fic: we make plans (they never work out right) 8b/9
Title: We Make Plans (They Never Work Out Right)
Author: takeanotherturn
Rating: NC-17
Length: 2000+
Spoilers: Season 1
Warnings: genderswap, het sex
Summary: Getting knocked up at sixteen by the biggest gleek in the school was not a part of Quinn Fabray's plans.
They were screwed. No, they were beyond screwed. The Jane Addams girls singing Cold As Ice and then doing Proud Mary in wheelchairs could have been written off as a coincidence - a very, very unlikely coincidence, but when the Haverbrook kids started singing Don't Stop Believing it became very clear that the other teams had somehow stolen their setlist and now the New Directions were falling apart at the seams.
They'd walked out in the middle of Haverbrook's set and gathered in the green room to wallow in self pity; Finn had seemingly entered a catatonic state and Artie kept ramming his wheelchair into the wall. Ms Pillsbury was off somewhere placing a frantic SOS call to Mr Schuester while Quinn had retreated to a corner to do the same thing to Ryan.
Taking advantage of the fact that the one captain they had left was distracted, the group started squabbling amongst themselves.
“You leaked the setlist,” Kurt accused Brittany and Santana. “You don't want to be here. You're just Sue Sylvester's little moles."
“Look, we may still be Cheeerios but neither of us ever gave Sue the set list,” Santana said, defensively.
“Well, I-I did but I didn't know what she was going to do with it,” confessed Brittany.
A collective groan echoed throughout the room. How could she be so stupid?
Santana shook her head in disgust at them. “Okay, look, believe what you want but noone's forcing me to be here and, if you ever tell anyone this I'll deny it, but I like being in Glee Club, okay? It's the best part of my day. Besides, you morons are doing a good enough job of sabotaging yourselves without our help.”
“What are you even talking about?” Mercedes questioned.
“I'm talking about you idiots giving the solo to Finn instead of Berry because you felt bad that his feelings got hurt, even though anyone with the common sense God gave a goose could tell that he sucked. Even if this hadn't of happened, we still would have lost if Lumps had sang that song.”
Kurt, Puck and Mercedes all rolled their eyes, unwilling to accept any of the blame but deep down they knew that she was right.
“Ryan's on his way,” Quinn announced, sliding her phone shut as she rejoined the group.
“Fat lot of good that's going to do,” Puck sneered.
“Yeah, we're on in an hour, he'll never make it here in time,” said Mike.
“Sorry I took so long. I had to get the sheet music out of my car.”
Jaws dropped as Ryan Berry came nonchalantly striding into the green room, not even looking up from the papers he had in his hands.
He barely had time to prepare before he found himself with his arms full of blonde former cheerleader.
“You came to support us?” Quinn asked, looking up at him in awe. She couldn't believe that he was actually there. When they'd spoken on the phone he hadn't given her any indication that he wasn't at home in Lima.
“I came to support you.”
Quinn let out an ecstatic and very out of character -she'd later blame the pregnancy hormones- squeal and pulled her boyfriend into a fierce kiss.
“Alright, alright, break it up you two,” Santana said loudly when it didn't look like they were going to stop making out anytime soon. “We have work to do.”
The loved up couple sheepishly pulled away from each other. Quinn buried her blushing face against Ryan's neck. Ryan needed significantly less time to compose himself, he drew himself up to his full height and began to address the group.
“Quite right, Santana,” he said, getting straight down to business. “Now, Finn, I assume that you have no objections to giving up the ballad?”
Finn roused from his shell-shocked state enough to shake his head. “No.”
Mr. Schue had been giving him private lessons every day after school to perfect his performance of Cold As Ice, there was no way that he was going to be able to get up there in front of all those people and sing something else on the fly and have it been anywhere near as good.
“Let me guess,” Mercedes spoke up. “You're going to take it.”
Though visibly annoyed, Ryan took the criticism rather gracefully. “Actually, Mercedes, there's nothing in the rules that state that the ballad has to be a solo. I've been doing a lot of thinking the past couple of days and I realized that Mr. Schuester was right, everyone in this club is talented. Some far, far more than others.” He couldn't resist momentarily looking pointedly in Finn's direction.
“And I think it's only right that if we're going to win we should do it by showcasing that. So, I thought that the ballad should be a group number with Kurt, Artie, Tina, Mercedes and myself. The original members of New Directions.”
It would have been easy to take the ballad himself, to come in and single handedly save the day but he knew that would do nothing to improve his standing within the group and as much as he hated to admit it, he did want to be liked and accepted by these people. He also wasn't so self-involved that he'd missed the subtle hints Quinn had been dropping about respect being a two-way street since Monday. If he wanted to be a strong leader then he needed to have the respect of his team and to get that he needed to show them the same in return.
“W-What song did y-you have in mind, Ryan?” Tina asked apprehensively.
“The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha,” Ryan said, handing out the sheet music to them.
“It is fitting, I suppose,” Artie said as he read the lyrics.
“My thoughts exactly, Artie.” Ryan grinned, pleased that his input was not being met with the usual resistance. “I thought that we could divide the verses between us so we all get our time in the spotlight then we harmonize from the second chorus and have the others come in behind us at the end. Any objections?”
For once, there wasn't a single one.
“But that's just the ballad, we still need two more songs,” Finn pointed out.
“We can close with Somebody to Love, it's a real crowd pleaser,” Quinn was quick to suggest, stepping up beside her co-captain who smiled in approval at her.
“That's perfect,” Ryan said, wrapping his arm around her waist.
“Yeah, that and a can of soup will guarantee us third place. We still need one more song,” Puck said with a hint of anger in his voice. He couldn't stand seeing those two together; not so much because Quinn had cheated on his best friend but because she had chosen to do so with Ryan Berry instead of him. He'd always had a sneaking suspicion that Quinn was a little loopy -that much sexual repression was not good for the mind or the soul- and that had just confirmed it for him.
“I've thought of that too,” Ryan said, although he wasn't as confident in this song selection as he had been in the first.
“We're due on stage in approximately fifty minutes and we're going to need at least twenty minutes of that to get dressed and do hair and make up so, in the interest of saving time, I propose that we do a number that we've already mastered,” he rambled, stalling.
“Which one?” Kurt asked.
“Keep Holding On,” he answered, grimacing slightly. “I know that it might be slightly awkward for some of us.” Now that was an understatement. “But we already know the lyrics and choreography.”
Quinn squirmed uneasily as they waited for Finn to react. For a second, when he bowed his head and his face screwed up and his cheeks went red, it looked like he was going to throw another one of his temper tantrums but instead he surprised her by displaying a maturity that she wasn't aware that he possessed.
“Yeah, no, that makes sense. We should do that,” he said, not looking anyone in the eye. The truth was that he hated the idea of singing that song, that song that had once held so much meaning to him, with them. It made him feel sick to his stomach. But he hated the idea of being the reason that they lost slightly more.
Ryan acknowledged Finn's sacrifice with a nod of his head. “Great, so we have a new setlist,” he said. “Now Mike, Matt, Brittany, Santana, you're our best dancers.” Not including himself, of course. “Do you guys think you could come up with some choreography for the new number?”
“It won't be anything fancy,” Mike warned, uncertain if they'd be able to get anything together and then be able to teach it to the others in time.
“It doesn't have to be. Just as long as we look like we know what we're doing and aren't going to be running into each other up there. I'm sure that whatever you guys can come up with will be fine.”
“Don't worry, we got this,” Santana said, being the first of the four dancers to rise from their seat. She lead them to an empty corner of the room where they could spread out a little and get to work.
“Excellent.” Ryan checked his watch and saw that there were only forty five minutes left until showtime. “There's not long to go now so I suggest that anyone who isn't featured in the ballad or working on the choreography go and get changed into their costumes.”
Finn, Puck and Quinn were just about to do that when Ms. Pillsbury came bursting into the room, her phone still clutched in her hand. “Kids, I just got off the phone with Mr. Schuester,” she announced, breathlessly. “He said that everyone should just listen to Finn and do what he says.”
Everyone, even Finn, looked at her like she'd just spontaneously grown a second head.
“Well, you can tell Mr. Schuester that I already have the situation under control,” Ryan said smoothly. “But thank him for the input.”
Ms. Pillsbury very nearly collapsed in relief. “Good! Yes, that's wonderful initiative taking there, Ryan. I'll just go and give Will the good news. Carry on, children!”
They all shook their heads in disbelief as the guidance counsellor exited the room.
Then the shaggy haired bassist, that they'd all kind of forgotten was there, finally spoke up. “Um, so does this mean that I don't have to sing?”
-
Somehow, against all odds and probably several laws of nature, they'd managed to pull off the new set list without a hitch.
And now there was nothing left for them to do but wait anxiously for the results. They had tried to eavesdrop at the door of the room where the judges were deliberating but had no luck hearing what was going on inside, not even when Artie tried pressing a drinking glass to the wood and listening through that.
And so there they were on stage with the rest of the teams, waiting to hear the words that would determine their very future as a club.
Quinn squeezed Ryan's hand, she knew he was nervous, she could feel his pulse racing through the grip she had on his wrist. “You were amazing,” she assured him. “We've got this.”
He knew that she was right, he had been amazing, and the others hadn't been too bad either. But what if it wasn't enough? Had he made a mistake by choosing to not do the ballad as a solo?
They all held their breath as Rod Remington, WHON News Anchor and Ohio broadcasting legend, took to the stage to announce the results.
“The 2009 Sectionals runners-up are the kids from Haverbrook School for The Deaf,” he said, flashing the deaf teenagers a thumbs up as Candace Dystra, who was the fifth runner up for Miss Ohio in 2006, handed them a small trophy. “Shine on you crazy diamonds.”
“And now your 2009 Sectional Show Choir champions are...the New Directions from William McKinley High Schoool!”
It took a second for his words to register before pandemonium broke out. Quinn found herself being hoisted into the air by Ryan and soundly kissed before being set down firmly on her feet as Ryan turned to collect the trophy, that was almost as tall as Tina, from Candace Dystra.
The second that he released her, Quinn found herself engulfed by her ecstatic teammates, ending up as the meat in a Mercedes-Santana sandwich. She laughed when she saw that Puck had pulled Ryan into what looked like a hug slash headlock and was playfully messing up his hair. For once the New Directions looked like the family that they claimed to be.
Finally, it seemed like things were looking up, the only question was for how long?
Author: takeanotherturn
Rating: NC-17
Length: 2000+
Spoilers: Season 1
Warnings: genderswap, het sex
Summary: Getting knocked up at sixteen by the biggest gleek in the school was not a part of Quinn Fabray's plans.
They were screwed. No, they were beyond screwed. The Jane Addams girls singing Cold As Ice and then doing Proud Mary in wheelchairs could have been written off as a coincidence - a very, very unlikely coincidence, but when the Haverbrook kids started singing Don't Stop Believing it became very clear that the other teams had somehow stolen their setlist and now the New Directions were falling apart at the seams.
They'd walked out in the middle of Haverbrook's set and gathered in the green room to wallow in self pity; Finn had seemingly entered a catatonic state and Artie kept ramming his wheelchair into the wall. Ms Pillsbury was off somewhere placing a frantic SOS call to Mr Schuester while Quinn had retreated to a corner to do the same thing to Ryan.
Taking advantage of the fact that the one captain they had left was distracted, the group started squabbling amongst themselves.
“You leaked the setlist,” Kurt accused Brittany and Santana. “You don't want to be here. You're just Sue Sylvester's little moles."
“Look, we may still be Cheeerios but neither of us ever gave Sue the set list,” Santana said, defensively.
“Well, I-I did but I didn't know what she was going to do with it,” confessed Brittany.
A collective groan echoed throughout the room. How could she be so stupid?
Santana shook her head in disgust at them. “Okay, look, believe what you want but noone's forcing me to be here and, if you ever tell anyone this I'll deny it, but I like being in Glee Club, okay? It's the best part of my day. Besides, you morons are doing a good enough job of sabotaging yourselves without our help.”
“What are you even talking about?” Mercedes questioned.
“I'm talking about you idiots giving the solo to Finn instead of Berry because you felt bad that his feelings got hurt, even though anyone with the common sense God gave a goose could tell that he sucked. Even if this hadn't of happened, we still would have lost if Lumps had sang that song.”
Kurt, Puck and Mercedes all rolled their eyes, unwilling to accept any of the blame but deep down they knew that she was right.
“Ryan's on his way,” Quinn announced, sliding her phone shut as she rejoined the group.
“Fat lot of good that's going to do,” Puck sneered.
“Yeah, we're on in an hour, he'll never make it here in time,” said Mike.
“Sorry I took so long. I had to get the sheet music out of my car.”
Jaws dropped as Ryan Berry came nonchalantly striding into the green room, not even looking up from the papers he had in his hands.
He barely had time to prepare before he found himself with his arms full of blonde former cheerleader.
“You came to support us?” Quinn asked, looking up at him in awe. She couldn't believe that he was actually there. When they'd spoken on the phone he hadn't given her any indication that he wasn't at home in Lima.
“I came to support you.”
Quinn let out an ecstatic and very out of character -she'd later blame the pregnancy hormones- squeal and pulled her boyfriend into a fierce kiss.
“Alright, alright, break it up you two,” Santana said loudly when it didn't look like they were going to stop making out anytime soon. “We have work to do.”
The loved up couple sheepishly pulled away from each other. Quinn buried her blushing face against Ryan's neck. Ryan needed significantly less time to compose himself, he drew himself up to his full height and began to address the group.
“Quite right, Santana,” he said, getting straight down to business. “Now, Finn, I assume that you have no objections to giving up the ballad?”
Finn roused from his shell-shocked state enough to shake his head. “No.”
Mr. Schue had been giving him private lessons every day after school to perfect his performance of Cold As Ice, there was no way that he was going to be able to get up there in front of all those people and sing something else on the fly and have it been anywhere near as good.
“Let me guess,” Mercedes spoke up. “You're going to take it.”
Though visibly annoyed, Ryan took the criticism rather gracefully. “Actually, Mercedes, there's nothing in the rules that state that the ballad has to be a solo. I've been doing a lot of thinking the past couple of days and I realized that Mr. Schuester was right, everyone in this club is talented. Some far, far more than others.” He couldn't resist momentarily looking pointedly in Finn's direction.
“And I think it's only right that if we're going to win we should do it by showcasing that. So, I thought that the ballad should be a group number with Kurt, Artie, Tina, Mercedes and myself. The original members of New Directions.”
It would have been easy to take the ballad himself, to come in and single handedly save the day but he knew that would do nothing to improve his standing within the group and as much as he hated to admit it, he did want to be liked and accepted by these people. He also wasn't so self-involved that he'd missed the subtle hints Quinn had been dropping about respect being a two-way street since Monday. If he wanted to be a strong leader then he needed to have the respect of his team and to get that he needed to show them the same in return.
“W-What song did y-you have in mind, Ryan?” Tina asked apprehensively.
“The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha,” Ryan said, handing out the sheet music to them.
“It is fitting, I suppose,” Artie said as he read the lyrics.
“My thoughts exactly, Artie.” Ryan grinned, pleased that his input was not being met with the usual resistance. “I thought that we could divide the verses between us so we all get our time in the spotlight then we harmonize from the second chorus and have the others come in behind us at the end. Any objections?”
For once, there wasn't a single one.
“But that's just the ballad, we still need two more songs,” Finn pointed out.
“We can close with Somebody to Love, it's a real crowd pleaser,” Quinn was quick to suggest, stepping up beside her co-captain who smiled in approval at her.
“That's perfect,” Ryan said, wrapping his arm around her waist.
“Yeah, that and a can of soup will guarantee us third place. We still need one more song,” Puck said with a hint of anger in his voice. He couldn't stand seeing those two together; not so much because Quinn had cheated on his best friend but because she had chosen to do so with Ryan Berry instead of him. He'd always had a sneaking suspicion that Quinn was a little loopy -that much sexual repression was not good for the mind or the soul- and that had just confirmed it for him.
“I've thought of that too,” Ryan said, although he wasn't as confident in this song selection as he had been in the first.
“We're due on stage in approximately fifty minutes and we're going to need at least twenty minutes of that to get dressed and do hair and make up so, in the interest of saving time, I propose that we do a number that we've already mastered,” he rambled, stalling.
“Which one?” Kurt asked.
“Keep Holding On,” he answered, grimacing slightly. “I know that it might be slightly awkward for some of us.” Now that was an understatement. “But we already know the lyrics and choreography.”
Quinn squirmed uneasily as they waited for Finn to react. For a second, when he bowed his head and his face screwed up and his cheeks went red, it looked like he was going to throw another one of his temper tantrums but instead he surprised her by displaying a maturity that she wasn't aware that he possessed.
“Yeah, no, that makes sense. We should do that,” he said, not looking anyone in the eye. The truth was that he hated the idea of singing that song, that song that had once held so much meaning to him, with them. It made him feel sick to his stomach. But he hated the idea of being the reason that they lost slightly more.
Ryan acknowledged Finn's sacrifice with a nod of his head. “Great, so we have a new setlist,” he said. “Now Mike, Matt, Brittany, Santana, you're our best dancers.” Not including himself, of course. “Do you guys think you could come up with some choreography for the new number?”
“It won't be anything fancy,” Mike warned, uncertain if they'd be able to get anything together and then be able to teach it to the others in time.
“It doesn't have to be. Just as long as we look like we know what we're doing and aren't going to be running into each other up there. I'm sure that whatever you guys can come up with will be fine.”
“Don't worry, we got this,” Santana said, being the first of the four dancers to rise from their seat. She lead them to an empty corner of the room where they could spread out a little and get to work.
“Excellent.” Ryan checked his watch and saw that there were only forty five minutes left until showtime. “There's not long to go now so I suggest that anyone who isn't featured in the ballad or working on the choreography go and get changed into their costumes.”
Finn, Puck and Quinn were just about to do that when Ms. Pillsbury came bursting into the room, her phone still clutched in her hand. “Kids, I just got off the phone with Mr. Schuester,” she announced, breathlessly. “He said that everyone should just listen to Finn and do what he says.”
Everyone, even Finn, looked at her like she'd just spontaneously grown a second head.
“Well, you can tell Mr. Schuester that I already have the situation under control,” Ryan said smoothly. “But thank him for the input.”
Ms. Pillsbury very nearly collapsed in relief. “Good! Yes, that's wonderful initiative taking there, Ryan. I'll just go and give Will the good news. Carry on, children!”
They all shook their heads in disbelief as the guidance counsellor exited the room.
Then the shaggy haired bassist, that they'd all kind of forgotten was there, finally spoke up. “Um, so does this mean that I don't have to sing?”
-
Somehow, against all odds and probably several laws of nature, they'd managed to pull off the new set list without a hitch.
And now there was nothing left for them to do but wait anxiously for the results. They had tried to eavesdrop at the door of the room where the judges were deliberating but had no luck hearing what was going on inside, not even when Artie tried pressing a drinking glass to the wood and listening through that.
And so there they were on stage with the rest of the teams, waiting to hear the words that would determine their very future as a club.
Quinn squeezed Ryan's hand, she knew he was nervous, she could feel his pulse racing through the grip she had on his wrist. “You were amazing,” she assured him. “We've got this.”
He knew that she was right, he had been amazing, and the others hadn't been too bad either. But what if it wasn't enough? Had he made a mistake by choosing to not do the ballad as a solo?
They all held their breath as Rod Remington, WHON News Anchor and Ohio broadcasting legend, took to the stage to announce the results.
“The 2009 Sectionals runners-up are the kids from Haverbrook School for The Deaf,” he said, flashing the deaf teenagers a thumbs up as Candace Dystra, who was the fifth runner up for Miss Ohio in 2006, handed them a small trophy. “Shine on you crazy diamonds.”
“And now your 2009 Sectional Show Choir champions are...the New Directions from William McKinley High Schoool!”
It took a second for his words to register before pandemonium broke out. Quinn found herself being hoisted into the air by Ryan and soundly kissed before being set down firmly on her feet as Ryan turned to collect the trophy, that was almost as tall as Tina, from Candace Dystra.
The second that he released her, Quinn found herself engulfed by her ecstatic teammates, ending up as the meat in a Mercedes-Santana sandwich. She laughed when she saw that Puck had pulled Ryan into what looked like a hug slash headlock and was playfully messing up his hair. For once the New Directions looked like the family that they claimed to be.
Finally, it seemed like things were looking up, the only question was for how long?