Fic: Of Wishes and Dresses (13/?)
Title: Of Wishes and Dresses - Chapter Thirteen
Genre: Angst / Drama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mike/Tina friendship
Word Count: 2610 this chapter | 23130 so far
Summary: Mike Mika Chang was a girl; her body just didn't agree with that assessment.
Mika stood in the McKinley High hallway as a girl for the very first time. She held her head high. She was wearing a brand new wig, darker and a little bit longer than her first, and a purple top with a black ruffled skirt that Tina had helped her choose. The silver necklace that proudly proclaimed her name hung around her neck and she tried her best to smile, even as the looks began immediately.
Figgins had finally agreed to talk to the faculty and have Mika recognized in the school system as a girl, though there were still little details that were not going to be so easily smoothed in a Midwestern public school. There were also the stares, which were already positively painful. Tina, at her side, reached out and gripped her hand for support. Though they were having some definite troubles at the time, Mika loved Tina so much for being there for her during this important moment.
“I’m kind of terrified,” she told Tina, softly, despite the confident look on her face. She could feign confidence all she wanted but there was nothing like the warning stares that were coming at her from all four sides.
Tina nodded, obviously a little bit terrified for her.
She and Tina went to their lockers before class. At her locker, she was approached by Sam. This caused Tina to give Mika a pained look before she left, but despite this, Mika was kind of glad that Sam was around. He couldn’t hold his own against the bullies of McKinley any more than Mika could but having support was always nice. “Hey,” he said, looking around them. “How are you doing so far?”
Mika forced another smile. “I’m okay,” she said. “Nervous as hell and it hasn’t even begun yet, but I’m okay.”
Sam nodded. “I really don’t blame you.” He looked over Mika’s shoulder and rolled his eyes. Mika only turned fast enough to see the back of Quinn, flouncing off angrily.
“What happened with her?” she asked, determined to think of anything aside from herself and her nerves.
“She broke up with me yesterday,” Sam said, shrugging. “I saw it coming really, the way she’s been looking at Finn and the way she’s been reacting to me figuring myself out, but…still kind of sucks, breaking up is hard to do and all of that.” Sam looked upset to have lost his girlfriend but Mika immediately picked out the guilt as well.
“Why’d you guys break up?” she asked.
“A lot of reasons, like I said,” Sam said sheepishly, his face a little bit red. “Also, we don’t agree on way too much.”
“Me,” Mika said.
“Sorta yeah,” Sam said. “She got upset at me for supporting ‘such madness.’ C’mon your homeroom’s right next to mine.”
They started walking toward their first classes, Mika thinking about what had happened. Of course, she felt guilty that she was the reason that Sam and Quinn’s breaking up but she didn’t think that Sam was lying. It had been a long time coming and their disagreement over their transgendered friend Mika was just one of many things.
She also couldn’t help admire Sam even more for sticking up for her, even if it meant the end of his relationship. He was a good guy that even the members of glee had not quite figured out yet. There were a lot of sides to him and Sam wasn’t sure who he wanted to be yet. Mika could relate to that very well.
They reached Mika’s classroom and Sam smiled at her. “See you later,” Sam said, before ducking off into the next classroom.
Mika could not concentrate through that class or any of the next. The stares were incredible. Nobody outright confronted her yet, but she was not immune to the intense staring or the mumblings of words like “tranny,” “fag,” and the comments about how sick Mike must be. It was like they thought she didn’t have ears and wasn’t listening to what they were spreading around. Even her teachers, particularly her third period Algebra teacher, barely acknowledged her presence in the room out of some kind of fear or taboo.
It was making her absolutely insane.
She walked out of fourth period, afraid to deal with yet another period before lunch, when a strong and recognizable voice from behind called her.
“Chang.”
She turned around to find herself face-to-face with Coach Bieste. The woman tilted her head. “C’mere. I wanna talk to you for a few. I’ll write a hall pass to your next teacher.”
Mika followed the woman into her office and took a seat across from her, smoothing out the ruffled skirt. She felt entirely nervous. All throughout the day, the faculty at McKinley High had not even acknowledged her existence and now a faculty member was calling her into an office, actually talking to her. She had trouble looking up, but eventually did when the woman in front of her coughed.
“Chang,” she said softly. “Figgins held a faculty meeting the other day to tell us. I just wanted to let you know that you have my complete support, even if you don’t have the support of all of the faculty - or your peers.” She added the last bit with restraint and some kind of sadness. Mike understood her sadness. Coach Bieste knew better than anyone that high school student’s didn’t accept those who fell outside of the normal gender roles.
“Thank you,” Mika mumbled, softly, when she realized that she had not said anything to the woman in front of her. “It means a lot to me.”
“How’s your first day going so far?” Bieste asked, with more tenderness than Mike had ever seen her display on the football field.
“Nobody’s done anything yet,” Mika mumbled, trying to find her voice. “I mean, I haven’t been attacked or hurt, like my - like Tina’s parents worried about. People have been muttering some pretty hurtful things and I…I am really freaked out but at the same time, so far so good I guess. I just…hate that I’ve traded off how horrible I used to feel for a new kind of suck.”
“I wish I had known how you were feeling all year,” the woman said softly, shaking her head. “I know that this is one of the hardest things, but you’re going to come out of it even stronger than before, I promise.”
Mika nodded. “I know,” she said, a little more firmly, looking up. “I’m not lying about who I am anymore.”
“They told us that your name was Mika,” Bieste said. “Am I saying that right?”
Mika nodded again, this time smiling a little at the effort she was being given.
“Mika, I promise that you can always come to me,” she said, seriously. “I know that Figgins can come off as pretty…”
When her former football coach trailed off, Mika couldn’t help fill in the world, “useless,” under her breath.
Bieste smiled at that. “Yeah, pretty damned useless,” she said. “I know that Figgins is about as useless as a random pile of bricks, but if you ever feel at all threatened, I want you to come to me. You should be able to feel safe at school. I also personally promise that if you receive a single bit of harassment from any of our school’s athletes, I will have them removed from their position.”
Mika knew that though that was no guarantee, it was the little extra padding that she needed. Threat of losing their position at McKinley was the one thing that could deter the school’s jocks to leave her alone. “Thank you,” she said, quietly.
She felt like she just might make it after all.
Meanwhile Tina had never been so thankful to see Brittany in her life as she was when the girl walked into the choir room late that afternoon. Tina had claimed to anyone that asked that she was staying after school to get in some additional vocal practice, but vocal practice quickly turned to every sad, mopey song that she could think of. She was driving herself crazy. She had to get over herself and deal. Mika did not want her. She may or may not have been attracted to Tina at one time but she did not want her now. She had a crush on Sam and that was okay. Tina could deal with it, as much as it hurt. "Hi Brittany," she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't know," she said in typical Brittany fashion. She took a seat on the piano bench next to Tina and looked at her expectantly.
Tina waited a moment for Brittany to say something. "What?" she finally asked.
"Why are you so sad?" Brittany asked in return.
The question made her frown but at the same time she wanted to vent and had nobody to vent to. She could not talk to her parents because Mika was their child too now and their priority. She could also not talk to any of her closer friends because she found herself more and more distant from those she considered closer than Brittany.
"I'm having a bad day," she finally decided on. "I'm dealing with heartbreak and it just sucks."
"Don't let your heart break," Brittany said with genuine concern in her eyes. "You really love Mika don't you?" She reached out and touched her hand sympathetically. Sometimes Brittany scared Tina, the way that she alternated being lost and ditzy and oh-so-perceptive. It was intimidating. Tina frowned and reached forward, pulling Brittany into a hug. Brittany was receptive to the hug, hugging her back tightly.
"I just love her so much," she said softly. "I loved her when she was Mike and I love her now and I don't know if it will ever go away." Tina could not handle the overwhelming presence of her love for Mika. She wanted to cry the way that it choked her. She would always be Mika's sister. "I love her."
"She really loves you too," Brittany said. "She just has a lot to figure out."
Tina finally let go of Brittany and no longer wanted to talk about herself. She thought of the first thing that would turn the conversation elsewhere and blurted it out. "Hey, how are things going with Artie?"
This made Brittany smile. She chuckled and turned towards Tina. "He's being really good," she said. "He's afraid I'll break up with him and Sam is also being a pretty good influence on him."
Tina smiled despite the fact that the mention of Sam made her heart hurt. "I don't think he's a bad guy," Tina said of her ex, not wanting to think about Sam, however good an influence on Artie he was. "He has a lot to learn but he cares about the people in his life."
"He's a really sweet guy deep down," Brittany said wisely. "He doesn't mean to say mean things, but sometimes they just slip out."
Oh, Tina knew that well. Artie's tendency to blurt out hurtful things was one of the many reasons their relationship didn't last. "Do you think he'll eventually be nice to her?" Tina asked. "They were starting to get along and get past the relationship drama before."
"I think they will. I think Artie had a silly crisis when he found out Mika was a girl. It made him sad he lost you to a girl. I don't get why that's worse than a boy winning you over though."
Tina was not about to explain masculinity issues to Brittany so she shrugged it off and said, “good," liking the answer. "It's getting late, isn't it?" Tina asked, looking to the door. She had been sitting around in the choir room moping for quite awhile.
"Mhm."
"We should get out of here," Tina said as she began to pack up her things. She gathered them up and headed out, Brittany following closely. The first thing that Tina noticed when they exited the room was a group of Cheerios crowded around one Quinn Fabray. For some reason the Cheerios were always intimidating to Tina, especially in large groups. She and Brittany nearly just walked past when Quinn huffed something that caught her off guard.
"Sam is an idiot," she said clearly, the group of cheerleaders giggling and nodding in agreement.
"Wait, Britt," Tina said, stopping just around the corner to listen.
"It makes me sick," Quinn said seriously, her tone dangerously sassy. "He worked so hard to make something of himself. He was the most popular and desirable boy in this school. He's all of a sudden decided to throw that away for some sick, twisted tranny? It makes no sense."
"I can't believe the school is letting him walk around in dresses and stuff."
Tina frowned, she didn't recognize that voice but she sure as hell recognized Quinn's.
"Ugh, it is so gross," she said. "I can't believe that I was friends with Mike. I mean I can tolerate gays and stuff but this goes against God, nature, everything."
"We can't let her get away with that," Tina managed and the agreement was all that was needed to send her and Brittany into action. The girls turned the corner, but before Tina could lay into the cheerleaders for what they had said, Brittany did.
"Quinn," Brittany stated boldly. Quinn turned around. "You and San make me sick. Mika is our friend and she needs us. She's really happy to finally be able to be herself and we should all be her friends and be happy for her."
"But-"
Tina continued for Brittany. "You know what?" she asked. "Sam is smart. He has the ability to think for himself beneath the desire to be popular. He's learning. You haven't and you've been through a hell of a lot more than he has. You think you'd be empathetic Quinn. Do you remember how it felt? Last year you were treated like you carried some kind of social disease. Mika is currently walking around school feeling the same and here you are contributing to it. She
was always the one to quietly tell people to leave you alone last year."
"Tina, this isn't okay."
"You're right," she said. "It's not okay that you're spewing hate. I hope that Mika and Sam do start dating some day. He would be getting a huge upgrade from being with a hateful bitch."
Tina could have waited for Quinn to speak up and another shouting match to occur but instead she took Brittany's hand and walked down the hall with her head held high while Quinn and her cronies gaped.
"That was cool," she finally giggled when they got far enough. Though she was a far cry from the shy girl who had faked a stutter in the sixth through tenth grade, she was still shy and having an outburst at the most popular girl in school was kind of amazing and made her feel so incredibly proud of herself. "I really...really enjoy that."
"We did good," Brittany said, hugging Tina from the side.
"We did," she said hugging the girl back.
Tina looked at Brittany, really appreciating the other girl for the first time in a long while. "Why did we stop hanging out?" she asked. Toward the beginning of the previous year, she and Brittany had spent a lot of time together but had slowly drifted apart as Brittany became more involved in Cheerios things and Tina became involved in her relationship.
"I have no clue," Brittany said. "Let's fix that." '
"Let's."
Genre: Angst / Drama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mike/Tina friendship
Word Count: 2610 this chapter | 23130 so far
Summary: Mike Mika Chang was a girl; her body just didn't agree with that assessment.
Mika stood in the McKinley High hallway as a girl for the very first time. She held her head high. She was wearing a brand new wig, darker and a little bit longer than her first, and a purple top with a black ruffled skirt that Tina had helped her choose. The silver necklace that proudly proclaimed her name hung around her neck and she tried her best to smile, even as the looks began immediately.
Figgins had finally agreed to talk to the faculty and have Mika recognized in the school system as a girl, though there were still little details that were not going to be so easily smoothed in a Midwestern public school. There were also the stares, which were already positively painful. Tina, at her side, reached out and gripped her hand for support. Though they were having some definite troubles at the time, Mika loved Tina so much for being there for her during this important moment.
“I’m kind of terrified,” she told Tina, softly, despite the confident look on her face. She could feign confidence all she wanted but there was nothing like the warning stares that were coming at her from all four sides.
Tina nodded, obviously a little bit terrified for her.
She and Tina went to their lockers before class. At her locker, she was approached by Sam. This caused Tina to give Mika a pained look before she left, but despite this, Mika was kind of glad that Sam was around. He couldn’t hold his own against the bullies of McKinley any more than Mika could but having support was always nice. “Hey,” he said, looking around them. “How are you doing so far?”
Mika forced another smile. “I’m okay,” she said. “Nervous as hell and it hasn’t even begun yet, but I’m okay.”
Sam nodded. “I really don’t blame you.” He looked over Mika’s shoulder and rolled his eyes. Mika only turned fast enough to see the back of Quinn, flouncing off angrily.
“What happened with her?” she asked, determined to think of anything aside from herself and her nerves.
“She broke up with me yesterday,” Sam said, shrugging. “I saw it coming really, the way she’s been looking at Finn and the way she’s been reacting to me figuring myself out, but…still kind of sucks, breaking up is hard to do and all of that.” Sam looked upset to have lost his girlfriend but Mika immediately picked out the guilt as well.
“Why’d you guys break up?” she asked.
“A lot of reasons, like I said,” Sam said sheepishly, his face a little bit red. “Also, we don’t agree on way too much.”
“Me,” Mika said.
“Sorta yeah,” Sam said. “She got upset at me for supporting ‘such madness.’ C’mon your homeroom’s right next to mine.”
They started walking toward their first classes, Mika thinking about what had happened. Of course, she felt guilty that she was the reason that Sam and Quinn’s breaking up but she didn’t think that Sam was lying. It had been a long time coming and their disagreement over their transgendered friend Mika was just one of many things.
She also couldn’t help admire Sam even more for sticking up for her, even if it meant the end of his relationship. He was a good guy that even the members of glee had not quite figured out yet. There were a lot of sides to him and Sam wasn’t sure who he wanted to be yet. Mika could relate to that very well.
They reached Mika’s classroom and Sam smiled at her. “See you later,” Sam said, before ducking off into the next classroom.
Mika could not concentrate through that class or any of the next. The stares were incredible. Nobody outright confronted her yet, but she was not immune to the intense staring or the mumblings of words like “tranny,” “fag,” and the comments about how sick Mike must be. It was like they thought she didn’t have ears and wasn’t listening to what they were spreading around. Even her teachers, particularly her third period Algebra teacher, barely acknowledged her presence in the room out of some kind of fear or taboo.
It was making her absolutely insane.
She walked out of fourth period, afraid to deal with yet another period before lunch, when a strong and recognizable voice from behind called her.
“Chang.”
She turned around to find herself face-to-face with Coach Bieste. The woman tilted her head. “C’mere. I wanna talk to you for a few. I’ll write a hall pass to your next teacher.”
Mika followed the woman into her office and took a seat across from her, smoothing out the ruffled skirt. She felt entirely nervous. All throughout the day, the faculty at McKinley High had not even acknowledged her existence and now a faculty member was calling her into an office, actually talking to her. She had trouble looking up, but eventually did when the woman in front of her coughed.
“Chang,” she said softly. “Figgins held a faculty meeting the other day to tell us. I just wanted to let you know that you have my complete support, even if you don’t have the support of all of the faculty - or your peers.” She added the last bit with restraint and some kind of sadness. Mike understood her sadness. Coach Bieste knew better than anyone that high school student’s didn’t accept those who fell outside of the normal gender roles.
“Thank you,” Mika mumbled, softly, when she realized that she had not said anything to the woman in front of her. “It means a lot to me.”
“How’s your first day going so far?” Bieste asked, with more tenderness than Mike had ever seen her display on the football field.
“Nobody’s done anything yet,” Mika mumbled, trying to find her voice. “I mean, I haven’t been attacked or hurt, like my - like Tina’s parents worried about. People have been muttering some pretty hurtful things and I…I am really freaked out but at the same time, so far so good I guess. I just…hate that I’ve traded off how horrible I used to feel for a new kind of suck.”
“I wish I had known how you were feeling all year,” the woman said softly, shaking her head. “I know that this is one of the hardest things, but you’re going to come out of it even stronger than before, I promise.”
Mika nodded. “I know,” she said, a little more firmly, looking up. “I’m not lying about who I am anymore.”
“They told us that your name was Mika,” Bieste said. “Am I saying that right?”
Mika nodded again, this time smiling a little at the effort she was being given.
“Mika, I promise that you can always come to me,” she said, seriously. “I know that Figgins can come off as pretty…”
When her former football coach trailed off, Mika couldn’t help fill in the world, “useless,” under her breath.
Bieste smiled at that. “Yeah, pretty damned useless,” she said. “I know that Figgins is about as useless as a random pile of bricks, but if you ever feel at all threatened, I want you to come to me. You should be able to feel safe at school. I also personally promise that if you receive a single bit of harassment from any of our school’s athletes, I will have them removed from their position.”
Mika knew that though that was no guarantee, it was the little extra padding that she needed. Threat of losing their position at McKinley was the one thing that could deter the school’s jocks to leave her alone. “Thank you,” she said, quietly.
She felt like she just might make it after all.
Meanwhile Tina had never been so thankful to see Brittany in her life as she was when the girl walked into the choir room late that afternoon. Tina had claimed to anyone that asked that she was staying after school to get in some additional vocal practice, but vocal practice quickly turned to every sad, mopey song that she could think of. She was driving herself crazy. She had to get over herself and deal. Mika did not want her. She may or may not have been attracted to Tina at one time but she did not want her now. She had a crush on Sam and that was okay. Tina could deal with it, as much as it hurt. "Hi Brittany," she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't know," she said in typical Brittany fashion. She took a seat on the piano bench next to Tina and looked at her expectantly.
Tina waited a moment for Brittany to say something. "What?" she finally asked.
"Why are you so sad?" Brittany asked in return.
The question made her frown but at the same time she wanted to vent and had nobody to vent to. She could not talk to her parents because Mika was their child too now and their priority. She could also not talk to any of her closer friends because she found herself more and more distant from those she considered closer than Brittany.
"I'm having a bad day," she finally decided on. "I'm dealing with heartbreak and it just sucks."
"Don't let your heart break," Brittany said with genuine concern in her eyes. "You really love Mika don't you?" She reached out and touched her hand sympathetically. Sometimes Brittany scared Tina, the way that she alternated being lost and ditzy and oh-so-perceptive. It was intimidating. Tina frowned and reached forward, pulling Brittany into a hug. Brittany was receptive to the hug, hugging her back tightly.
"I just love her so much," she said softly. "I loved her when she was Mike and I love her now and I don't know if it will ever go away." Tina could not handle the overwhelming presence of her love for Mika. She wanted to cry the way that it choked her. She would always be Mika's sister. "I love her."
"She really loves you too," Brittany said. "She just has a lot to figure out."
Tina finally let go of Brittany and no longer wanted to talk about herself. She thought of the first thing that would turn the conversation elsewhere and blurted it out. "Hey, how are things going with Artie?"
This made Brittany smile. She chuckled and turned towards Tina. "He's being really good," she said. "He's afraid I'll break up with him and Sam is also being a pretty good influence on him."
Tina smiled despite the fact that the mention of Sam made her heart hurt. "I don't think he's a bad guy," Tina said of her ex, not wanting to think about Sam, however good an influence on Artie he was. "He has a lot to learn but he cares about the people in his life."
"He's a really sweet guy deep down," Brittany said wisely. "He doesn't mean to say mean things, but sometimes they just slip out."
Oh, Tina knew that well. Artie's tendency to blurt out hurtful things was one of the many reasons their relationship didn't last. "Do you think he'll eventually be nice to her?" Tina asked. "They were starting to get along and get past the relationship drama before."
"I think they will. I think Artie had a silly crisis when he found out Mika was a girl. It made him sad he lost you to a girl. I don't get why that's worse than a boy winning you over though."
Tina was not about to explain masculinity issues to Brittany so she shrugged it off and said, “good," liking the answer. "It's getting late, isn't it?" Tina asked, looking to the door. She had been sitting around in the choir room moping for quite awhile.
"Mhm."
"We should get out of here," Tina said as she began to pack up her things. She gathered them up and headed out, Brittany following closely. The first thing that Tina noticed when they exited the room was a group of Cheerios crowded around one Quinn Fabray. For some reason the Cheerios were always intimidating to Tina, especially in large groups. She and Brittany nearly just walked past when Quinn huffed something that caught her off guard.
"Sam is an idiot," she said clearly, the group of cheerleaders giggling and nodding in agreement.
"Wait, Britt," Tina said, stopping just around the corner to listen.
"It makes me sick," Quinn said seriously, her tone dangerously sassy. "He worked so hard to make something of himself. He was the most popular and desirable boy in this school. He's all of a sudden decided to throw that away for some sick, twisted tranny? It makes no sense."
"I can't believe the school is letting him walk around in dresses and stuff."
Tina frowned, she didn't recognize that voice but she sure as hell recognized Quinn's.
"Ugh, it is so gross," she said. "I can't believe that I was friends with Mike. I mean I can tolerate gays and stuff but this goes against God, nature, everything."
"We can't let her get away with that," Tina managed and the agreement was all that was needed to send her and Brittany into action. The girls turned the corner, but before Tina could lay into the cheerleaders for what they had said, Brittany did.
"Quinn," Brittany stated boldly. Quinn turned around. "You and San make me sick. Mika is our friend and she needs us. She's really happy to finally be able to be herself and we should all be her friends and be happy for her."
"But-"
Tina continued for Brittany. "You know what?" she asked. "Sam is smart. He has the ability to think for himself beneath the desire to be popular. He's learning. You haven't and you've been through a hell of a lot more than he has. You think you'd be empathetic Quinn. Do you remember how it felt? Last year you were treated like you carried some kind of social disease. Mika is currently walking around school feeling the same and here you are contributing to it. She
was always the one to quietly tell people to leave you alone last year."
"Tina, this isn't okay."
"You're right," she said. "It's not okay that you're spewing hate. I hope that Mika and Sam do start dating some day. He would be getting a huge upgrade from being with a hateful bitch."
Tina could have waited for Quinn to speak up and another shouting match to occur but instead she took Brittany's hand and walked down the hall with her head held high while Quinn and her cronies gaped.
"That was cool," she finally giggled when they got far enough. Though she was a far cry from the shy girl who had faked a stutter in the sixth through tenth grade, she was still shy and having an outburst at the most popular girl in school was kind of amazing and made her feel so incredibly proud of herself. "I really...really enjoy that."
"We did good," Brittany said, hugging Tina from the side.
"We did," she said hugging the girl back.
Tina looked at Brittany, really appreciating the other girl for the first time in a long while. "Why did we stop hanging out?" she asked. Toward the beginning of the previous year, she and Brittany had spent a lot of time together but had slowly drifted apart as Brittany became more involved in Cheerios things and Tina became involved in her relationship.
"I have no clue," Brittany said. "Let's fix that." '
"Let's."