making fun of him. He sinks down in his chair, weighted by the realization.
“Speak up,” she prompts. “Do I scare you?”
“Yes,” he replies meekly, eyes reading and rereading Iago’s inflammatory, misogynistic remarks until they burn into his brain. Across the table, her chair scrapes again.
“Mike.”
He doesn’t move. This was such a bad idea. He should have left it, should have let someone else take over, or invented a time machine to prevent Finn from getting sick in the first place. He shouldn’t be here right now. Quinn Fabray does not give the time of day to guys like him.
“Look at me, you weirdo.”
His eyes jerk up without the consent of his brain, pinned in an instant by her serious expression. She’s beautiful, and powerful, and a little sad. He figures that’s a pretty standard combination for McKinley’s resident sweetheart.
“Let’s get this straight, okay?” she begins forcefully, surprising him. “You’re in my house, and in my house, my rules go. So stop sitting there looking like you’re waiting for the axe to fall, all right? We’ve known each other since the first grade. You should know by now I stopped biting when I was, like, eight.”
A joke-he thinks. Warily, he allows himself a brief smile.
“Seriously,” she presses on, waving an impatient hand. “I’m popular, not the pope. Chill out, will you? We have to give this presentation on Monday, and it’s not going to happen if all you can do is stand there gaping in terror.”
She has a point. It’s not quite enough to break the spell, but his shoulders do slump a little, fingers slackening around the book. For the next thirty minutes, they are distressingly productive, and the one time he stammers, she does not call him out on it. It’s actually kind of nice.
In a treading-on-landmines kind of way.
He doesn’t know why he asks it. He’s already tried to walk this road once today, and it didn’t end well. He should be learning from his mistakes, especially with a girl like this one. All the same, the question spills out.
“Are you happy?”
This time, she doesn’t bother looking up. Surprisingly, her lips curve into an almost-smile. It’s just as pretty as anything else on her.
“Strange question to ask, Mike Chang.”
“Not really,” he denies, tapping the end of his pen against the table. “I’m just curious.”
“About me being happy,” she replies calmly, scratching out a few notes and flipping the pages in her book. “I don’t know. Seems pretty weird to me.”
“You’re not answering,” he points out, wondering as he does if he has really lost his mind. He shouldn’t be pushing this. It’s her home, and her life-she has all the right in the world not to respond. Hell, she has all the right in the world to just up and kick him out. She should be with someone else anyway, someone like Finn, someone who will dutifully do his job and give her a smile and maybe ask her out for pizza and bowling right before he walks home-
“No,” she says softly. He looks up just in time to see her bite her lip, wearing a tiny, self-deprecating smile.
“No.”
“Not even a little bit,” she says, and starts to laugh. It’s a melodious sound, equal parts heartbreaking and gorgeous, and he thinks it will haunt his dreams tonight. He doesn’t mind.
“You should probably work on that,” he advises her, grinning a little himself. She crumples a piece of paper and lobs it at his head.
“Thank you, Mike Chang. That is some really sage advice.”
He shrugs, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth until the grin fades away. “Someone’s gotta give it, right?”
Her eyes are almost green, he notices, as she stares him down across the table. The silence hangs between them for a moment, just long enough for doubt to creep back in and clutch around his heart.
She shakes her head, smiling the saddest smile he has ever seen on a ninth grader.
“I guess so.”
He wonders if Finn would have asked something like that.
4
Rachel Berry is a complete enigma in his eyes.
She’s something of a damn contradiction, really. He has never met a person with that much ambition in his life-wouldn’t know how to contain such a vast ego in his own body, much less that miniature frame-and yet he hears from reliable sources (Santana, Kurt Hummel, Quinn Fabray) that she spends every single day doing…this.
He wonders why nobody has said something before now.
Because someone should speak up when they see stuff like this, shouldn’t they? That’s the normal, compassionate reaction to watching…
But then again, he’s never commented before either. So maybe he’s not perfect. So maybe none of them are. Rachel certainly isn’t. She’s loud, possesses an egregious amount of vocabulary words no one else would ever use, and flounders horribly in social situations. The common descriptor (from Santana, Kurt Hummel, Quinn Fabray) is ‘obnoxious’. She seems to have a sincere knack for driving the world insane.
Still…
There’s something really unappealing about people who will back a five-foot-two girl in a rainbow-patterned sweater against a fence and hold her there, sneering. It’s worse that they’re people he knows, somehow; that makes it so much less…
He’s not sure what to do about it.
Because these are guys he plays with on the team. Guys who are-still, always, the curse of his Asian heritage-more muscular. More confident. More…
Douchey.
Karofsky, Azimo, even Puck-they’re all guilty of it. He shuffles his books under one arm uneasily and watches as one kid slams an open palm against the chain-link, laughing like a maniac when she flinches. They’re not actually touching her, as far as he can see, and maybe that makes it worse. The constant trepidation, hovering on the edge of certainty, waiting forever for a blow that never comes-
Girls shouldn’t have to deal with this shit.
Not that dudes should either, he thinks somberly, jaw clenched. No one should. It’s just as bad when Artie Abrams’ chair is wedged into small spaces, or when Kurt Hummel gets rammed into the flagpole. It sucks that this is how their school chooses to maintain its hierarchy, and it sucks worse that Mike himself would become a target if he even thought about stepping in.
Except right now? He’s thinking about it.
Because Rachel is irritating, absolutely. Her eyes shine a little too brightly for comfort, her tongue moves a little too fast around words just a little too grating. But she’s a fifteen year old girl.
And he really won’t be able to look his mother in the eye tonight if he walks away now.
He crosses the yard in a few long strides, reassuring himself on the way that they might be stronger, but he has always been lighter on his feet. When he’s three feet away, Puck’s head tilts to the side, a kamikaze grin stretching across his features.
Mike likes Puckerman often enough, but sometimes it’s undeniable: the kid can be a real sociopath.
“Chang! You wanna do me a favor and go pick up a slushie?”
The slushie regime: the pride and joy of McKinley uber-jocks. Mike shakes his head. It seemed like a decent idea at first-a way to bully without physical harm. A zero tolerance policy would be a hell of a lot better, but he knows this school. Principal Figgins is utterly useless as an authority figure-and, actually, as anything other than a font of random presidential trivia-and no one else, not even Will Schuester or the sweet-but-creepy school counselor, is willing to pick up that slack. In that light, bullying becomes inescapable.
Slushies were supposed to be a kind alternative to swirlies and broken noses, but lately, Mike’s not so sure. He’s seen the looks on the faces of the victims; it doesn’t look pretty.
Well, actually, the colors are usually really vibrant and impressive. That part’s kind of neat.
But otherwise, highly distressing.
“Chang?” Puck gives his shoulder a hard little shake. “You look freaked, dude. Mr. Ryerson get you alone in his office or somethin’?”
“That homo gives me the creeps,” Karofsky announces. Under his arm, Mike sees Rachel stiffen.
Right, because that’s the other thing-the part of Rachel Berry’s existence that soaks up the most laughter, right after her big mouth and uncoordinated wardrobe: her two gay dads.
It’s the part that makes the least sense to Mike. Nobody makes fun of Finn for having a dad who died in the war, or Kurt for losing his mom to cancer a few years back. So why do they always come back to this with Rachel?
Karofsky leans down, putting his face right up against Rachel’s until their noses almost brush. “Your daddies hang out with that closet case fag? Huh? I bet he comes over for dinner all the time.”
“As a matter of fact,” she begins, the admirably prissy edge to her tone doing little to detract from how hard she’s shaking. He slams his hands against the fence again, grinning when she jumps and shuts up.
“That’s enough,” Mike murmurs. Puck slides him a curious frown.
“What’d you say?”
“That’s enough,” he repeats, barely any louder. “You guys are done here.”
They turn as one, staring at him like they can’t believe it, and that makes him feel sicker than ever. It only cements his fear: no one does this. No one stands up to these guys, not ever. Especially not for her.
“You serious?” Puck demands. Mike tenses. This could be the moment, he knows, when everything changes. The moment when just being on the football team won’t be enough to save him from an icy greeting each morning. He waits.
“Yeah. I’m serious.”
Karofsky looks like he’s itching to speak up, judging by the sneer on his lips, but Puck reaches out and smacks him in the chest before a word can be spoken. It’s Puck who’s in charge, he knows-at school, Finn Hudson calls the shots, but after that bell tolls, it’s all about the ‘hawk. Which can be really bad, since Puck has all the imagination of any sadistic Midwestern delinquent.
It can also be very good.
The other boy shrugs, clapping a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Whatever. I gotta clean some gutters anyway. See you tomorrow?”
Wordlessly, hands trembling, Mike nods. They disperse, a few grumbling, others debating the nearest Burger King. He is left standing there, backpack slipping off one shoulder, facing Rachel Berry.
He didn’t really think this part through.
It’s awkward for a long moment; her eyes are closed, her head tilted back against the fence as she slowly gathers herself. He feels weird facing her, like he’s supposed to be saying something. In Rachel’s world, words tend to solve everything.
Or songs. But he’s really not in a musical mood.
“So, um.” He runs his fingers through his hair uncomfortably. “I guess I should…”
She doesn’t speak. That’s freakier than anything else.
“Do you have a ride or something?” he presses, barely gratified when she gives a short nod. He sighs. “Look, Rachel, those guys-“
“I appreciate your assistance,” she says abruptly, her tone clipped. Mike shuffles.
He’s probably going to regret this, but whatever; it’s not like the rest of the afternoon hasn’t been stupendously unparalleled.
She jumps when his hand touches her elbow, eyes flicking open and burning warily into him. He shrugs.
“Come on, I’ll walk you.”
He doesn’t remember why he knows where she lives; probably a fourth-grade birthday party or something. His mom has always been good at forcing him out of the house for courtesy’s sake. At any rate, her house isn’t too far from his. And it’s the polite thing to do.
He grimaces. Polite is going to be cold comfort if Karofsky decides to kick his ass in the morning.
It takes two blocks for her to stop doing her best Matt impression, and by then he’s feeling really unsteady about the whole situation. Rachel has been in his life, technically speaking, for years, but he can’t remember the last time they made eye contact. The girl is weird-unabashedly so-and as far as he can tell, she hasn’t had a friend since elementary school.
It makes him sad for her sake, but it doesn’t mean he wants the job. Saving a girl from getting tormented is one thing, but friendship?
Not that she seems to see the distinction.
“I really do appreciate you stepping in like that,” she yammers, beaming her megawatt, gonna-be-a-star-someday smile up at him as they trudge along. “You’re a really nice guy, Mike. I would even go so far as to call you a hero. No one ever wants to stick their neck out that way, not with boys like David and Noah standing in the way. I’m really honored that you would-“
He feels bad for tuning her out, but seriously. The girl has a mouth like that robot on Star Wars, and he’s starting to think she breathes just as infrequently.
“And I really would love to repay you,” she’s saying when he stops staring at the wispy clouds long enough to listen again. “Maybe…I mean…”
That she’s stuttering over the words confuses and worries him. He kicks a rock and glances sideways, curious. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe you could…” She takes a deep breath, like she’s about to go over a cliff, and the next words come out in a steady cluster: “YoucouldhavedinnerwithmyfathersandIifyouwantedto.”
He scratches his head. Dinner with the Berry family? If anyone ever found out, he’d be crucified. Strung up for days on the flag pole. It would be a social catastrophe.
But does he care? She’s looking at him so hopefully, her bottom lip between her teeth, the anxiety in her eyes telling him what he already knows: she doesn’t risk this very often. Maybe she hasn’t done so in years; maybe the rejections were just too much.
If he says yes, things will get harder than they used to be. She will think they’re friends. She’ll start following him around, hanging on his sleeve, pressing him to join Glee or something equally uncool. She might even try to convince him to be her boyfriend.
Her smile is so hesitant, so unlike the expressions he’s used to seeing on the girls at school. She looks nearly desperate, like his answer will make or break her in an instant.
He feels himself nod.
5
Nobody can dance like Brittany Pierce.
He’s known her since they were kids, and even back then, there was a certain synergy between her body and the atmosphere around her. She’s always been graceful, beautiful, and totally alluring.
He has pondered being in love with her since they were eleven.
Not that he ever really got what love was back then; truthfully, he’s not sure he knows now. Sixteen is not old enough for forevers and marry-yous and all the other little details Puck sneers at and Rachel swoons over. Sixteen is barely old enough for anything.
But at sixteen, Brittany is a glorious blonde specimen with inhumanly perfect legs and hips that can do the impossible. He might not be in love with her, but there’s definitely something he can’t shake.
Whatever it is, it’s gotten worse since they all joined Glee. He sees her, laughing and high-fiving the others after a particularly brutal round of choreography, and it’s all he can do not to fall down on his knees then and there. He never does, of course, or will, because that sort of crap would scare a normal girl senseless. Not that Brittany is normal. Not that he wants her to be.
It’s a giant mess.
He would love to be suave enough to say something about it, but there’s one major problem that goes beyond a little shyness: that girl is never, ever alone.
She practically lives in that Cheerio skirt, and that means never leaving the bubble of scary-hot that includes Quinn Fabray and Santana Lopez. Specifically Santana. They’ve been inseparable since the dawn of time, and while he likes Santana okay, Mike is so not willing to cut in the middle of that.
So he stands with Matt and the other football guys, occasionally giving Puck a subtle glare or Rachel a nervous shake of the head when she gets too close, and Brittany remains where she is. Beautiful. Graceful. Not his.
Not that he’s been sulking about it.
The weeks drag on, every rehearsal tugging a little on his heart, and no one seems to notice. No one seems to notice him much in general, actually; he doesn’t have the kind of voice the rest of the guys do, and Schuester doesn’t care so much about dancing unless he’s the one doing it, so Mike has grown used to standing on the sidelines. He and Matt make a game of rocking out on their own time, ignored by the rest of the team in favor of Rachel’s powerhouse ballads or Mercedes’ gospel soul. It’s pretty okay. He doesn’t ask for more.
It surprises the hell out of him when, one afternoon after practice, that changes.
He’s sitting by himself in the choir room, waiting for his mom to brave the rainstorm charging outside, when a hand falls unexpectedly on his head. He jumps, positive for a moment that the football team has finally decided to stop whaling on Finn and take to tormenting him instead.
When all he sees are a pair of bright blue eyes and a stunning smile, he can’t help but stare.
“Hiya,” Brittany greets him, ruffling his hair like they do this all the time. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah,” he agrees dazedly. “Why are you?”
She shrugs. “Waiting for S. She’s at a meeting with Coach. I could’ve stayed, but sometimes I like to be surprised later by Coach’s plans. It’s like a present.”
Everybody knows that Sue Sylvester’s plans generally revolve around the destruction of Glee, so Mike’s not sure ‘present’ is the right word for the situation. Still, it puts Brittany here-without her permanently-scowling bestie on her arm-so he doesn’t see the point in complaining.
“Glee was good today,” she says companionably, leaning on his shoulder for balance. He resists the temptation to shrug.
“Sure.”
Her eyes narrow knowingly. “You didn’t dance.”
He’s baffled that she’s acting like she noticed; no one ever does. “I danced a little,” he argues, perturbed when she gives his head a playful shove.
“Not the way you usually do. Not the way you should.” Rocking his shoulders from side to side, she beams. “You’re a dancin’ machine, Mikey.”
He’s not sure he’d go that far. Just because he can keep rhythm well, and twirl with startling ease, and sometimes the flexibility of his limbs disturbs his mother a little…
Okay, maybe a little.
“It’s no big deal,” he tells her, embarrassed. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes like she thinks he’s just being aggressively modest, but that isn’t it at all. He genuinely doesn’t think of himself that way. He’s just Mike Chang; he likes music, and he likes to move, but that doesn’t make him special or anything.
He’s definitely not like her.
She makes a grab for his wrists, and before he can blink, she has hauled him to his feet and is swaying from side to side. He frowns, hands going instinctively to his pockets.
"What are we doing?"
"What's it look like?" she fires back, eyes twinkling merrily. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
"I don't really feel like--"
"Don't care," she sing-songs. "You didn't get it out during practice, so you're getting it out now. People like us need this, Mike. Otherwise the music will build up and explode somewhere weird. Like a football game. Or the eye doctor."
There's probably a story there. He decides now isn't the time. There's something a little more essential:
People like us.
"You like me, don't you?" she breezes on abruptly, forcing him to spin her in a triad of sharp, small circles under his arm. Unprepared for the mild accusation, Mike jerks.
"Well, sure. I mean, you're...you're cool and stuff--"
"I mean like me," she clarifies, tossing a grin over her shoulder. "The way Finn likes Quinn, and Rachel likes Finn. The way I like Santana."
The way I like Santana.
Well, if that isn't utterly devastating.
"I don't know what you're--"
"It's sweet," she says calmly, performing an on-the-spot kind of quick step and motioning for him to parrot it back to her. He's so flustered, he trips over himself three times and nearly face-plants on the last kick-turn.
"Sweet isn't...what a guy usually likes to hear, Britt."
"But it is," she insists, cheerful as ever. "You're a sweet guy, Mike. Maybe the sweetest. If I didn't have San, I would totally date you."
It's not the most comforting thing he's ever heard, probably because the day Santana Lopez deserts Brittany Pierce will likely coincide with Noah Puckerman's entrance into the Christian priesthood.
Brittany, however, seems to think she's doing him a grand favor. She pushes at his chest, giggling when he instinctively spins away, swinging his arms for balance.
"Why are we talking about this?" he asks, a little breathlessly. Brittany shrugs.
"You always look like you're waiting for something. Waiting hurts. I wanted to fix it. Santana says helping a boy is kind of like cutting his balls off, but I think she's just being silly."
There are few things in this world that strike him as less silly than Santana Lopez talking about cutting man-junk. Containing his shudder, he runs his fingers shakily through his hair.
"So now what?"
Blue eyes blink confusedly back. "What do you mean?"
"What are you expecting me to do now?" he asks, feeling a little deflated and suddenly exhausted. Ignoring her outstretched hand, he backs up a few paces and sinks down in his chair again, less than pleased when she brushes her bangs off of her forehead and follows.
"For one thing, I think you should be dancing more."
Chuckling uncomfortably, he shakes his head. "Dancing. That's what you're focusing on?"
"That's what matters," she observes bluntly. When he tilts his head at her, eyebrows knitted, she waves a hand in the air. "Dance is...awesome. And you're awesome at it. You should always do what you're awesome at."
It's bizarre logic; he has absolutely no idea how it fits together with her at-ease rejection. Then again, Brittany isn't really known for making a lot of sense.
"I don't know if I see the point right now, Britt."
Her eyes flick to the door, ears apparently picking up on the sneaker treads echoing down McKinley's empty halls. Incoming.
"You will," she tells him, seconds before Santana appears in the doorway with a scowl and a jerk of her head. "Can't stop the motion, Mikey."
He frowns at the floor, arms folded across his lap, feeling considerably less optimistic than he did ten minutes ago as he listens to her footsteps fading across the choir room floor.
He barely has time to register their return when her arms fling around his neck, a warm mouth pressing tenderly to his own for mere seconds. By the time he's able to really feel it, she has pulled away again, casting a steady smile down.
"Kinda getting mixed messages," he murmurs shakily, touching his lips with two trembling fingers. She giggles.
"I can't date you, Mike." Her voice unexpectedly lowers to a stage whisper. "I'm in love with Santana."
He nods dazedly, watching the pleats of her uniform sway as she gives a cheery little wiggle.
"But like I said, you're sweet. And I figure maybe a kiss will tide you over until, y'know. You find someone you can be in love with too."
It's faulty logic. All of Brittany's logic is faulty. But honestly, he thinks he likes that about her.
Watching her walk away, looping an arm through Santana's and laughing her full-body laugh, is not the easiest thing he has ever done. A definitive part of him aches to leap up and run after her, risking life and limb to tear her from her best friend's grasp and beg her to stay with him instead. For the space of a single heartbeat, he almost gives in.
There's just something about the two of them that stops him before he can leave the chair--something that rushes through him like wildfire. Santana is smiling, the way Santana almost never does, like her whole world is standing right here in this room. And Brittany, she looks just as euphoric--maybe even more so.
He can't deny that he likes her a lot, but damn, he has never felt anything like that.
Five years of crushing have just gone straight down the toilet, and he can't even complain. Because that is what love is supposed to look like.
Sweet guy. That was probably meant to help, and a couple of days or weeks from now, he thinks it really might. Sweet guys might not be the biggest or the baddest around, but according to the movies, they always get the girl. Eventually.
Sighing, he taps the toe of his sneaker against the ground and leans back again to wait.