Fic: Reverseverse Ep2: 'Nomance', Part 3 - PG-13
Title: Reverseverse Ep 2, part 3
Verse: Reverseverse
Author: test_kard_girl
Rating: PG-13, for allusions to het sexytimes.
Characters/Pairings: Kurt/Puck, Finn/Rachel, Artie/Tina, most of the regular cast of Glee appear, albeit as their slightly altered role-reversal selves.
Genre: AU
Warning: Puck and Kurt not being themselves.
Spoilers: Say through Season 1, although as it's AU, in a very roundabout, squint and you'll miss it kind of way.
Disclaimer: 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 :).
Author's Notes: A tribute and addition to mundaneone’s fabtastic 'A Little Role Reversal', whose characters ate my brain. The original fic was written by mundaneone in response to this prompt from the glee_angst_meme. 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.
Word Count: (This part) 4025
Summary: The "social ladder" is upside down. Puck gets bullied by one ice-queen Kurt Hummel. Doesn't mean he isn't head over heels though. The Reverseverse, episode 2 part 3: Nobody really knows whose side they're on anymore.
Rachel, of course, is pretty much uniformly the first member of New Directions on the scene for early morning practice-after all, why would she pass up on the opportunity for some solo rehearsal time? But Kurt and Mercedes are never far behind and, sure enough, she finds them in their usual gossip formation beside Kurt’s locker, mercifully lacking the presence of Kurt’s pet reprobate.
She storms over to them, pulling to a stop bang in the centre of Kurt and Mercedes’ little huddle, jamming her hands angrily on her hips:
“Did you know about this?” She demands, glaring up at Kurt’s infuriatingly disinterested expression.
He spares a moment to blink at her turtle-neck/necklace combo before replying:
“…Know about what?”
“Quinn Fabray is auditioning for New Directions!”
Rachel just barely manages to keep from stamping her foot.
Kurt exchanges a glance with Mercedes.
“So? As is half the school, by the looks of things.” He shrugs: “It’s like a free pass to Julliard, isn’t it?”
Rachel scowls at him. Clearly their tentative alliance is already a thing of the past.
“Ugh.” She drops her arms angrily back to her sides, turning so she can also include Mercedes in the blaze of her ire:
“I don’t even know whose side you’re on anymore!”
And she sweeps off, stamping as hard as she can whilst wearing ballet pumps.
Mercedes whistles low under her breath:
“Woah… She’s lost it hasn’t she?”
Kurt purses his lips: “Not convinced she ever had it…”
“So; anyways:” Mercedes turns back to her boy, leaning her shoulder against the bank of lockers: “how was he?”
“…To whom are you referring?”
“You. Captain Caveman. Doing the horizontal mamba.”
“I don’t mamba, ‘Cedes.”
“Fine. The horizontal jazz square; whatever it is skinny white boys do when they’re naked.” Mercedes grins, fixing her purse across her body. The school is still unnervingly silent, populated only by those high-flyers hardcore enough to deal with pre-class extracurriculars: mathletes; chess club; New Directions.
Mercedes glances at Kurt’s carefully neutral expression, trying to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. She nudges his shoulder:
“So what’s the dish? Does he really have a nipple ring? Cos that’s just too Nineties to be real.”
Carefully, Kurt pulls his locker closed.
"I don't see why you're always so interested in my sex life."
Mercedes makes a spluttering noise, like he's just asked her if she approves of maiming kittens:
"Babe, some days gay porn is all that gets me through first period without developing an aneurysm. So, spill: most of yesterday you had your tongue halfway down his windpipe, and today mohawk-boy's nowhere to be seen- Bossed him and lost him?"
Kurt glances pointedly around the deserted hallway: "It's 7.40…"
"It's suspect is all I'm saying." Mercedes clarifies, not letting him get off so easy. "I thought this one was different. I thought this was a 'relationship'." She makes bunny-ears with her fingers.
Kurt's mouth tightens: "And what on earth gave you that idea?"
"Well, all the serenading for one."
"Sweetheart, he's not the first boy to sing me a love song."
"Okay..." Mercedes concedes, clutching her books to her chest and following Kurt as he valiantly tries to escape down the hall.
"But he's the first one who did it in public, right? The first one who said he loved you?"
Kurt spins round. "Why are you pushing this?"
"I just wanna know what's goin on." Mercedes shrugs, hoping Kurt's too wrapped up in whatever his issues are to notice the colour flushing into her cheeks. "I'm just looking out for you boo; you're not yourself today, and you're way more pretty when you aint got that scowly face on."
Kurt narrows his eyes, lifting his chin like he does when he's reminding himself he's superior to everyone else in the immediate vicinity. For a long moment the two friends just look at each other. Then, something in Kurt's shoulders seems to slump.
"I don't believe Fabray had the nerve to put her name down."
Ok. Mercedes can work with this.
She makes a considering kind of face:
"Well I guess when you start saying its ok to have football players in glee club..."
"... But they just don't get it, do they?" Kurt interrupts, scrunching up his nose like at the memory of a bad smell. "They don't get
how hard we work. What it actually means; the music. The performance. Being in glee isn't just singing songs it's--"
"-- a lifestyle?"
"Yes!" Kurt points a finger at her. "It's being different. It's being…special. It's being… not pathetically flaily all the time."
Mercedes gives him the fish eye: "Okaaay... You've just jumped universe, haven't you?"
"People used to hand us whatever we wanted." Kurt barrels on, clearly oblivious. "I have Alexander McQueen silk scarves in six different colour combinations-- Six...! I didn't pay for a single one of them." He turns his head, eyes widening as he meets Mercedes' gaze. "Boys at this school used to buy my favour, Mercedes."
Mercedes stares back at him, just a tiny bit unnerved by this unexpected tirade.
Then, all at once, she gets it; and her heart thumps so hard and hopeful in her chest it's physically painful.
"...He didn't want you, did he?"
Kurt doesn't answer.
But his eyebrows almost meet in the middle he's frowning so hard, and Mercedes knows she's right.
Get used to those tears of despair, flabby jukeboxes, Sue cackles triumphantly to herself, as Ladyface and Chocolate Thunder-Thighs sweep past her towards Schue’s den of torment. She runs her finger down the scribbled column of names populating New Directions’ audition list:
Quinn Fabray
Santana Lopez
Brittany
The cheerleading coach grins, baring all her teeth in the way that an ancient elder of the Amazonian Witoto tribe taught her would be most intimidating to large, jungle-dwelling carnivores. Soon, the glee club will be full to bursting with her brainwashed, talentless Cheerios. Soon- drawn by the pathetic inevitability of teenage hormones, the football club will helplessly follow suit- pounding their clumsy dinosaur feet all over Schue’s precious stage. And soon, the glee club will be the physical embodiment of the hopeless joke Sue has always known it to be.
And all that extra budget money will go towards the construction of the very first McKinley High Cheerios branded Seaplane.
*
Hey im soz, can't meet you 2day. Bt I bet u do gr8 n your oddition! Really sorry!
Quinn's brow wrinkles as she reads Finn's message, firstly as she tries to translate his adorable spelling, then again at the familiar weight of disappointment settling in her chest- but it's not really a surprise when she emerges from the wings of the auditorium to find Rachel Berry sitting in the middle of the stage, legs curled under her prim, plaid little skirt, perfect hair cascading over her shoulder.
For a long, long minute, the two girls simply stare at each other.
"Sorry Fabray-- I guess I'm not exactly who you were expecting." Rachel’s caustic, nasally voice intones, mouth twisting into a beatific little smile, as she leans languorously back on her hands.
Quinn doesn't dignify the Queen Gleek with an answer, choosing instead to type out a quick reply to Finn (Thanks for the warning. See you at the audition x) before curling her phone into her palm and letting her eyes finally meet her nemesis'.
"Actually, you were exactly who I was expecting. You've got Finn wrapped around your little pinky, don't you?"
Rachel's smile curves across her lips: "I just thought you might like to have someone who actually knows how to sing assist you in your singing practice." She pats the cushion next to her, as if mocking the cozy little picnic spot Quinn had set-up for Finn and herself between classes. Quinn's eyes flick to the wicker basket she'd tucked half under a cushion, and realises it's been opened, the flask and a half-drunk cup of virgin Cosmo sitting innocuously nearby.
Quinn feels her face heating up, and she crosses her arms tight over her chest, forcing herself to meet Rachel's ominously neutral expression.
She lifts her chin; feels her ponytail tickle the back of her neck:
"You can't stop me from auditioning."
Rachel's mouth twists, and now her expression is something else entirely, something far more feral:
"No." She admits, climbing gracefully back her feet. She steps pointedly over the edge of the picnic blanket until she and Quinn are toe to toe, mirroring the other girl's stance with her arms over her chest. It'd be comical-- Quinn has at least three inches on the school's forcibly-elected Medusa-- but the expression on Rachel's face is almost a snarl and Quinn has to fight every well-honed survival instinct she has not to back down and flee the auditorium.
"But if you force yourself to be part of New Directions, I promise I will put you through such a world of pain and acoustical torment that you'll rip your own tongue out to quit."
Quinn used to think she only hated Rachel Berry from a distance; pretty much like everyone else at this school. But lately it just feels far, far more personal.
Her arms are trembling. She digs her fingernails into her skin:
"…Finn deserves better than you."
"Again, incorrect." Rachel singsongs, tilting her head a little to the side. Quinn can't help noticing how the auditorium lights glimmer across her dark locks. "Finn deserves exactly me." She smiles, wide and dazzling, beautiful and poisonous. "So paws off Fabray."
Oh, she's pushing it.
Quinn narrows her eyes, trying to keep focus on the cross tucked discreetly beneath the neck of her cheerleading uniform. But instead, in her mind’s eye, she catches a glimpse of the face of a boy; a boy who should be here with her, singing the other half of her duet, sharing Cosmos with her, goofy, heart-melting smile crinkling his eyes.
"What are you so scared of, Rachel?" She asks, in her best, most-condescending, moral high-ground voice. "That he's bored of you already?"
For just a moment, Rachel looks entirely side-swiped:
"…I don't think it's any--"
"-- That he knows you're just using him because he's pretty? Because he's happy to hang off your arm and let you have the limelight all to yourself?"
Quinn raises an eyebrow, hardly believing it as Rachel's show-smile crumples at the corners:
"Finn and I are--"
"--You don't care about him at all." Quinn barrels on, voice quivering. "You don't know him.... You think you're the big noise this school, that boys are climbing over each other to be with you- but you've been dating two months, and Finn's already seeing other girls behind your back."
Rachel's mouth works, but she can't seem to find words, and Quinn bites her lip hard to keep from crowing in triumph. She pauses just long enough to remind herself how much she might regret her next sentence:
"Admit it- you’re only here because you know Finn would rather have been singing with me tonight than with you."
Quinn’s tennis shoes squeak against the wood-panelled flooring as she recoils from the sudden stinging pain in her left cheekbone- but all she really feels is satisfaction as she glares through watering eyes at Rachel Berry’s big mouth hanging open in horror and her right hand still hovering in midair.
*
Tina’s pretty sure someone’s been pounding at the door of McKinley’s newly installed disabled bathroom for, like, the last fifteen minutes or something. But honestly? She was kinda too busy staving off an orgasm to pay it much attention.
Now however- with colour starting to bleed back into her surroundings, and her thighs still stuttering jerkily with the last feeble burns of pleasure, and Artie’s teeth firmly embedded in her shoulder- Blind-Kid-Bobby’s voice comes ringing nasal and desperate from the other side of the easy-grip door handle:
“Please guys! I need to pee really bad!! Please! Artie!”
Tina buries her face in Artie’s neck, giggling silently against his skin and it’s a really weird feeling with Artie still inside her.
“Artie? Please. Just let me in… Y’know, I can’t even see your and Ms Cohen-Chang’s… copulating…"
“Sorry Bobby, it’s out of order!” Artie calls cheerily back, sending Tina into another peel of giggles.
“-But--”
“-Out. Of. Order!!” Artie repeats loudly, wrapping his arms around Tina and pulling her close while they both shake with laughter.
After a few moments, they hear the lonely staccato clink of Bobby and his whitestick hurrying away in the direction to the faculty bathrooms.
“Artie, that was mean.” Tina scolds playfully, nuzzling her mouth once more against the white, slightly stubbly curve of her boyfriend’s neck. Artie leans his head back against the shiny bathroom wall, curling his fingers encouragingly in the back of Tina’s hair.
“You love it.” He replies languorously. “Or at least, it’s hard to form any other kind of conclusion after the last half hours’ rigorous copulating- Dah-um, girl.”
Tina flushes; but when Artie raises his fist beside his head, she bumps it with her own without a second thought.
“Well I’d give it ten out of ten…” She agrees, grinning contentedly. She licks a prim, neat stripe along his neck: “If you keep up this level of performance you’ll start unlocking bonus features…”
“Oh really..?” Artie grins, gaze raking down Tina’s body, eyeing her cleavage all pert and bouncy and inviting just under his nose.
But Tina distracts him with a kiss, reclaiming some of the intimacy lost in the more screamy moments of her orgasm, accompanying it with a tiny rock of her hips that makes Artie groan.
Yeah; he totally has full use of his penis.
Artie’s hands roam over Tina’s back, tracing the dark trail of her hair as it cascades down the length of her spine. He knows all her ticklish spots by now, making her squirm under his hands without even trying, and Tina digs her fingernails harder into his skin, teasing him in her own way.
She hasn’t admitted it out loud, but she didn’t really enjoy those bizarre couple of weeks when she and Artie had been crowned the school’s ‘It’ couple, in the wake of Rachel and Kurt’s experimental abdication. Neither of them really wanted the laser-focused scrutiny of the entire student body following their every move; Jacob publishing photos of every naughty rendezvous; the sudden outbreak of coloured hair extensions and geek-chic glasses among the freshmen. Artie wasn’t very good at staying detached in the arrogantly superior way Rachel has perfected, and the sudden pressure expanded his opinion of himself to pretty much Epic Movie proportions. They’re far better suited to this: background debauchery; private joys.
Tina’s never been much of a public speaking kind of girl.
“…Baby?”
“Hmm?” Tina runs her fingernails back through Artie’s hair, mussing it adorably. His mom still cuts it: she loves that.
“Um . Everything ok with you lately?”
Tina pulls back, frowning gently:
“Yeah?” She’s not sure where this has come from. “…Why?”
Artie shakes his head.
“Nothing. It’s just you’re feeling a bit more…” To Tina’s horror, the hand that was kneading comfortingly at her thigh travels upwards to squeeze gently at the soft flesh of her stomach. “…puppy fat than normal.”
Tina feels her cheeks heat up and she leans automatically out of Artie’s grasp, clutching her shirt closed.
“Artie... That’s really inap-p-propriate.”
“What?” A look flashes across Artie’s face, like he’s just noticed the bear-trap at his feet but can’t stop himself stepping in it. He raises an eyebrow, pushing his glasses nonchalantly back up his nose with his forefinger: “It’s only the truth baby girl. You know I love you anyways. Just…” He shrugs. “Maybe stop having sleepovers with Mercedes and her Twizzlers stash?”
Tina stares, fingernails biting painfully into her palm through the black cotton of her top. All at once she feels grimy and sluttish, having sex with her boyfriend on the floor of McKinley High’s only disabled bathroom. Her knees are cold, sticking against the cool, disinfected tiling.
“Baby, come on, don’t do the sad face, you know you’ll break my heart.” Artie chides, cocking his head to catch her eye again.
“If my weight bothers you so much I’m pretty sure you could have found another post-chem booty call.” Tina replies frostily, letting her hair slip in front of her face.
Artie frowns.
“Tee... C’mon, you know you’re my woman.” He prises Tina’s fingers away from her shirt, pressing her knuckles to his lips, even as his eyes drift directly back to her re-exposed cleavage. “I just noticed, right? Hard not to when you’re bouncing up and down on me like a space-hopper. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. You’re just, y’know, normally so… healthy. I figured something must be up, if you’re piling on the extra cookies, you get what I mean?”
Tina listens, strangely numb as she watches Artie’s lips moving, still swollen from kissing and oddly pink from her own lip-gloss. She never thought he would mind if she put on a little weight. He’s always liked her curves; calls her a real woman, the opposite of all those androgynous, air-headed, stick-insect supermodels.
Besides, it’s not like she’s put on loads; a couple of pounds at the most. It hasn’t affected her costumes, or her dancing. It’s normal, she’s a growing girl. Better for cuddling, right?
Maybe not.
Something dark begins to bloom in the pit of Tina’s disgustingly flabby stomach, even as Artie tugs her head in for a kiss that’s sweet and gentle enough she knows it’s meant as an apology. Reflexively, Tina kisses him back; but all she really wants to do is pull her panties back on and find a nice, secluded, females-only bathroom where she can stick her fingers down the back of her throat and commence throwing her guts up.
Although- as that growing nausea in her stomach seems to be trying to tell her- she’s beginning to be pretty sure that won’t actually solve anything.
*
Kurt makes sure to keep his pace even as he strides through the near-silent corridors towards the food tech block, where Rachel summoned him. He may not have much of a choice regarding following her instructions-- but he can choose to act disinterested as hell while carrying them out.
He watches the hall lights glinting off the white patent of his Docs as he walks; little rhythmic flashes, oddly compelling.
This time yesterday he'd snuck up on Noah, reeling him in with the tiniest of touches; tiniest of smiles. God, he's always so easy. A big, slavvering mohawked Labrador.
Today...
...Well, it's hard to sneak up on anyone whilst wearing Doc Martens.
Kurt knows he's at the right classroom before he even opens the door: he can hear the bridge of Rihanna’s Take a Bow floating down the hallway.
Sure enough, Rachel's perched casually on the desk in front of the blackboard, fist clutched tight over her heart as she works up to the angst-tastic final chorus. She notices Kurt's entrance and grants him a vague little finger wave.
Kurt gives the classroom a cursory glance as he waits for her to finish. He thought he recognised it; and the pile of Bibles and half-inflated balloons in the corner just confirms it.
He points to the floor as Rach's final note flutters around them:
"Isn't this supposed to be Celibacy Club?"
Rachel fights to get her breath back, smiling tightly:
"I disbanded it." She reaches down to her side, lifting a silver thermos and a plastic cup from the desk and offering them in Kurt's
general direction.
"Cosmo?"
Kurt's mouth makes a little 'o'. To be honest, he hadn't expected Rachel to be so considerate. It isn’t like her. Clearly he isn't the only one who's been visiting the top end of the blood pressure scale today.
Taking the cup, he holds up a warning hand to stop Rachel pouring, and takes a sip, promptly screwing his face up in dismay:
"And where's the Cosmo in this Cosmo?"
"It's a virgin." Rachel informs him, topping up her own cup to the brim. "Much like our benefactor, Miss Quinn Fabray." She sets the flask back down, and takes a preparatory gulp before leaning back to fix Kurt in her dark, intense gaze. For the first time, Kurt notices the slightly extra-crazy glint she only usually gets around the third week of every month, and sometimes during the finals of American Idol.
"Now." Rachel begins measuredly, crossing her legs delicately at the knee. "I called this private session in its dryly ironic location so that we can discuss some matters that other members of New Directions might not be so... sympathetic, towards."
"Rach," Kurt interrupts, sighing "I really have very little patience for your dramatics today."
Rachel raises her eyebrows.
"Why? Are you anxious to get back to your boyfriend?"
Kurt grins at her, entirely without humour. Man, she is a bitch sometimes. And for your information, he certainly isn't- he has no idea what Puckerman's up to this evening, and in all honesty, he doesn't even care.
Rach begins again.
"It seems in the last few days some elements of our plan have begun to go dreadfully awry."
Carefully, Kurt pulls himself up beside her on the desk.
"... Keep talking."
Rachel nods, leaning back on her hands as she explains.
"'Don't Stop Believing' is going to be our ruin." She pronounces. "Glee Club isn't inclusive: not just anyone has what it takes to be a stage superstar- not in the big bad world- and these farcical open auditions, coupled with this shiny new feelgood anthem Mr Schue is intent on pushing, is destroying every inch of our hard fought-for mystique, just as I said it would."
Kurt frowns, cup pressed against his lips: "That's the opposite of what you said."
"Nevertheless;" Rach waves a hand "I've had a Virgin Cosmo flavoured wake-up call, and it's time for me-- that is, you and I--" she corrects, gesturing between them, spilling a bit on the desk-top "to reclaim New Directions' influence over this school, before the whole place descends into some kind of multi-cultural rainbow coloured Disney ensemble number."
She scrunches up her nose, and Kurt snorts at her sudden and painfully-transparent lack of self-esteem.
"Do you honestly think you're going to lose Finn to the spindly Wonder bread arms of Quinn Fabray?"
"Well you lost Puckerman to Neil Diamond." Rach snaps back, and Kurt fights to keep his glare steady, reminding himself for oh-the-millionth-time never to confide in Mercedes Jones.
Rachel takes a deep breath:
"We need to remind the school--"
"--You mean Finn--"
Rachel slams her palm down on the table, and Kurt doesn't quite manage to keep from jumping:
"Yes ok, I mean Finn!" she grates out, tears springing into her eyes. "But I have worked too hard to bring him into my arms, to make this partnership socially viable, and I will not be embarrassed by Quinn Fabray's blancmange-coloured personality and mediocre singing voice stalking my boyfriend's every movement within my Glee Club!"
She scowls murderously, and Kurt lifts his hands in speedy surrender, taking another resigned gulp of his Cosmo. From the corner of his eyes he watches Rachel lapse automatically into some focusing exercises, breathing soothingly through her nose, fingertips pointing into her chest.
Geez. And they call him a drama queen.
"...We need to remind the school why they worship us." She begins again after a minute, voice quieter now, eyes un-focusing a little as she stares past the plastic crucifix taped hastily to the wall and on broodingly into the middle-distance. "Why they made you and I Queen and Queen of this tirelessly disappointing student body in the first place. What New Directions' can give them that no other group can."
Kurt watches her, trying and failing to fight back his bite of cynicism as he pictures Lillian Adler's hopeful hippie slogan branded across New Directions' last competitive trophy.
"Joy?" He suggests unhappily.
"No."
Rachel's head snaps around to face his, eyes glinting, cheeks flushed:
"Sex."