Fic: Reverseverse Ep3: 'Gay', Part 1 - PG
Title: Reverseverse Ep 3, part 1
Verse: Reverseverse
Author: test_kard_girl
Rating: PG, for some sweary language.
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) 2027
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 3 part 1: Neither Kurt nor Puck are feeling themselves after last week's showdown, but they're trying not to let it show. Shame some of their teamates aren't doing the same.
Kurt feels like he's lost the ability to even hear a rhythm, let alone hold one. He knows these steps backwards; inside-out...But today his limbs are just too big for the rest of him, and he's all Bambi and his back-up dancers; mutilating Beyonce one messed-up chasse at a time.
When Tina catches a heel on the carpet, yelping as her ankle turns about seventy degrees in the wrong direction, Kurt's almost relieved to smack his thumb down on his iPod's pause button:
"What the blazing fairies Tee?"
Tina glowers balefully back at him. "It's not me, it's the freakin' shoes..."
Kurt shares a glance with an out-of-breath Mercedes, who flicks a dismissive hand: "You been wearin' those shoes for the last three weeks."
"Well today they're hurting, ok?" Tina retorts, dropping down onto the edge of the sofa and ripping the offending footwear away from her delicate tootsies.
Kurt watches her, biting the inside of his mouth.
"You know," He suggests dryly "I may have a pair of Mukluks upstairs more suited to your skill level."
"Oh really?" Tina looks unamused, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. "And I think I might have a pair of breasts more suited to your outfit."
Kurt opens his mouth again, but Mercedes catches his wrist:
"Hey, ok bitches, what about just breathing?"
--Which Kurt thinks is pretty rich of her, considering how much she enjoys shit-stirring. He grits his teeth as she squeezes his arm again: "How about we take five and go over something else?"
"How about we don't?" Kurt objects, slipping out of his friend's grasp. She's been awful touchy-feely lately and she knows it freaks him out. "How about we get better at this one?"
Tina drops her shoes to the floor with a clunk. "And what is up your butt tonight?"
Mercedes coughs into her fist. "Not Puckerman?"
Kurt turns his head, glowering and wishing hard that her weave would catch fire.
Jealously really does nothing for her skin tone.
Suddenly, there's an ominous bang from upstairs-- the front door slamming-- and Kurt flinches, shoulders stiffening like a startled hare.
"Kurt?" He hears his father's voice call half-heartedly from the hallway; the muffled sound of yet another coat being forced into the closet. "You in?"
"Crap." Kurt mutters, following the sound of his father's footsteps with his eyes as they head towards the kitchen.
"He's home early." Mercedes notes, catching his eye and raising a quizzical eyebrow.
"Deadliest Catch is on." Kurt returns distastefully.
"You realise there's pretty much no point in us doing this?" Tina interrupts baldly, and the other two glance down at her. Kurt purses his lips hard enough to risk scowl-lines, but Tina just shrugs into their silence:
"Every dance break from now on is going straight to those Cheeri-hos." She explains.
"They don't have the juice to carry it off." Kurt dismisses instantly.
"We don't have the juice; look at us."
Mercedes shakes her head, fixing a sceptical hand on her hip. "Two weeks and no-one's even gonna care they're in the club." She predicts. "The novelty'll wear off-- right babe?"
She obviously expects Kurt's support for that comment, he thinks, as he stares blankly back at her. Mercedes rolls her eyes:
"Just saying..."
They all jump as Burt Hummel's fist pounds against his son's doorframe:
"Kurt? You down there?"
"We're rehearsing!" Kurt hollers back, curling his arms tight around his spandex-clad chest. Behind him, Tina and Mercedes do a little awkward shuffle as they remember they're not wearing any pants. Luckily, the door's locked. Kurt always makes sure of that-- heaven knows he needs some privacy.
"Oh. Ok." His dad sounds mildly embarrassed. "...You, uh, had something to eat?"
"Dad, I'm sixteen, I can take care of myself." Kurt retorts, pressing his fingertips into his temple.
(Which may not be precisely true, at least as regards the food thing, because Kurt hasn't actually eaten anything since those two renegade Tostitos at lunchtime. But that's more of a lifestyle choice than negligence; and anyway it's not any of his father's business).
His dad pauses, and Kurt hears a sound like his forehead thumping softly against the door. "Right. Cool." He proclaims eventually.
"Well, there's pizza in the fridge if you want it."
"Pizza?" Mercedes mouths, and Kurt makes a face:
"I know, right? It's like he doesn't know me but at all..."
"I could do some pizza." Tina says wistfully. Off the other two's looks she snorts: "What? It's not like it can make us less elegant. I feel like a football player with these calves."
Mercedes brightens.
"Hey there's an idea. if the Cheerios can't step up maybe we can break out the football team's dance skills?"
"Oh god, Hudson in a leotard." Tina snorts, and Kurt forces the corner of his mouth into a smirk that doesn't match the sudden painful clench in his ribcage.
"Ok, break-time's over." He decides, crossing the room over to his iPod and pressing 'Single Ladies' back to the beginning, listening carefully to makes sure his father's footsteps have reached the front room. "Let's go again-- maybe with fewer Mariah moments?" He adds bitingly, as the girls drag themselves into place behind him.
But halfway round his next pivot arms-up arms-down he notices Mercedes isn't even trying to lift her knees, and Tina's kicked her shoes off again, and-worst of all- he can't even summon the energy to give a flying crap.
She might even be right, he admits forlornly to himself an hour later, face illuminated in the cool glow of the refrigerator. He tugs a corner from his dad's pizza and pops it in his mouth before the bile-inducing carbohydrate guilt kicks in.
Maybe the Cheerios would dance it better.
He snorts: maybe even the football players.
Maybe even Puckerman, a snide little voice suggests, and Kurt slams the fridge door, wholeheartedly blaming the extra mozzarella.
*
"Twenty!"
Puck fumbles the catch, ball bouncing skittishly between his palms until it finally drops down dead at his feet.
"Dude; wanna stop aiming at my crotch?" He spits, scooping the ball up and snapping it back at Karofsky's head.
Karofsky snorts: "Not my fault you're such a short-ass."
"Hey, this short-ass is the one scoring your touchdowns, if you can get that through your fat skull--"
Puck feels warning fingers close around his arm:
"Puck, chill. It was a bad ball to start." Finn says placatingly. He takes the ball from Karofsky, looking just as weary as everyone else stuck out on the football field on the wettest Tuesday in September. "Let's start over: 'Kay, uh, everyone, let’s try that Pro Left 25 again…"
Puck glances away, squinting at the dead-black sky and tuning out Finn's voice so he doesn't accidentally punch the guy in the throat. After all the shit and build-up to his glee audition, and all weekend with Kurt’s mind-games still gnawing away at his synapses, the thought of turning his brain off and just taking down some bodies at football practice had sounded like blessed relief. What he'd kinda forgotten was that the football team sucks; and just 'cos the jocks aren't as sneaky about their assholery as the gleeks are, doesn't mean they aren't still assholes.
"Hey shit; check out Langenthal."
Puck's shaken out of his sulk by MacIntosh whacking his shoulder, turning him towards the goal post at the opposite end of the field. Puck just about manages not to sock the dude one back, when he clocks what their linebacker is gaping at.
Fifty yards away, Marcus Langenthal- their lone, yellow-bellied kicker- is flinching under Coach Tanaka's pudgy shadow, reeling up to take what must be his hundredth field-goal attempt this hour.
As the team looks on, Langenthal takes another futile run up, striking the ball with his left foot the exact same way he always does; and when the ball sails blissfully six metres right of the upright, Tanaka marches right up to him and blasts his whistle in his face:
"No points! Again! Where the hell are your balls Langerthal? 'Cos they sure as hell ain't flying over that crossbar!!"
Tanaka's bellowing echoes round the bleachers, making a couple of curious freshman do a synchronised one-eighty and high-tail it back to hockey practice.
Azimio whistles: "Holy damn..."
As one the rest of the McKinley Titans draw into a huddle, eyes widening.
"How many has he kicked?" Finn asks tremulously.
"I counted fifteen." Mike provides, in a whisper nothing short of awestruck.
Puck wets his lips, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the drizzle as he watches Langenthal set up once more. Beside him, Tanaka paces the ground like an antagonised rhino, whistle bouncing up and down against his impressive man-boobs.
"When did Coach become such a hardass?" He wonders in an undertone.
Karofsky knits his eyebrows as his brain chugs into motion: "I heard Sylvester busted Sandy Ryerson. Got an amendment on his restraining order or something."
"No shit." Matt hisses.
Mike nods: "That's do it."
Langenthal kicks again and this time when it misses, Tanaka storms off the field, smashes his head a couple of times against the hood of his golf buggy and storms back.
Finn nudges Puck's elbow.
"We should, uh, get back to work." He suggests, obviously imagining how his own skull would stand up against the fiberglass roof of a golf buggy.
Puck's not totally convinced of his odds, to be honest, but he doesn't say it out loud.
An unexpected movement downfield catches his eye:
"Uh-oh." He intones darkly, nodding back towards their DT'd Coach and his unwilling victim.
Azimio sounds incredulous: "Is M cryin'?"
"Looks like."
"Fuck-"
"-Wait, wait, wait!" Mike jabs a finger dramatically back at Tanaka, who's just had to leap out of the way of Langenthal's football helmet, which the kicker's suddenly tugged off and thrown with at him with enough ferocity to bust a kneecap.
"Holy crap." Puck stares.
"He's losing it." Karofsky confirms.
Helmet gone, Langenthal starts work on his cleats, hopping on one foot as his fingers rip at his laces. Tanaka's blasting his whistle like a man insane, and Langenthal's screaming, but his voice is shrill enough Puck can only make out every third word and none of them are pretty.
Karofsky nudges Puck's shoulder, sounding stupidly smug:
"Bet you don't get any of this shit in Nude Erections."
Puck crosses his arms to stop himself breaking his knuckles off the other guy's helmet:
"You wanna stop talkin' 'bout erections Karofsky? A guy might start gettin' suspicious."
Karofsky goes very white, eyes darting immediately back to the shit-storm in front of them.
Langenthal's managed to work one shoe free, but Tanaka's whistle seems to have deafened him into submission, and he's backing towards the changing rooms even as he aims his boot at the Coach's face.
"Oh there is no way he isn't gettin' suspended for this..."
"Who, M?" Azimio scoffs "Coach was baiting him, I should be callin’ the freakin’ ACLU, them dudes dos owe me--"
But even as he says it, Azimio seems to remember they're not simply bystanders here as-with Langenthal disposed of- Coach's eyes swivel towards the next targets of his detox-rage.
Puck feels Finn smack his shoulder, voice a good couple of octaves higher than it should have been:
"Guys, let's--"
But it's too late-- Tanaka's spotted them, and they all freeze like chipmunks as he marches over to them, face turning more and more puce with every step.
"Think we could take 'im if he turns nasty?" Karofsky mutters from the corner of his mouth. Puck just stares.
When he's half a foot away, Tanaka stops, doubling over with hands on his knees to get his breath back. Puck takes half a step back from the sudden stench of acid and BO; but he stops when he sees that Coach's eyes are mostly black and dead-looking, like little balls of liquorice. Holy shit.
The Coach straightens up, fixing each of them with his blasted fisheye in turn:
"Gentlemen." He announces through his wheezing:
"We need a new kicker."
P.S. Sorry this is such a short one...There's alot more story to come.