Fic: Reverseverse Ep 1: 'Popular', Part 4
Title: Ep 1.1: Popular, Part 4
Fandom: Glee
'Verse: Reverseverse
Characters/Pairings: Kurt/Puck, Finn/Rachel, Artie/Tina, most of the regular cast of Glee appear, albeit as their slightly altered role-reversal selves.
Challenge/Prompt: The original ‘A Little Role Reversal’ fic was written by mundaneone in response to this prompt from the glee_angst_meme .
Rating: PG, for the odd unexpected f-bomb.
Word Count: (This part) 3889
Genre: AU
Copyright: I don’t own Glee or anything to do with it; I just have vivid hallucinations. The role!reversal AU belongs to mundaneone . I’m just playing in it by her very kind permission :).
Summary: Part 4 of episode 1, Popular. New Directions need to find... a new direction.
Author’s Notes: A tribute and addition to mundaneone’s fabtastic 'A Little Role Reversal', whose characters ate my brain. I hope anything I write in this verse can do her original creation justice. You’ll need to read 'A Little Role Reversal'before you read anything I write, so you get the gist of the characters and the world they live in. Fics in this verse will be tagged 'reverseverse', 'cos it's an awesome word, alright?
“I came to you because you’re a Guidance Counsellor. You give Guidance. And boy, I need some guidance Emma. Big, shiny, solve-all-your-problems guidance, ‘cos I am floundering here. Floundering. Like a…Fish. Out of water. Without… Gills.”
Will clears his throat, pretty sure that that cascade of mixed metaphors was not at all what he had planned on saying as he stood outside Emma’s office for a quarter of an hour waiting for the perfect moment to make his dramatic entrance, and hopefully gain the minxy little guidance counsellor’s sympathy with his sudden career crisis.
He tilts his head a little, scrunching up his eyebrows:
“Emma?”
The guidance counsellor raises her big, long-lashed Bambi eyes.
“I’m sorry, I assumed you were enjoying the sound of your own voice. Was any of that diatribe relevant to you coming in here getting your sweaty fingerprints all over my desk-top?”
Emma pulls a handy bottle of Lysol out from the shelf behind her and proceeds to wipe-down her spotless workstation.
Will pulls his hands away from the anti-bacterial spray. Ok. Clearly this is going to be more difficult than he anticipated.
“I was just… I need some guidance.” He tries again, more seriously. “Figgins is doing his best to dismantle my showchoir kingdom, and I get the feeling now would be a really good time to abandon ship-before I’m forced to present New Directions at Sectionals boasting a chorus of illiterate football jocks.” Will shudders at the very thought, wiping a dispirited hand over his eyes.
Emma barely glances up.
“Then jump ship.” She says shortly. “I don’t see your problem. You’re a Spanish teacher Will.”
“A minor sideline.” Will dismisses with an eye-roll. “But I’ve waited for this my whole career. Ever since I left high-school I’ve dreamt about coaching the McKinley high Glee Club to Nationals, and winning. Having that trophy would mean the world to me, and Figgins is ripping it out of my grasp over one slushy attack!”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit embarrassing that coaching a high school glee club is your biggest life ambition?” Emma asks, barely keeping the sneer out of her voice.
Will feels his brain stutter and jam.
“What?”
“Well, it’s kind of pathetic really. You’re just re-living your high-school glory days. What year did you graduate?”
“1993.”
“Mmm.” Emma reaches across, powering up her laptop.
Bemused, Will watches her and tries to gather the crumbs of his argument back together.
“But it’s more than that.” He explains emphatically, pushing a finger down on Emma’s newly-polished desktop. She gives him a look that could skewer a buffalo, but Will powers through it.
“Glee Club is the most important extracurricular at this school. It’s the best way we have of preparing kids for the outside world.”
“Do you think?” Emma’s voice is hugely sardonic, and she’s paying far more attention to examining a small imperfection in her flame-red nail-polish than Will’s impending breakdown, but Will decides to take her question as genuine anyway.
“Well, are you really going to argue that running up and down a field hugging a bundle of pigskin is a valuable life-skill?” he replies scornfully, hoping for some academic solidarity.
Emma just raises a delicate eyebrow, gaze fixed on her screen.
“What about the mathletes?” she asks. “The debate team? The physics club?”
“Well sure.” Will waves a hand. “But you know as well as I do Em that everything in this country’s about performance. Everything’s about fame. If you haven’t spewed some sob-story to the judges on American Idol by the time you’re twenty, you’ve clearly wasted your teenage years. Let’s face it: in 21st century America, being anonymous is worse than being poor.”
“Ah, here we go.” Emma smiles happily to herself- an expression that glints unsettlingly with too many bright, even teeth and fatale-red lipstick. She spins her laptop round to face Will’s puzzled expression, the opening credits of a YouTube video just beginning to roll.
Will feels his chest start to tighten as the song begins, and in the video a group of perfectly synchronised teenagers begin busting out their favourite mid-nineties dance moves.
“You’re a Spanish teacher Will.” Emma reminds him again as a tinny, acappella version of Le Freak bounces around the cold glass walls of her office. “I bet your pregnant wife doesn’t agree that your chosen career in the school system is a ‘minor side-line’. You have a baby on the way. Maybe you need to start getting your priorities straight. Listen to your instincts: let Glee Club die its embarrassing little death; stop trying to reclaim your Prom King crown through this group of freakishly tuneful overachievers, and concentrate on teaching the next generation of Americans how to speak something other than text-speak.”
Will watches his younger self, singing and grinning with the happiest expression on his face he can ever remember having. He swallows the unexpected lump in his throat.
“…But it’s been my dream to coach Glee Club ever since I got into teaching.”
“Who cares?” Emma scoffs, lazing languorously back in her swivel chair. “Dreams get crushed Will. You said you came to me for guidance? Well here’s some guidance just for you. You want to save your reputation? Give up on Glee Club. Go where the money is. Ever thought of being an accountant?”
*
Finn stands in front of his locker, staring into its murky, sweaty depths. It smells like his sock drawer, which is kinda weird, ‘cos he doesn’t keep socks in his locker. Well, he doesn’t think so.
There was a reason for him being here. There was something he was looking for. But then he found that half-eaten packet of Sour Patch Kids that he’d totally forgotten about, and the happy surprise just knocked whatever it was right out of his head. He thinks he was searching for something for Rachel. Maybe he was meant to bring her something? It doesn’t seem too likely she’d leave things in his locker though. Rachel’s really particular about hygiene and stuff.
“Hi Finn.”
“Ow!” Finn winces as the metal edge of his locker clangs off his forehead.
Quinn scrunches up her eyebrows, looking sympathetic.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She lifts one pale, delicate hand, as if to rub Finn’s injury better, and Finn automatically takes a step backwards, away from the girl’s grabby fingers and also the offending locker door.
“You didn’t.” A blatant lie. “It’s cool. It- it doesn’t hurt.” Another one.
Gosh; he always kind of forgets how small Quinn is. Not quite as small as Rachel, but still…
He clasps a casual hand over the growing egg on his hairline.
“So uh hey. How- how you doing?”
Quinn smiles brightly at him. Again, not as bright as Rachel, but still… kind of… sweeter. Or maybe, more crazy.
Man, that bump on the head has clearly messed with his brain.
“I heard about Figgins’ ultimatum to the Glee Club.” Quinn tells him quietly.
“Uh, yeah…” Finn feels that same rolling sensation in his stomach he’d felt when Mr Schuester had first told them, like he’s eaten some funky taco. “It’s, like, total garbage.” He sighs: “New Directions are the best thing about this school.”
He watches Quinn’s big green eyes widen even more. It’d be a good look on her if her smile hadn’t totally evaporated in the same instant.
“A month ago you were convinced they were evil brain-eating space-aliens.” She reminds him coolly.
Finn frowns: “Did I say that?”
“You and Puck. Well, maybe you were right… You’ve clearly had a lobotomy.”
“Are you kidding?” Finn’s horrified: “I would never let someone stick a camera up-”
“A month ago you thought Rachel Berry was the soulless love- child of Sadaam Huissain and Medusa.” Quinn continues, and now Finn knows she’s making stuff up ‘cos he has no idea who either of those people are. “And now you’re hanging off her arm like some whipped little labradoodle just because she felt like some social experimentation and decided to make you her trophy-boy this month.”
“Hey now, leave off Rachel. She’s my girlfriend-”
“- And how long’s that going to last? When all the losers at this school have decided dating you makes her fair-game in the slushy war?”
Slowly, Finn takes his hand away from his head.
“Face it Finn: Rachel; all of New Directions… All they care about is their popularity.” Quinn explains quietly. “All they care about is singing their pretty songs, and showing off their pretty bodies, and being worshipped by every brainless groupie they can get their hands on. And as soon as they realise you could stop that from happening? You’ll be dumped right back down in the sewage with the rest of us ‘losers’.”
Quinn has that freakily sincere look in her eyes that Finn’s only ever seen on those crazy tele-evangelist guys. He eyes the cross around her neck with new-found trepidation.
He eyes it so hard, actually, that he hardly notices when the blonde’s hand comes to rest lightly over his.
“They’re bad for you Finn.” She says in a quieter voice. “I don’t want to see you become one of them. You’re better than that.”
Finn looks back at her. She’s really very different to Rachel: all that blonde hair, scraped back from her face; bright expressive eyes, perfect pale skin…
“Am I?” he asks her jerkily.
Quinn looks surprised to get a response. She blinks, then nods furiously.
“You’re better than most people.” She elaborates. Then, maybe a little wryly: “You’re certainly better than me.”
“So… Being popular makes me a bad person? The kind of bad person who throws slushies at someone’s face in the middle of the hallway?”
He watches Quinn’s jaw tighten, but she doesn’t look away. Carefully, Finn pulls his hand out from under the girl’s cool grip and shrugs:
“Nah. I don’t believe that. You’re not good or bad because of how popular you are. You can be both. You can be a good person and popular. You can be a total Lima Loser and be mean enough to deserve it. Like Coach Sylvester.”
Quinn’s ponytail whips about her head as she checks her cheerleading coach isn’t within eavesdropping radius. Finn sighs heavily:
“I like Rachel. Yeah, she’s loud and bossy and walks about like she owns the place but… underneath all that she’s just a girl who loves singing.” His mouth softens a little into half a smile: “Kinda like you.”
Quinn’s looks back at him, clearly a bit startled.
“And I think it’s good y’know; this open auditions thing; and me and Puck being in Glee club. Being popular doesn’t make me, like, Darth Vadar. It’s just me. Singing.”
Quinn gazes back at him, and Finn realises with a weird bout of embarrassment that this is probably the longest conversation the two of them have ever had. He watches as the girl crosses her arms tightly over her chest; as her eyes drift momentarily back to the grubby tiles on the floor.
Finn feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and in the weird molasses-like silence he turns it over and remembers what he was looking for in his locker.
“Hey, uh, I gotta go.” He says, and Quinn gazes questioningly up at him through her eyelashes. Finn drags up a grin for her.
“And y’know, don’t… worry about me. I’m still gonna be your friend, if I’m up on stage or not.” He gestures with expansive arms: “See? Awesome and popular.”
He backs up, grinning as Quinn’s smile stutters into existence in reply. Puck’s right: she is pretty when she smiles.
He turns and strides purposefully away down the corridor.
Quinn watches him go, adorable smile collapsing into a frown.
Clearly, she’s going to have to break out the big guns.
*
“Kurt. Please don’t run away, I just wanna talk to you.”
Kurt doesn’t even look like he hears Puck. He just keeps walking, cutting a razor-sharp path through the centre of the crowded hallway, Doc Martens impacting the floor in unsettling staccato; chin jutting haughtily as if he’d never even heard the words ‘slushy-attack’.
“Kurt, come on. Kurt…”
Inwardly, Puck prays for protection:
“…Hummel!”
As Puck expected he would, the other boy comes to an almost instantaneous halt. Then, Kurt spins on his heel, bag flying out from his side and almost hooking some poor freshman in the face.
“Ok, let’s get this straight Goofy, once and for all.” He bites off, stalking back into Puck’s personal space, and the words seem to slice Puck across the face like glass. “Dating you is not something I’m particularly proud of. As far as I can see, I gave in to your dubious charms in a moment of weakness and so far, exactly nothing in my life is better because of our unconventional mingling.”
Puck opens his mouth, but Kurt has clearly not finished:
“In the last week I have dropped off the social radar, I have plummeted sixteen points on the Glist, my most important extra-curricular is staggering around like a donkey shot in the leg, and I’ve almost had a perfectly glorious Gucci blazer ruined by cherry-flavoured corn syrup. Dating you is, at present, responsible for all the badness in my day and I don’t care if you love me. I don’t care…”
“Then break up with me.” Puck throws back, trying to force his voice down to an octave that sounds something less than terrified at the prospect. “Break up with me. It’s not like you’ve got some ulterior motive this time right?”
Kurt’s lip curls, forming the beginnings of that contemptuous sneer Puck knows so well, and his heart simply stops beating.
“Kurt!”
Puck has never been so grateful to hear Rachel Berry’s voice. He lifts his eyes from Kurt’s suddenly murderous expression and sees her marching down the hallway towards them, Finn close in tow.
“You need to come to the auditorium.” She informs Kurt, in a tone that suggests she doesn’t expect to be disobeyed.
“I’m busy.” Kurt grits out.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Rachel’s eyes rake over Puck’s form, as if he’s an inconveniently placed cockroach. “We need you. Was Artie in your class?”
“We’ve figured out the perfect song to get the school back on our side.” Finn explains excitedly, and Puck bites the inside of his mouth, suddenly irritated by Finn’s inability to just be cool dude. “And to convince Mr Schuester to stick around.”
“Wait, what?” Kurt perfectly formed eyebrows scrunch untidily in the middle of his forehead. “Why would Mr Schuester not stick around?”
Rachel cocks her head slightly, like she’s explaining things to a toddler.
“Haven’t you heard? He’s been to see Miss Pillsbury about careers’ advice. He can’t handle the embarrassing possibility of having to present at competition with a Glee Club forcibly composed of football players and cheerleaders.”
Kurt closes his eyes slowly, as if the very idea is giving him a migraine.
“This world is high on amphetamines.” He mutters.
“Come on, we don’t have time to stand around debating. The future of the Glee Club is at stake.” Rachel chastises, in a voice that’s worryingly earnest.
Kurt prises his eyes open again, before sighing and gesturing for Rachel to lead the way- which she does with an intimidating amount of determination, pulling Finn and Kurt close behind in her wake.
After just a second’s jerky hesitation, palms still clammy with adrenaline, Puck follows them.
He wonders idly if he’ll ever be able to do anything else.
*
Puck hangs back a little, as he's learned to do in these gatherings. He wishes he had the guts to stand beside Kurt, like Finn does with Rachel, casually brushing arms, catching each other’s' gazes and smiling, like any normal smitten high-school couple. But he doesn't, and anyway: Kurt's furious words are still looping over and over in his head, making their slow but steady way through Puck's thick skin to scratch at his heart, and there's another part of Puck that's not sure it's healthy for him to be anywhere near Kurt at all right now.
“So King Jockstrap is making our song selections now?” Mercedes demands, pointing a glittering turquoise fingernail in the direction of Finn’s almost comically confused expression.
Rachel, however, ignores her, taking a graceful half-step sideways and placing her hand encouragingly against Finn’s arm.
“Finn and I are making our song selections,” she corrects breezily “because some members of this club are far too busy concocting snide comments to do anything productive.” She gazes around at her rag-tag group of teammates, the challenge implicit in her dark eyes. “Glee Club is being threatened; and I for one don’t intend to back down without a fight.”
Artie holds a hand up in the air: “Uh, ‘scuse me for interrupting, but isn’t this a good time for us to have the discussion about the fact Glee Club is ‘being threatened’ because you and Kurtsie here decided to flip the universe on its head and date these two delinquents?”
Puck shrinks a little at the casual accusation of Artie’s fingers; but Kurt’s head snaps up, glowering at the wheelchair-bound boy past the fingertips pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Artie, why don’t you take your attitude elsewhere, your bitterness is clogging my pores.” He practically growls; and Puck’s bizarrely reassured that he’s not the only one on the receiving end of Kurt’s bitchy temper.
“And again, I say, productive.” Rachel enunciates loudly; and before anyone can reply, she gives Finn a little prod to return him to the centre of everyone’s attention.
“Go on Finn. Tell them what our idea is.” She prompts; and Finn stares widely at her for a couple of seconds before seemingly getting his shit together and clearing his throat.
“Um ok, so.” Finn takes half a clumsy step forward, into the middle of the unconvinced semicircle of faces. “Me and Rachel were thinking about all the crazy stuff that’s been happening; the slushies and Vocal Adrenaline and y’know, all that… And I think-” he looks to Rachel for clarification: “-we think- that New Directions need to try… a new direction. To be popular again.”
Puck hears Mercedes lean in to whisper in Kurt’s ear: “He seriously just said that didn’t he?”
Kurt just crosses his arms, shifting his weight to his other hip.
“Look. You guys are amazing singers,” Finn begins again, off an encouraging nod from Rachel; and Puck’s surprised at how heart-felt his friend sounds, how genuine: “and you know everyone in school worships you for that. But now…Well, like Mr Schue said: anyone can join Glee club. Football players and mathletes and drama kids and puckheads… And I think you need to stop being just awesome singers; you need to be awesome and includive-”
Rachel coughs. “-Inclusive, sweetie. The word’s ‘inclusive’.”
“Right, yeah. Yeah.” Finn nods gratefully. “Inclusive- That’s the only way we’re gonna beat Vocal Adrenaline.”
“Oh hell to the naw.” Mercedes objects loudly, raising an eyebrow in a look that, in the past, has reduced squad-fulls of Cheerios to tears. “The whole point of Glee Club is that it’s ex-clusive. Ain’t it enough that we gotta let in whatever tuneless nobody shows up to auditions? Now what? You want us to go out there and drag them in by their ear? We got standards Finnocense. Something you and yo Walmart clearly ain’t familiar with.”
“You know they have a word for ‘inclusive’ in showbusiness.” Tina interjects, with a surprising amount of meanness. “It’s called ‘selling-out’.”
Rachel slams her hands on her hips: “We’re not ‘selling-out’ Tina; the quality of our music isn’t going to be affected-”
“-it will be if we all walk the hell out of here.”
“And then Glee’s club’s doomed to failure! Are you really that afraid of artistic progression?”
“A hundred bucks that boy’s favourite song is by Blink 182!”
“…Is-is that a bad thing?-”
“- As Team Captain, I’m one-hundred percent supportive of Finn’s proposal-”
“-Yeah, let’s see how supportive you feel about it when some skinny freak Cheeri-ho is front-flipping you out of the spotlight-”
“-Will you all just shut the hell up?”
The words force themselves free of Puck’s mouth before he has any chance of second-guessing them. His hands jerk as if to clap instinctively over his mouth; but instead he forces them into tightly clenched fists hanging heavy at his sides, as every single member of the Glee Club turns to stare at him in startled disbelief.
Puck swallows painfully against the sudden race of his heartbeat in his throat. He glances fleetingly across at the oddly slack-jawed configuration of Kurt’s face, before turning back to Finn, who looks amazingly grateful and also kind of majorly nauseous.
“Did you have something you wanted to offer, Chippendale?” Artie asks dryly.
Puck’s fingernails are damn short, but they’re cutting slices out of his palms anyway.
“Yeah.” Puck replies bullishly, voice rough with sandpapery impatience. “Look. Finn’s got an idea to help save this Glee Club. He’s been here a month and he seems to care way more about it than any of you do. So, y’know; I think y’all need to pull the sticks outta your asses and listen to what he and Rachel have got to say, ‘cos as far as I know, you’ve all been way too busy having trauma counselling to come up with any better ideas.”
Puck has never heard a silence so loud. It’s ringing between his ears like his head’s stuck in a bass drum. The squeak of Artie’s wheels sounds like the first sound after an apocalypse.
And Puck is not surprised that Mercedes is the first to break it, in a casual drawl that belies a whole shed-load of pissed-off.
“Kurt babe, I think your boy-toy’s getting a bit big for his boots-”
“-Let it go, ‘Cedes.” Kurt interrupts, words so clipped he may well have cut them out with a scalpel blade.
Mercedes just stares at him; and Kurt stares back until Mercedes presses her lips together in a glossy pout that looks more wounded than Puck’s ever seen her.
Kurt returns his attention to Finn and Rachel.
“So, are you going to divulge the name of this messianic pop hit? Or should we expect a round of charades?”
He sounds forcibly nonchalant, and it's enough to disarm every other barbed comment waiting on the others' tongues. Puck turns his head just a tiny bit; but Kurt's staring straight ahead, at Finn’s wide-eyed and thankful expression, and as the jock starts explaining again Kurt doesn't seem to have the slightest intention of acknowledging Puck’s intervention.
“Uh, no. No charades…” Finn grins wanly. “Ok. It’s like, the most popular song on iTunes ever.” He digs his ipod out of his pocket, yanking the headphones free; and all at once Puck feels a beautiful warm shiver race through every cell in his body as Kurt takes a few inconspicuous steps closer, so their arms are pressing lightly together, and they listen to Finn’s idea side by side.
“…But more than that, it’s just really, really good. It’s by this group from the eighties. It’s called Don’t Stop Believin'.”
Fandom: Glee
'Verse: Reverseverse
Characters/Pairings: Kurt/Puck, Finn/Rachel, Artie/Tina, most of the regular cast of Glee appear, albeit as their slightly altered role-reversal selves.
Challenge/Prompt: The original ‘A Little Role Reversal’ fic was written by mundaneone in response to this prompt from the glee_angst_meme .
Rating: PG, for the odd unexpected f-bomb.
Word Count: (This part) 3889
Genre: AU
Copyright: I don’t own Glee or anything to do with it; I just have vivid hallucinations. The role!reversal AU belongs to mundaneone . I’m just playing in it by her very kind permission :).
Summary: Part 4 of episode 1, Popular. New Directions need to find... a new direction.
Author’s Notes: A tribute and addition to mundaneone’s fabtastic 'A Little Role Reversal', whose characters ate my brain. I hope anything I write in this verse can do her original creation justice. You’ll need to read 'A Little Role Reversal'before you read anything I write, so you get the gist of the characters and the world they live in. Fics in this verse will be tagged 'reverseverse', 'cos it's an awesome word, alright?
“I came to you because you’re a Guidance Counsellor. You give Guidance. And boy, I need some guidance Emma. Big, shiny, solve-all-your-problems guidance, ‘cos I am floundering here. Floundering. Like a…Fish. Out of water. Without… Gills.”
Will clears his throat, pretty sure that that cascade of mixed metaphors was not at all what he had planned on saying as he stood outside Emma’s office for a quarter of an hour waiting for the perfect moment to make his dramatic entrance, and hopefully gain the minxy little guidance counsellor’s sympathy with his sudden career crisis.
He tilts his head a little, scrunching up his eyebrows:
“Emma?”
The guidance counsellor raises her big, long-lashed Bambi eyes.
“I’m sorry, I assumed you were enjoying the sound of your own voice. Was any of that diatribe relevant to you coming in here getting your sweaty fingerprints all over my desk-top?”
Emma pulls a handy bottle of Lysol out from the shelf behind her and proceeds to wipe-down her spotless workstation.
Will pulls his hands away from the anti-bacterial spray. Ok. Clearly this is going to be more difficult than he anticipated.
“I was just… I need some guidance.” He tries again, more seriously. “Figgins is doing his best to dismantle my showchoir kingdom, and I get the feeling now would be a really good time to abandon ship-before I’m forced to present New Directions at Sectionals boasting a chorus of illiterate football jocks.” Will shudders at the very thought, wiping a dispirited hand over his eyes.
Emma barely glances up.
“Then jump ship.” She says shortly. “I don’t see your problem. You’re a Spanish teacher Will.”
“A minor sideline.” Will dismisses with an eye-roll. “But I’ve waited for this my whole career. Ever since I left high-school I’ve dreamt about coaching the McKinley high Glee Club to Nationals, and winning. Having that trophy would mean the world to me, and Figgins is ripping it out of my grasp over one slushy attack!”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit embarrassing that coaching a high school glee club is your biggest life ambition?” Emma asks, barely keeping the sneer out of her voice.
Will feels his brain stutter and jam.
“What?”
“Well, it’s kind of pathetic really. You’re just re-living your high-school glory days. What year did you graduate?”
“1993.”
“Mmm.” Emma reaches across, powering up her laptop.
Bemused, Will watches her and tries to gather the crumbs of his argument back together.
“But it’s more than that.” He explains emphatically, pushing a finger down on Emma’s newly-polished desktop. She gives him a look that could skewer a buffalo, but Will powers through it.
“Glee Club is the most important extracurricular at this school. It’s the best way we have of preparing kids for the outside world.”
“Do you think?” Emma’s voice is hugely sardonic, and she’s paying far more attention to examining a small imperfection in her flame-red nail-polish than Will’s impending breakdown, but Will decides to take her question as genuine anyway.
“Well, are you really going to argue that running up and down a field hugging a bundle of pigskin is a valuable life-skill?” he replies scornfully, hoping for some academic solidarity.
Emma just raises a delicate eyebrow, gaze fixed on her screen.
“What about the mathletes?” she asks. “The debate team? The physics club?”
“Well sure.” Will waves a hand. “But you know as well as I do Em that everything in this country’s about performance. Everything’s about fame. If you haven’t spewed some sob-story to the judges on American Idol by the time you’re twenty, you’ve clearly wasted your teenage years. Let’s face it: in 21st century America, being anonymous is worse than being poor.”
“Ah, here we go.” Emma smiles happily to herself- an expression that glints unsettlingly with too many bright, even teeth and fatale-red lipstick. She spins her laptop round to face Will’s puzzled expression, the opening credits of a YouTube video just beginning to roll.
Will feels his chest start to tighten as the song begins, and in the video a group of perfectly synchronised teenagers begin busting out their favourite mid-nineties dance moves.
“You’re a Spanish teacher Will.” Emma reminds him again as a tinny, acappella version of Le Freak bounces around the cold glass walls of her office. “I bet your pregnant wife doesn’t agree that your chosen career in the school system is a ‘minor side-line’. You have a baby on the way. Maybe you need to start getting your priorities straight. Listen to your instincts: let Glee Club die its embarrassing little death; stop trying to reclaim your Prom King crown through this group of freakishly tuneful overachievers, and concentrate on teaching the next generation of Americans how to speak something other than text-speak.”
Will watches his younger self, singing and grinning with the happiest expression on his face he can ever remember having. He swallows the unexpected lump in his throat.
“…But it’s been my dream to coach Glee Club ever since I got into teaching.”
“Who cares?” Emma scoffs, lazing languorously back in her swivel chair. “Dreams get crushed Will. You said you came to me for guidance? Well here’s some guidance just for you. You want to save your reputation? Give up on Glee Club. Go where the money is. Ever thought of being an accountant?”
*
Finn stands in front of his locker, staring into its murky, sweaty depths. It smells like his sock drawer, which is kinda weird, ‘cos he doesn’t keep socks in his locker. Well, he doesn’t think so.
There was a reason for him being here. There was something he was looking for. But then he found that half-eaten packet of Sour Patch Kids that he’d totally forgotten about, and the happy surprise just knocked whatever it was right out of his head. He thinks he was searching for something for Rachel. Maybe he was meant to bring her something? It doesn’t seem too likely she’d leave things in his locker though. Rachel’s really particular about hygiene and stuff.
“Hi Finn.”
“Ow!” Finn winces as the metal edge of his locker clangs off his forehead.
Quinn scrunches up her eyebrows, looking sympathetic.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She lifts one pale, delicate hand, as if to rub Finn’s injury better, and Finn automatically takes a step backwards, away from the girl’s grabby fingers and also the offending locker door.
“You didn’t.” A blatant lie. “It’s cool. It- it doesn’t hurt.” Another one.
Gosh; he always kind of forgets how small Quinn is. Not quite as small as Rachel, but still…
He clasps a casual hand over the growing egg on his hairline.
“So uh hey. How- how you doing?”
Quinn smiles brightly at him. Again, not as bright as Rachel, but still… kind of… sweeter. Or maybe, more crazy.
Man, that bump on the head has clearly messed with his brain.
“I heard about Figgins’ ultimatum to the Glee Club.” Quinn tells him quietly.
“Uh, yeah…” Finn feels that same rolling sensation in his stomach he’d felt when Mr Schuester had first told them, like he’s eaten some funky taco. “It’s, like, total garbage.” He sighs: “New Directions are the best thing about this school.”
He watches Quinn’s big green eyes widen even more. It’d be a good look on her if her smile hadn’t totally evaporated in the same instant.
“A month ago you were convinced they were evil brain-eating space-aliens.” She reminds him coolly.
Finn frowns: “Did I say that?”
“You and Puck. Well, maybe you were right… You’ve clearly had a lobotomy.”
“Are you kidding?” Finn’s horrified: “I would never let someone stick a camera up-”
“A month ago you thought Rachel Berry was the soulless love- child of Sadaam Huissain and Medusa.” Quinn continues, and now Finn knows she’s making stuff up ‘cos he has no idea who either of those people are. “And now you’re hanging off her arm like some whipped little labradoodle just because she felt like some social experimentation and decided to make you her trophy-boy this month.”
“Hey now, leave off Rachel. She’s my girlfriend-”
“- And how long’s that going to last? When all the losers at this school have decided dating you makes her fair-game in the slushy war?”
Slowly, Finn takes his hand away from his head.
“Face it Finn: Rachel; all of New Directions… All they care about is their popularity.” Quinn explains quietly. “All they care about is singing their pretty songs, and showing off their pretty bodies, and being worshipped by every brainless groupie they can get their hands on. And as soon as they realise you could stop that from happening? You’ll be dumped right back down in the sewage with the rest of us ‘losers’.”
Quinn has that freakily sincere look in her eyes that Finn’s only ever seen on those crazy tele-evangelist guys. He eyes the cross around her neck with new-found trepidation.
He eyes it so hard, actually, that he hardly notices when the blonde’s hand comes to rest lightly over his.
“They’re bad for you Finn.” She says in a quieter voice. “I don’t want to see you become one of them. You’re better than that.”
Finn looks back at her. She’s really very different to Rachel: all that blonde hair, scraped back from her face; bright expressive eyes, perfect pale skin…
“Am I?” he asks her jerkily.
Quinn looks surprised to get a response. She blinks, then nods furiously.
“You’re better than most people.” She elaborates. Then, maybe a little wryly: “You’re certainly better than me.”
“So… Being popular makes me a bad person? The kind of bad person who throws slushies at someone’s face in the middle of the hallway?”
He watches Quinn’s jaw tighten, but she doesn’t look away. Carefully, Finn pulls his hand out from under the girl’s cool grip and shrugs:
“Nah. I don’t believe that. You’re not good or bad because of how popular you are. You can be both. You can be a good person and popular. You can be a total Lima Loser and be mean enough to deserve it. Like Coach Sylvester.”
Quinn’s ponytail whips about her head as she checks her cheerleading coach isn’t within eavesdropping radius. Finn sighs heavily:
“I like Rachel. Yeah, she’s loud and bossy and walks about like she owns the place but… underneath all that she’s just a girl who loves singing.” His mouth softens a little into half a smile: “Kinda like you.”
Quinn’s looks back at him, clearly a bit startled.
“And I think it’s good y’know; this open auditions thing; and me and Puck being in Glee club. Being popular doesn’t make me, like, Darth Vadar. It’s just me. Singing.”
Quinn gazes back at him, and Finn realises with a weird bout of embarrassment that this is probably the longest conversation the two of them have ever had. He watches as the girl crosses her arms tightly over her chest; as her eyes drift momentarily back to the grubby tiles on the floor.
Finn feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and in the weird molasses-like silence he turns it over and remembers what he was looking for in his locker.
“Hey, uh, I gotta go.” He says, and Quinn gazes questioningly up at him through her eyelashes. Finn drags up a grin for her.
“And y’know, don’t… worry about me. I’m still gonna be your friend, if I’m up on stage or not.” He gestures with expansive arms: “See? Awesome and popular.”
He backs up, grinning as Quinn’s smile stutters into existence in reply. Puck’s right: she is pretty when she smiles.
He turns and strides purposefully away down the corridor.
Quinn watches him go, adorable smile collapsing into a frown.
Clearly, she’s going to have to break out the big guns.
*
“Kurt. Please don’t run away, I just wanna talk to you.”
Kurt doesn’t even look like he hears Puck. He just keeps walking, cutting a razor-sharp path through the centre of the crowded hallway, Doc Martens impacting the floor in unsettling staccato; chin jutting haughtily as if he’d never even heard the words ‘slushy-attack’.
“Kurt, come on. Kurt…”
Inwardly, Puck prays for protection:
“…Hummel!”
As Puck expected he would, the other boy comes to an almost instantaneous halt. Then, Kurt spins on his heel, bag flying out from his side and almost hooking some poor freshman in the face.
“Ok, let’s get this straight Goofy, once and for all.” He bites off, stalking back into Puck’s personal space, and the words seem to slice Puck across the face like glass. “Dating you is not something I’m particularly proud of. As far as I can see, I gave in to your dubious charms in a moment of weakness and so far, exactly nothing in my life is better because of our unconventional mingling.”
Puck opens his mouth, but Kurt has clearly not finished:
“In the last week I have dropped off the social radar, I have plummeted sixteen points on the Glist, my most important extra-curricular is staggering around like a donkey shot in the leg, and I’ve almost had a perfectly glorious Gucci blazer ruined by cherry-flavoured corn syrup. Dating you is, at present, responsible for all the badness in my day and I don’t care if you love me. I don’t care…”
“Then break up with me.” Puck throws back, trying to force his voice down to an octave that sounds something less than terrified at the prospect. “Break up with me. It’s not like you’ve got some ulterior motive this time right?”
Kurt’s lip curls, forming the beginnings of that contemptuous sneer Puck knows so well, and his heart simply stops beating.
“Kurt!”
Puck has never been so grateful to hear Rachel Berry’s voice. He lifts his eyes from Kurt’s suddenly murderous expression and sees her marching down the hallway towards them, Finn close in tow.
“You need to come to the auditorium.” She informs Kurt, in a tone that suggests she doesn’t expect to be disobeyed.
“I’m busy.” Kurt grits out.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Rachel’s eyes rake over Puck’s form, as if he’s an inconveniently placed cockroach. “We need you. Was Artie in your class?”
“We’ve figured out the perfect song to get the school back on our side.” Finn explains excitedly, and Puck bites the inside of his mouth, suddenly irritated by Finn’s inability to just be cool dude. “And to convince Mr Schuester to stick around.”
“Wait, what?” Kurt perfectly formed eyebrows scrunch untidily in the middle of his forehead. “Why would Mr Schuester not stick around?”
Rachel cocks her head slightly, like she’s explaining things to a toddler.
“Haven’t you heard? He’s been to see Miss Pillsbury about careers’ advice. He can’t handle the embarrassing possibility of having to present at competition with a Glee Club forcibly composed of football players and cheerleaders.”
Kurt closes his eyes slowly, as if the very idea is giving him a migraine.
“This world is high on amphetamines.” He mutters.
“Come on, we don’t have time to stand around debating. The future of the Glee Club is at stake.” Rachel chastises, in a voice that’s worryingly earnest.
Kurt prises his eyes open again, before sighing and gesturing for Rachel to lead the way- which she does with an intimidating amount of determination, pulling Finn and Kurt close behind in her wake.
After just a second’s jerky hesitation, palms still clammy with adrenaline, Puck follows them.
He wonders idly if he’ll ever be able to do anything else.
*
Puck hangs back a little, as he's learned to do in these gatherings. He wishes he had the guts to stand beside Kurt, like Finn does with Rachel, casually brushing arms, catching each other’s' gazes and smiling, like any normal smitten high-school couple. But he doesn't, and anyway: Kurt's furious words are still looping over and over in his head, making their slow but steady way through Puck's thick skin to scratch at his heart, and there's another part of Puck that's not sure it's healthy for him to be anywhere near Kurt at all right now.
“So King Jockstrap is making our song selections now?” Mercedes demands, pointing a glittering turquoise fingernail in the direction of Finn’s almost comically confused expression.
Rachel, however, ignores her, taking a graceful half-step sideways and placing her hand encouragingly against Finn’s arm.
“Finn and I are making our song selections,” she corrects breezily “because some members of this club are far too busy concocting snide comments to do anything productive.” She gazes around at her rag-tag group of teammates, the challenge implicit in her dark eyes. “Glee Club is being threatened; and I for one don’t intend to back down without a fight.”
Artie holds a hand up in the air: “Uh, ‘scuse me for interrupting, but isn’t this a good time for us to have the discussion about the fact Glee Club is ‘being threatened’ because you and Kurtsie here decided to flip the universe on its head and date these two delinquents?”
Puck shrinks a little at the casual accusation of Artie’s fingers; but Kurt’s head snaps up, glowering at the wheelchair-bound boy past the fingertips pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Artie, why don’t you take your attitude elsewhere, your bitterness is clogging my pores.” He practically growls; and Puck’s bizarrely reassured that he’s not the only one on the receiving end of Kurt’s bitchy temper.
“And again, I say, productive.” Rachel enunciates loudly; and before anyone can reply, she gives Finn a little prod to return him to the centre of everyone’s attention.
“Go on Finn. Tell them what our idea is.” She prompts; and Finn stares widely at her for a couple of seconds before seemingly getting his shit together and clearing his throat.
“Um ok, so.” Finn takes half a clumsy step forward, into the middle of the unconvinced semicircle of faces. “Me and Rachel were thinking about all the crazy stuff that’s been happening; the slushies and Vocal Adrenaline and y’know, all that… And I think-” he looks to Rachel for clarification: “-we think- that New Directions need to try… a new direction. To be popular again.”
Puck hears Mercedes lean in to whisper in Kurt’s ear: “He seriously just said that didn’t he?”
Kurt just crosses his arms, shifting his weight to his other hip.
“Look. You guys are amazing singers,” Finn begins again, off an encouraging nod from Rachel; and Puck’s surprised at how heart-felt his friend sounds, how genuine: “and you know everyone in school worships you for that. But now…Well, like Mr Schue said: anyone can join Glee club. Football players and mathletes and drama kids and puckheads… And I think you need to stop being just awesome singers; you need to be awesome and includive-”
Rachel coughs. “-Inclusive, sweetie. The word’s ‘inclusive’.”
“Right, yeah. Yeah.” Finn nods gratefully. “Inclusive- That’s the only way we’re gonna beat Vocal Adrenaline.”
“Oh hell to the naw.” Mercedes objects loudly, raising an eyebrow in a look that, in the past, has reduced squad-fulls of Cheerios to tears. “The whole point of Glee Club is that it’s ex-clusive. Ain’t it enough that we gotta let in whatever tuneless nobody shows up to auditions? Now what? You want us to go out there and drag them in by their ear? We got standards Finnocense. Something you and yo Walmart clearly ain’t familiar with.”
“You know they have a word for ‘inclusive’ in showbusiness.” Tina interjects, with a surprising amount of meanness. “It’s called ‘selling-out’.”
Rachel slams her hands on her hips: “We’re not ‘selling-out’ Tina; the quality of our music isn’t going to be affected-”
“-it will be if we all walk the hell out of here.”
“And then Glee’s club’s doomed to failure! Are you really that afraid of artistic progression?”
“A hundred bucks that boy’s favourite song is by Blink 182!”
“…Is-is that a bad thing?-”
“- As Team Captain, I’m one-hundred percent supportive of Finn’s proposal-”
“-Yeah, let’s see how supportive you feel about it when some skinny freak Cheeri-ho is front-flipping you out of the spotlight-”
“-Will you all just shut the hell up?”
The words force themselves free of Puck’s mouth before he has any chance of second-guessing them. His hands jerk as if to clap instinctively over his mouth; but instead he forces them into tightly clenched fists hanging heavy at his sides, as every single member of the Glee Club turns to stare at him in startled disbelief.
Puck swallows painfully against the sudden race of his heartbeat in his throat. He glances fleetingly across at the oddly slack-jawed configuration of Kurt’s face, before turning back to Finn, who looks amazingly grateful and also kind of majorly nauseous.
“Did you have something you wanted to offer, Chippendale?” Artie asks dryly.
Puck’s fingernails are damn short, but they’re cutting slices out of his palms anyway.
“Yeah.” Puck replies bullishly, voice rough with sandpapery impatience. “Look. Finn’s got an idea to help save this Glee Club. He’s been here a month and he seems to care way more about it than any of you do. So, y’know; I think y’all need to pull the sticks outta your asses and listen to what he and Rachel have got to say, ‘cos as far as I know, you’ve all been way too busy having trauma counselling to come up with any better ideas.”
Puck has never heard a silence so loud. It’s ringing between his ears like his head’s stuck in a bass drum. The squeak of Artie’s wheels sounds like the first sound after an apocalypse.
And Puck is not surprised that Mercedes is the first to break it, in a casual drawl that belies a whole shed-load of pissed-off.
“Kurt babe, I think your boy-toy’s getting a bit big for his boots-”
“-Let it go, ‘Cedes.” Kurt interrupts, words so clipped he may well have cut them out with a scalpel blade.
Mercedes just stares at him; and Kurt stares back until Mercedes presses her lips together in a glossy pout that looks more wounded than Puck’s ever seen her.
Kurt returns his attention to Finn and Rachel.
“So, are you going to divulge the name of this messianic pop hit? Or should we expect a round of charades?”
He sounds forcibly nonchalant, and it's enough to disarm every other barbed comment waiting on the others' tongues. Puck turns his head just a tiny bit; but Kurt's staring straight ahead, at Finn’s wide-eyed and thankful expression, and as the jock starts explaining again Kurt doesn't seem to have the slightest intention of acknowledging Puck’s intervention.
“Uh, no. No charades…” Finn grins wanly. “Ok. It’s like, the most popular song on iTunes ever.” He digs his ipod out of his pocket, yanking the headphones free; and all at once Puck feels a beautiful warm shiver race through every cell in his body as Kurt takes a few inconspicuous steps closer, so their arms are pressing lightly together, and they listen to Finn’s idea side by side.
“…But more than that, it’s just really, really good. It’s by this group from the eighties. It’s called Don’t Stop Believin'.”