V-DAY EXCHANGE FIC! One Foot In Front of the Other, for plotbunnytiff
Title: One foot in front of the other
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Mike/Mercedes
Warnings: slight language
Word count: 1171
Recipient: plotbunnytiff
Disclaimer: Don't own it.
Summary: And sure, there are a million other places she’d rather be right now, but maybe this will amount to some kind of growing experience that she’ll look back on in twenty years and say wow! I’m glad I did that.
A/N: First time ever writing Mercedes so I'm hope I wrote her well. As usual, huge thanks to my beta fashionweeks.
Mercedes Jones sits on a bench outside of William McKinley High School at the end of the first day of sophomore year, her headphones blaring. She’s exhausted and trying not to think of how dumb this whole moving to the middle of nowhere thing is and how she’ll probably hate her mother for it until the day she dies, but whatever. She’s seen Mean Girls so she already knew that the whole first day at a new school thing isn’t suppose to be easy. And sure, there are a million other places she’d rather be right now, but maybe this will amount to some kind of growing experience that she’ll look back on in twenty years and say wow! I’m glad I did that.
Or maybe not.
As Mercedes considers this, a kid in a football jersey sits down next to her, his hand clenched around the piece of bloodied gauze wrapped around his leg. Whatever is lying beneath the gauze looks like it should be painful, but her intruder doesn’t look bothered at all. In fact, he looks positively relaxed. Mercedes tries not to stare.
“My leg got in the way of Finn Hudson’s cleat.” her neighbor explains, spotting the repulsed look on her face. “An accident, of course.”
She rolls her eyes and looks away, not in the mood to exert the necessary effort to be friendly or inquire after the subject. She just wants to be alone until her mother can pick her up from school and is thankfully happy when he doesn’t say anything else. The parking lot has cleared out, except for her Spanish teacher and the guidance counselor who laugh about something as they make their way across the tarmac.
After a minute, she notices that he may or may not be tapping out on the bench the rhythm of her favorite song by Weezy, coincidentally the one her iPod’s playing now, and Mercedes is suddenly very annoyed. Who does this kid even think he is? She’s just sitting here, minding her own business, and he has to ruin it. This so wouldn’t be okay where she came from, but she’s in Lima, Ohio now and she suspects that they do things very differently here.
She’s acutely aware of his eyes on her and she’s about to say something along the lines of Do you have a problem? when he says, “I think you’re in my English class. You’re new, right?”
She clicks stop on her iPod and takes out her headphones, grudgingly committing herself to an actual discussion. Briefly, she recalls her second period English literature class and how her teacher, the moron he obviously is, made her stand up and introduce herself and share her favorite book. When she had said that she really liked Raisin in the Sun, the blonde cheerleader who sat in front of her had cracked her gum loudly and smiled as if she expected Mercedes to be illiterate and have a speech impediment. In that moment, Mercedes decided that these people that she’s suppose to call her peers are all fools. They’re only an obstacle between her and a multi-million dollar recording deal with Diddy. Mercedes Jones doesn’t belong in Lima, Ohio and when she’s a vocal legend, dumb blonde cheerleading bitches won’t matter. In fact, none of this will. When she announced this during her guidance appointment during lunch, the guidance counselor had pushed a strand of red hair away from her face and replied, “In time, you might feel differently.” (Whatever, lady.)
“Yeah,” she says. “I moved here from Cleveland.”
“Cool. Never been there.” A pause. “Oh, I’m Mike. What’s your name again? I’m pretty bad with names.”
“Mercedes. Mercedes Jones.”
“Mercedes. That’s a nice name. Like it here so far?”
As he says this, Mercedes weighs her options. She could tell him that she doesn’t really feel like talking and that she’d really like to be left alone, thank you very much. Or she could keep having this almost conversation with some guy named Mike who seems nice enough with that shaggy black hair, but might actually be a total waste of her time.
She already knows which is the safer, more Mercedes-like option so she’s kind of surprised at herself when she replies, “It’s okay... You gotta explain something to me. I’m walking into school this morning and some guy in a Varsity jacket assaulted some nerd in a wheelchair with a slushie. Like, really? Is this how it works out here?”
He laughs. “The William McKinley High School Food Chain in action. You know, a rigid social hierarchy. Football players and cheerleaders at the top, the rest of the school files in line from there.”
“That must be nice for you,” she replies, eyeing his football jersey. “It’s always easier being on your side.”
He raises his hands in defeat. “It’s just how things work here.”
“You’re a fool.”
“I know,” he replies with a grin. “But I’m still trying to regain social points from that time in fifth grade that I cried during Pinocchio.”
Mercedes flicks a piece of hair over her shoulder, trying not to smile. “You’ve probably lost a hundred points just from the past five minutes. Talking to the new girl isn’t going to help you much.”
“Luckily,” he says, “I don’t really care. I play football because I like it, oh and I can pop and lock like no body’s business. I have other things going on besides my immense popularity. To quote the great prophet Jay-Z, ‘More than a hustla, I'm the definition of it.’ If I want to talk to the pretty new girl, I will, regardless of what Quinn Fabray has to say about it.”
She looks him dead in the eye and, trying not to focus on how brown his eyes are, says, “I repeat: you’re a fool.”
Across the parking lot, her mother’s car comes into view and Mercedes gets up, shocked to find that she’s sort of disappointed that she has to go. Funny how things turn out.
“Good luck with... whatever that is,” she tells him, looking at the bandage around his leg.
“Thanks. See you later, Mercedes?” he asks as if he knows she's been contemplating running away since the moment she stepped foot in her new town.
She looks back at him as she opens the door to the car and although she rolls her eyes in mock condescension, she’s smiling. "Sure."
Mercedes Jones doesn’t know that she will one day she’ll pass by a sign for Glee Club and decide to sign up for it. She doesn’t know that Lima will grow on her (just a little bit). She doesn’t know that one day she’ll be furiously making out with Mike Chang in an empty classroom after Glee wins Sectionals, his hands firm on her waist. But for now, she’s becoming increasingly convinced that everything will be okay. Don’t tell anyone, but she’s willing to take that chance.
About the fic you request:(this is the part that will be sent to your writer)
Rating(s) requested (G-NC-17): PG-13 to NC-17
Character(s) or pairing(s): Mike/Mercedes, Mercedes/Artie, Mike/Artie, Artie/Mercedes/Mike (I'm a weirdo, I know. -_-)
Prompts (minimum of 3, no maximum!):
Song prompts:
1. Sunday Kind Of Love
2. Summer Lovin'
3. Unchained Melody
Food Prompts:
1. Strawberry
2. Chow Mein
3. Fondue
Random Fun Prompts:
1. Cheesy 80's high school AU!
2. Swashbuckling adventure AU!
3. Fairy Tale/Fantasy AU!
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Mike/Mercedes
Warnings: slight language
Word count: 1171
Recipient: plotbunnytiff
Disclaimer: Don't own it.
Summary: And sure, there are a million other places she’d rather be right now, but maybe this will amount to some kind of growing experience that she’ll look back on in twenty years and say wow! I’m glad I did that.
A/N: First time ever writing Mercedes so I'm hope I wrote her well. As usual, huge thanks to my beta fashionweeks.
Mercedes Jones sits on a bench outside of William McKinley High School at the end of the first day of sophomore year, her headphones blaring. She’s exhausted and trying not to think of how dumb this whole moving to the middle of nowhere thing is and how she’ll probably hate her mother for it until the day she dies, but whatever. She’s seen Mean Girls so she already knew that the whole first day at a new school thing isn’t suppose to be easy. And sure, there are a million other places she’d rather be right now, but maybe this will amount to some kind of growing experience that she’ll look back on in twenty years and say wow! I’m glad I did that.
Or maybe not.
As Mercedes considers this, a kid in a football jersey sits down next to her, his hand clenched around the piece of bloodied gauze wrapped around his leg. Whatever is lying beneath the gauze looks like it should be painful, but her intruder doesn’t look bothered at all. In fact, he looks positively relaxed. Mercedes tries not to stare.
“My leg got in the way of Finn Hudson’s cleat.” her neighbor explains, spotting the repulsed look on her face. “An accident, of course.”
She rolls her eyes and looks away, not in the mood to exert the necessary effort to be friendly or inquire after the subject. She just wants to be alone until her mother can pick her up from school and is thankfully happy when he doesn’t say anything else. The parking lot has cleared out, except for her Spanish teacher and the guidance counselor who laugh about something as they make their way across the tarmac.
After a minute, she notices that he may or may not be tapping out on the bench the rhythm of her favorite song by Weezy, coincidentally the one her iPod’s playing now, and Mercedes is suddenly very annoyed. Who does this kid even think he is? She’s just sitting here, minding her own business, and he has to ruin it. This so wouldn’t be okay where she came from, but she’s in Lima, Ohio now and she suspects that they do things very differently here.
She’s acutely aware of his eyes on her and she’s about to say something along the lines of Do you have a problem? when he says, “I think you’re in my English class. You’re new, right?”
She clicks stop on her iPod and takes out her headphones, grudgingly committing herself to an actual discussion. Briefly, she recalls her second period English literature class and how her teacher, the moron he obviously is, made her stand up and introduce herself and share her favorite book. When she had said that she really liked Raisin in the Sun, the blonde cheerleader who sat in front of her had cracked her gum loudly and smiled as if she expected Mercedes to be illiterate and have a speech impediment. In that moment, Mercedes decided that these people that she’s suppose to call her peers are all fools. They’re only an obstacle between her and a multi-million dollar recording deal with Diddy. Mercedes Jones doesn’t belong in Lima, Ohio and when she’s a vocal legend, dumb blonde cheerleading bitches won’t matter. In fact, none of this will. When she announced this during her guidance appointment during lunch, the guidance counselor had pushed a strand of red hair away from her face and replied, “In time, you might feel differently.” (Whatever, lady.)
“Yeah,” she says. “I moved here from Cleveland.”
“Cool. Never been there.” A pause. “Oh, I’m Mike. What’s your name again? I’m pretty bad with names.”
“Mercedes. Mercedes Jones.”
“Mercedes. That’s a nice name. Like it here so far?”
As he says this, Mercedes weighs her options. She could tell him that she doesn’t really feel like talking and that she’d really like to be left alone, thank you very much. Or she could keep having this almost conversation with some guy named Mike who seems nice enough with that shaggy black hair, but might actually be a total waste of her time.
She already knows which is the safer, more Mercedes-like option so she’s kind of surprised at herself when she replies, “It’s okay... You gotta explain something to me. I’m walking into school this morning and some guy in a Varsity jacket assaulted some nerd in a wheelchair with a slushie. Like, really? Is this how it works out here?”
He laughs. “The William McKinley High School Food Chain in action. You know, a rigid social hierarchy. Football players and cheerleaders at the top, the rest of the school files in line from there.”
“That must be nice for you,” she replies, eyeing his football jersey. “It’s always easier being on your side.”
He raises his hands in defeat. “It’s just how things work here.”
“You’re a fool.”
“I know,” he replies with a grin. “But I’m still trying to regain social points from that time in fifth grade that I cried during Pinocchio.”
Mercedes flicks a piece of hair over her shoulder, trying not to smile. “You’ve probably lost a hundred points just from the past five minutes. Talking to the new girl isn’t going to help you much.”
“Luckily,” he says, “I don’t really care. I play football because I like it, oh and I can pop and lock like no body’s business. I have other things going on besides my immense popularity. To quote the great prophet Jay-Z, ‘More than a hustla, I'm the definition of it.’ If I want to talk to the pretty new girl, I will, regardless of what Quinn Fabray has to say about it.”
She looks him dead in the eye and, trying not to focus on how brown his eyes are, says, “I repeat: you’re a fool.”
Across the parking lot, her mother’s car comes into view and Mercedes gets up, shocked to find that she’s sort of disappointed that she has to go. Funny how things turn out.
“Good luck with... whatever that is,” she tells him, looking at the bandage around his leg.
“Thanks. See you later, Mercedes?” he asks as if he knows she's been contemplating running away since the moment she stepped foot in her new town.
She looks back at him as she opens the door to the car and although she rolls her eyes in mock condescension, she’s smiling. "Sure."
Mercedes Jones doesn’t know that she will one day she’ll pass by a sign for Glee Club and decide to sign up for it. She doesn’t know that Lima will grow on her (just a little bit). She doesn’t know that one day she’ll be furiously making out with Mike Chang in an empty classroom after Glee wins Sectionals, his hands firm on her waist. But for now, she’s becoming increasingly convinced that everything will be okay. Don’t tell anyone, but she’s willing to take that chance.
About the fic you request:(this is the part that will be sent to your writer)
Rating(s) requested (G-NC-17): PG-13 to NC-17
Character(s) or pairing(s): Mike/Mercedes, Mercedes/Artie, Mike/Artie, Artie/Mercedes/Mike (I'm a weirdo, I know. -_-)
Prompts (minimum of 3, no maximum!):
Song prompts:
1. Sunday Kind Of Love
2. Summer Lovin'
3. Unchained Melody
Food Prompts:
1. Strawberry
2. Chow Mein
3. Fondue
Random Fun Prompts:
1. Cheesy 80's high school AU!
2. Swashbuckling adventure AU!
3. Fairy Tale/Fantasy AU!