Fic: Reverseverse Ep3: 'Gay', Part 2 - PG
Title: Reverseverse Ep 3, part 2
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) 3556
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 2: The glee club are finding integration way harder than 'Don't Stop Believin'' made it sound. Rachel and Tina are on their way to a showdown, and Sue's practising her evil laugh. But it's ok: Kurt has a plan to at least get the jock vote back on side.
Rachel's voice swings powerfully up and down her vocal warm-ups-- the same weird collection of whale-noises she makes before every glee practice starts-- and Finn smiles and nods, concentrating really hard on being supportive and watching how her chest rises and falls, and definitely definitely not making eye-contact with anyone else in the choir room.
He'd kinda thought his plan about inclusion and acceptance and Journey and stuff was a really good one. Why shouldn't everyone get along? Rachel Berry really isn't that terrifying once you get to know her, and he’s sure that the rest of the gleeks are similarly cool once you chip away the frosting. But ever since Puck and the Cheerios officially 'joined' glee, rehearsal has been the worst part of Finn’s day- and that includes Tanaka's suddenly extra-sadistic football practice. There's so much aggro shooting about the choir room Finn feels like he's trapped in one of those lazer cage thingies; y'know, bright red death-beams shooting in every direction. So: as of today he's kinda given up trying to make everyone build tunnels or whatever it is, and decided instead that it's just way easier to keep smiling and imagining Rachel's boobs under her sweater.
Finn feels sharp fingernails digging into his forearm.
"Ow!"
Rachel’s glowering at him: "Will you stop staring at her?"
"What?" Finn protests, confused by Rachel's pursed, angry pout. He knows that by 'her' she means 'Quinn', and Finn was most definitely not staring at Quinn Fabray.
Rach crosses her arms over her sweater-vest: "You were staring at her breasts. Again."
"I wasn't!" Finn protests, rubbing his arm: "I was staring at y-"
He doesn't finish. He's pretty sure 'I was staring at yours' won't win him up any more kudos.
Artie nudges him in the ribs: "Can't blame you dawg," he mutters behind his hand, glancing between him and Rachel's sour expression. "No-one said dumb can't be pretty... Though, I guess you guys already knew that."
Rachel opens her mouth to make some cutting retort, but she jumps along with everyone else when the door bangs open and Mr Schuester strides in, looking irritated and with a petulant-looking Puck trailing in his wake, bringing with him a waft of nicotine and an expression like he wouldn't be here at all if the choir director hadn't dragged him in by the short and curlies.
“Oh, that reminds me.” Kurt pipes up suddenly, replacing his shades in front of eyes, which until now had been perched on top of his head. “Finn Hudson: I need to speak to you-”
"-Awful quiet in here for a bunch of showchoir champions doing their vocal warmups." Schue says warningly, as he shuffles the sheaf of music in his arms.
Finn gulps guiltily, but Kurt just waves him away, joining the rest of New Directions scurrying into their usual height-order line-up.
Like every time, Puck ends up on Finn’s left side: second-tallest despite the six inches between them. Finn mutters to him from the side of his mouth:
"Didn't think you were coming."
Puck doesn't even unclench his jaw to answer.
"Wasn't my choice.” He snorts. “Schue dragged me outta detention. Apparently showchoir really does rule this school."
Finn straightens up. Oh.
He smiles as Mr Schue hands him his music, but it collapses into a grimace again when he spots the title. West Side Story? Isn't that some Broadway shit? Probably means more dancing. Finn rubs reflexively at the ichy spots on his hands where Mr Schue once drew a big permanent-markered 'L' and 'R' to help him out with his steps. Man, he sucks at dancing...
"Excuse me, Mr Schue?" Rachel's voice questions sweetly from the very other end of the line, and everyone else lifts their eyes to look at her. "This is in the wrong key."
"No it's actually the right key." Mr Schue returns in an identical voice, and Finn feels the hair at the back of his neck stand on end.
He glances at his girlfriend, who, to her credit, just slightly raises her eyebrows, tapping a fingernail against her paper. "...But this is the alto part."
"Yup." Mr Schuester agrees, nodding to the next person along in the height order. "Tina's doing the solo."
There's a tiny gasp (which Finn thinks is way too high to be anyone but Kurt) and he turns with the rest of the room to stare at Tina, who's clutching the music disbelievingly in white-knuckled fingers, frozen like a rabbit on the highway.
Artie's on Rachel's other side, and sounds incredulous: "Seriously…?"
"I'm sorry. There must be some sort of mix-up." Rachel objects, stepping out of line and commanding Schue's full attention: "Maria is my part. I'm the female lead."
Finn swallows heavily as he feels part of his stomach start to cave in.
Rachel points an accusing finger at the wall. "My name has been at the top of the Glist for the last sixteen months; continuously--"
"--Well y'know what Rach, I'm starting to think the Glist is pretty outdated." Mr Schuester returns with relish, mouth an ugly rictus as he stares back at his star. "As of last week's auditions, you'll notice half your teammates aren't even on the Glist. How is that fair?"
"Fair schmair!" Rachel returns vehemently, and Finn notices Mercedes and Kurt cover their mouths to keep from giggling. "I thought I've made it very clear, anything from West Side Story goes directly to me."
"And I'm making it clear that this showchoir isn't the property of Rachel Berry." Mr Schuester snaps back. "It's the property of Will Schuester."
A sharp intake of breath rattles around the room. Finn feels Puck's eyes on the side of his face but doesn't meet his stare. At the other end of the line, Rachel pulls herself up to her full height, but she's still tiny and Finn wishes he could be beside her, although he knows he'd probably just make things worse.
When Rach speaks again, her voice is as tight as her sweater-vest.
"You're trying to punish me." She accuses.
Schuester shrugs. "Not trying." He returns evenly. "Am. Look around you Rach." He gestures sweepingly around the room. "We're still two team members short of a competitive showchoir. You ruined our chances by turning our recruitment assembly into an orgy, and messing with my prescribed set-list is definitely not the way to get into my good-books--"
"--But we have Cheerios!" Rachel splutters, throwing a hand out, as if fending off vampires. "We have Finn and, and, and Puckerman; none of them would be here if it wasn't for me!--"
"--They're here in spite of you Rach." Schuester interrupts stonily, raising an eyebrow at the awkward line of jocks and Gleeks and Cheerios. His gaze rests momentarily on Finn. "Aside from Hudson. Probably." He rolls his eyes. "Anyway, I'm sure you understand that I need to pick a soloist who's not gonna turn my musical selections into soft-porn. So: bravo Tina Cohen-whatsyourname."
Tina's eyes skate to the floor as Mr Schue's sarcastic applause echoes jarringly around the music room.
Finn swallows heavily, desperately trying to think of something to say. But Rachel isn't finished.
"Tina knows how much I respect her,” She continues bullishly “but I think she and everyone would agree with me when I say she isn't ready for such an iconic role as Mar--"
"Rachel!" Mr Schuester bellows, and the room jumps once more, Rachel's eyes flashing at being so humiliated.
The silence drips for a moment, before Mr Schuester asks again, very nicely:
"Congratulate Tina, Rachel."
Finn feels his own cheeks start to burn, watching as Rachel bites down hard on her bottom lip. He should do something, but...
"Well, Rachel..?"
"It's ok, Mr Schuester." Tina speaks up nervously from Rachel's side; But Mr Schuester silences her with a look.
Rachel is unmoved. She just lifts her chin and holds her teacher's gaze and Finn's sure that in a second the whole room's just gonna explode from the tension, when:
"Wait." Mercedes voice cracks open the icy silence, and Finn leans around Puck, Brittany and Santana to see her wrinkling her nose:
"...I'm a Jet?"
"Ugh." Rachel exhales disgustedly, tossing her sheet music to the floor and storming from the room.
The rest of New Directions stare numbly after her, and Finn suddenly has alarm bells claxoning in his head. Does she expect him to go after her? Should he go after her...?
Finn shuffles a bit and his feet automatically start moving, but Artie's voice cuts him short:
"She'll never forgive you for ruining her exit." He says wearily, eliciting a giggle that might even be from the trio of Cheerios huddling together slap-bang in the middle of the line-up.
Finn glowers at them; then, for just a second, catches Tina's gaze, and the two stare blankly at each other before Tina presses a lace-gloved hand to her mouth and turns away, like she's willing herself not to throw up.
Or laugh. She might be laughing.
Mr Schuester's expression is stonily triumphant. "Well, we won't miss our third alto anyway, will we?" He mutters and Finn scrunches up his forehead at the horrible twisty guilt-feelings in his stomach, not managing to un-scrunch it until Mr Schuester starts shouting them into formation, and forcing the Jets and Sharks to insult each others' mothers so they can inject some genuine anger into their flaccid Disney Princess vocal chords.
See, Finn thought the inclusion thing was a good idea. But for all Mr Schuester seems to have climbed on the ‘acceptance’ band-wagon, he doesn't seem hugely strung-out about not pissing-off his regulars. In fact, it's like he has some grudge against the whole lot of them, and Finn can't figure out why he’s the only one seems to think getting along would be a good idea. Like, he knows the New Directions have always thought him kinda simple. But he thinks he'd rather be dumb than mean.
He screws up his face again in an angry Shark kind of way, growling at the Cheerios hissing their harmony back at him.
Like, if Artie wasn't so worried about being cool, Finn's sure Tina wouldn't look half as distant as she always does; and if Rachel wasn't so possessive all the time, her and Quinn could sing some killer harmonies; and if Puck and Kurt weren't both so damn stubborn they might actually--
"Finn?"
Finn jumps, whipping obediently around like his school pecking-order conditioning has taught him.
Kurt’s gazing back at him, a little curl at the corner of his mouth that might be a smile.
"I needed to ask you something."
Oh, right. Finn had nearly forgotten their almost-conversation from earlier. He's not sure Kurt Hummel's ever asked a question in his direction before, and he feels his eyes double in size as he watches Puck's boyfriend slips the sunglasses down the bridge of his nose.
"Um... I... Sure." Finn stammers in reply "but I don't..."
"Steady cowboy..." Kurt chides softly, and Finn twitches at the feel of the other boy’s fingers straightening the collar of his shirt, brushing softly against his torso: "I'm not going to ask you to bend over."
Despite himself, Finn flushes, shuffling awkwardly back out of Kurt's grasp.
Kurt drops his hand back to his side and for one very lucid moment, Finn suddenly realises that, for all Kurt's tolerated him, they're not friends. Not even slightly.
“Ok. Um. What… What can I do for you?”
Very slowly, a completely un-amused smirk cracks Kurt's face:
"I need a favour..."
*
“Stormed out, you say?”
Sue taps thoughtfully at her chin with the lid-end of her ballpoint.
“Like some cable-knit Hurricane Katrina.” Santana confirms, grunting her way through her twenty-sixth stomach curl.
“Finn says she does it all the time.” Quinn seconds breathlessly, shaking a stray blonde tendril out of her face. Sue makes a mental note: re-order those painfully tight hair-bands from Shenyang-superb for both impeccably constrained ponytails and restricting the growth of tiny Chinese baby feet.
“I don’t know why Mr Schuester still allows her to perform; the girl needs a complete attitude overhaul…Oh.”
Off Sue’s raised eyebrow, Quinn cuts the grumbling and resumes her ab-crunches, grimacing as she reaches forty-three:
“It’s like everything you said Coach Sylvester: the stress is too much for them-glee club is pulling apart at the seams.”
Sue smiles beatifically to herself. She doesn’t like to gloat-of course, it’s uncouth in someone as noble and accomplished as herself. But even she has to admit: every part of this plan points towards outstanding success.
“So. New Directions are splitting apart like a hobo’s favourite pair of Y-fronts.” She surmises musingly. She tugs her reading glasses from her nose, crossing her arms and leaning across her desk to gaze at her three breathless minions:
“What do we need to do to pop that last seam?”
”Velcro is really easy to get out of.” Brittany interjects sagely. She’s already completed her stomach curls, and is preoccupied sorting Sue’s board markers into contented, multi-ethnic family groups. She wiggles her feet. “Mom put some on my sneakers. And my bathing suit…”
“-Take out Rachel Berry.” Santana translates, gazing fondly at her friend. “Give fuzzy little GooseBerry the heave-ho and the whole tower goes ker-plunk.” She grins hungrily, teeth glinting like an iguana’s.
Hmm. Sue leans back again in her chair, glancing ponderously at Q’s suddenly eager, twisted little face.
Get rid of Rachel Berry.
Well. Toppling the glee club might be even easier than she’d thought.
*
“Six games. And our former kicker, Mr Lagenthal, is zero for twelve in field goal attempts. As most of you statistically-minded people know: THAT SUCKS!!”
Puck scuffs at the ground with his toes, ashamed and angry as Coach bawls them out yet again. He wasn’t surprised, showing up at practice today and Marcus Lagenthal nowhere to be found; but he hadn’t actually expected him to be recuperating in intensive therapy, like Tanaka’s just told them. Though, apparently, the ex-kicker still has a place on the team, if he wants it. Which is, y’know, charitable, and stuff.
"…So. Mr Lagenthal will thusly be in charge of hydration services.” Tanaka’s concludes grimly, and smacks his hands together, staring round at the rest of the football team with white-faced unhappiness. “Today, however, we’ve got a more pressing problem for you Neanderthals to get to grips with. The next player who can get a ball between those two uprights-” He sweeps a finger down the length of the field, pointing at the goal post glimmering in the distance like the Holy Grail “-will be our new kicker.”
There’s a second of brittle silence, as the team remember Tuesday’s confrontation, and Lagenthal trying to spike Coach’s head.
"Excuse me." A new, unexpected voice interrupts, and Puck jerks his head up so fast he almost gets whiplash.
Kurt props a hand on his hip and glances around at the scrum of football players shuffling away from him, obviously pleased at their sycophancy.
He smiles at Tanaka:
"My name's Kurt Hummel." He announces needlessly into the stunned silence. "And I'll be auditioning for the role of kicker."
Puck stares.
What?
Kurt’s eyes meet his for a just one sharp, electric second.
Tanaka blanches like a man who's just heard his own death-sentence. Puck can see the sweat beading in the hairy little crevasse above his upper lip as he pauses one second too long and Kurt cocks his head enquiringly.
"Uh... Of course, Mr Hummel, yeah we can do that..." The coach gestures anxiously towards Finn, who’s hovering awkwardly behind Kurt’s shoulder, and Puck remembers the two of them whispering like girls in the choir room yesterday afternoon, Kurt’s fingers tracing the buttons on Finn’s shirt, and narrows his eyes.
“Oh you’re shitting me.” He objects flatly, and louder than he means to.
"Mr Puckerman." Tanaka snarls back in warning, and this time Kurt lifts his chin and stares Puck straight in the eye as the coach leads him and Finn down to the forty yard line. Puck's heart starts thumping like crazy when he can't find any hint of humour in the other boy's expression.
Mike nudges his elbow: "Did you put him up to this?" He asks in a whisper.
"Yeah, we don't need glee kids to save our football team." Karofsky grumbles. But Puck just snorts; setting his jaw and glaring at his boyfriend.
When he reaches the line, Kurt turns, and Puck thinks for one whole, stupidly hopeful second that he's gonna walk away. He's gonna walk away and realise football is for morons and he should leave it to the jocks.
But he doesn't. Instead, as Puck watches, he sets his hips; he plants his feet into the ground; he lifts his hands above his head and he waits.
In the silence, Puck passes his tongue over his lips.
Boyfriend. What a stupid term. They're not even friends, not really. Puck wonders if Kurt's ever had any actual friends. And he looks stupid in a football helmet the little voice in his head adds spitefully.
Then the music starts. And Puck's jaw drops open.
"I’m up on him, he up on me, don't pay him any attention..."
Because Kurt starts dancing. Dancing, bopping his head and swaying his hips to the peppy, synthesised rhythm like he’s incapable of doing anything that isn’t set to a soundtrack.
”Cos if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it...”
He’s auditioning for the role of kicker Puck realises dully.
Whatever he’s doing, he’s certainly giving it his all. Football helmets aren’t real delicate, but somehow Kurt still manages to look poised and perfect in his makeshift training outfit, busting his moves all the way down to the thirty yard line. Puck’s reminded in nauseous flashes of all the afternoons he spent during those horrific/glorious two weeks they were fake-dating, him sprawled across Kurt’s sofa with the other boy practicing port de bras and arabesques and other dance moves with fancy French names that made Puck squirm and clutch throw-pillows awkwardly across his lap.
'Cos he couldn't just kick it, like any normal football player; like any other loser, Puck reminds himself- 'cos he's Kurt fucking Hummel, and if something's worth doing it's worth doing coated in sequins with freaking bells on top.
Puck digs his nails hard into his arms, but gets no comfort from the sting. His eyes remain fixed on Kurt's lithe, mobile body as he turns-- with a flourish and a smack of his ass-- to fix his attention on the football.
”Don’t be mad once you see that he want it…”
Real subtle song choice Hummel. Puck fights the scowl dragging at his mouth as the team start to straighten up around him, leaning past each other, shielding their eyes to get a better view as they realise what Puck’s already guessed, staring into Kurt’s eyes:
He'll score it. He knows he can score it.
He wants to show us how easy it is.
Flawlessly, like Beyonce herself had choreographed it, Kurt hop-skips one more time, takes a steadying step forward on his right and swings his left foot down, connecting squarely with the pigskin Finn obediently holds out for him.
Puck squints against the sun, hand to his brow, heart thumping against his ribcage.
He watches the ball sail through the air; and he watches it glide between those uprights, dead centre, like it was always meant to be there, like it took nothing to score that goal that the McKinley Titans have been striving to score since, like, the dawn of time, and winces as Coach Tanaka lets out an ear-splitting blast of disbelief on his whistle.
It’s still rattling between Puck’s ears as he watches Kurt pull his helmet off, fastidiously rearranging his hair.
"That was good, right?" Puck hears him drawl in Tanaka's direction, pushing the helmet into the coach's waiting hands.
Coach nods feverishly, passing the helmet back to Finn and clamping one huge sweaty hand on Kurt's shoulder. Kurt does his best not to wince. Coach has that crazy intense look on his face that suggests he might murder someone with his whistle-strap:
"Could you do that,” He pleads breathlessly “with the game in the line, and ten gorillas bearing down on you who want nothing more than the taste of your sweet Aphrodisian blood?"
Kurt casts a wicked eye over the football team:
“Sounds like fun."
Coach beams, grabbing Kurt and pushing him in front of him. Puck snorts: the football team around him look awestruck to the point of brain-damage.
"Gentlemen." Tanaka pronounces, looking stoned to the eyeballs at the ridiculous mind-fuck that's just occurred. "We've found ourselves a kicker!"
Kurt wriggles his fingers gamely in the direction of the football team, carefully avoiding anything like eye-contact as he basks in their nervous adoration.
Puck doesn't join their applause. He shifts his weight to his other hip, glaring after Kurt's languid figure as he starts to pick his way carefully back across the field to the locker rooms.
He’s up to something. Puck doesn’t know what it is yet; but knowing Kurt, it definitely won’t be pretty.
(Unlike Kurt’s ass in those sweats. Damn, but red is totally his colour).