Fic: Ch 1.1: 'Popular', Part 1 - PG
Title: Ch 1.1: 'Popular', part 1
Verse: Reverseverse
Author: test_kard_girl
Rating: PG, for the odd unexpected f-bomb.
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) 2522
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.
Part 1 of episode 1, Popular. This is the real beginning my story, and takes place the morning after 'A Little Role Reversal'. No-one's really sure how Kurt's playing this. Including Kurt, apparently.
Puck spots Kurt's Navigator in the parking lot as he skids past towards the bike racks, and his stomach instantly tightens so much he thinks he might pass out. But he breathes deep and keeps peddling and he's ok, and if his fingers are trembling a bit as he chains his bike up, well, who's really watching?
As it turns out, freakin' everyone's watching. In all the emotional wreckage of yesterday, he'd kinda forgotten that he'd actually dropped to his knees in front of the most infamous bitch in school in the middle of the cafeteria and serenaded him for like a full hour and a half or something. Turns out, big public declarations of love? They're kind of big and public.
No-one says anything of course. Because nobody knows what way Kurt's playing this ('cos he must be playing. Hummel and Puckerman? Not gonna happen. Not fucking ever. Has the dude lost his mind?) and no-one wants to risk muttering something that might end in social castration. But they just stare. And whisper. And keep staring.
Puck gets to his locker and manages to undo his combination and unload his rucksack without incident. He shoves half a notepad of paper and a pen in his back pocket and slams the door shut, thinking of maybe running to the guys' and having another piss and washing his face again 'cos he feels shaky and clammy all over. He has the second verse of 'With Me' stuck in his head and it's driving him a bit crazy 'cos he thinks that when he does finally run into Kurt he'll open his mouth and just that will come out and... and... well that wouldn't be cool in any way Puck can think of. If nothing else- he's decided resolutely- at some point today, he and Kurt will have a normal conversation that doesn't involve singing or casual sadism.
"Hey dude."
Puck jumps like three feet in the air.
"Fuck man, what the...?"
Finn just grins lopsidedly at him, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Embarrassed, Puck leans forward and hits his forehead off his locker:
"Finn; dude… what you creeping up on me for?"
"You're kinda jumpy man." Finn observes, looking a bit concerned. Puck just shakes his head and Finn falls into step with him as they make their way along the corridor.
"No way, I'm cool." Puck assures him, then sighs. "Fuck- what're they all staring for?" Puck can't think of another time when he's had this much attention. His cheeks are burning.
"Nah, they're not staring..." Finn shrugs, then looks kind of apologetic when a gaggle of mathletes burst into giggles at their passing.
"Uh, y'know, they're just happy cos it's mint trifle day."
He gets a little cheerful smile on his face at the idea of mint trifle day.
"You seen the guys yet?" Puck asks vaguely, mostly just in the hope that stupid small talk will stop his brain from exploding.
"Matt's in. Mike's got that physio thing today, you know, ‘cos of his slippy disks..."
Finn breaks off to smile at Santana Lopez and Quinn Fabray, who are sitting at their usual spot on the bottom step next to the girl's bathrooms, their cheerleading uniforms picking them out as the social lepers they are.
Puck smiles at them too, then-'cos they're kind of friends-- forces his feet to stop in front of them.
"'Sup?" he says. Santana just gives him a deadpan sneer:
"So are we calling you Princess Puckerman now?"
"Fuck you Lopez."
"Don't think I've got the parts you like sweetie."
"Hey Finn." Quinn says, a bit too loud to be normal. She tosses her ponytail.
Finn tries to look not too embarrassed.
"Hey. Uh, how’s it going?"
"Really great." Quinn says, and smiles. She's pretty when she smiles, if kind of creepy and stalkerish.
Santana raises an eyebrow at her:
"You done?"
Finn and Puck leave them bickering, Finn's blush still high on his cheeks. Puck narrows his eyes at him:
"Does Rachel know Quinn's kind of stalking you?"
"Yeah, well, I think so. She checked under my bed last time she came round." Finn admits. He runs a hand back through his hair.
"She's not worried though, I mean, she knows I don't think of Quinn like that..."
Puck snorts a laugh: no-one thinks of Quinn Fabray like that.
Then his heart seems to jump straight up into his throat, because they've rounded the corner and suddenly there are the glee kids, chatting happily, lounging against their lockers; then, as a collective (it seems to Puck) they turn their perfect faces and stare straight at him.
"Good morning Finn!" Rachel's smile breaks wide across her face and she moves across to kiss him elegantly, once on each cheek, before arranging herself in his arms in a way that makes Finn look like handy piece of furniture in a magazine shoot.
"Uh hey babe..." Finn grins back, once he finds his voice. Despite his blushes, his eyes actually seem to have little gold stars in them.
Puck forces himself to look away, to scan the row of mildly amused faces in front of him.
Kurt isn't even looking at him.
He's in the middle of some fairly intense looking conversation with Mercedes, one hand gesturing sharply and the other arm folded defensively across his chest, and Puck's just about to gather all his courage and clear his throat and say something when Mercedes slaps Kurt lightly across the shoulder and his head snaps up to meet Puck's gaze.
"Hey." Puck manages, sounding about as casual as a police cordon.
Kurt just stares at him for a second longer; then, as if he'd actually forgotten his lines, he blinks and replies:
"Hello Noah." and returns immediately to his conversation.
Puck swallows, feeling his stomach churning. Unable to stand all the curious pairs of eyes watching him, he looks at the floor.
The rest of them clearly don't know what to do and, after a second, Artie starts talking very animatedly about the multimedia extravaganza he has planned for winter prom, and then, over the top of everyone's too-cheerful laughter, the bell goes for first period.
Everyone starts to move, and Puck moves with them, thankful to be part of a crowd and not so obviously a fucking stupid loser. He's glad he has math first- none of the glee kids are dumb enough to be in class with him. He’ll probably tell the nurse he has a headache and get out of it anyway. Maybe she’ll send him home.
He shuffles his feet a bit, lets the gleeks go ahead, Finn too caught up with Rachel to wait on him.
He's such a fucking loser. Fuck it, fuck it… he's gonna screw this up, he just knows it. Kurt can't even talk to him...
"Hey, Puckerman."
The familiar clipped enunciation starts Puck out of his reverie of self-hatred. He looks over, and finds Kurt walking beside him--
actually, voluntarily beside him. Briefly, the other boy catches Puck's gaze before his ice blue eyes zip immediately back to appraise the cluster of heads in front of him.
"Uh… hey." Puck returns, outdoing himself with wit. He feels like the butterflies have overthrown the defences of his stomach and invaded his whole fucking entire body.
Kurt looks as on-trend as ever, skinny pants and t-shirt and casual blazer thrown over the top. He has a navy cord hat set at a jaunty angle at the back of his head and Puck suddenly feels dramatically under-dressed.
"So…Your shirt could be imprisoned for psychological abuse." Kurt observes with unhidden disdain, as if he'd heard Puck's thoughts; and Puck would be cowed-- but he's distracted by the slim, cool fingers brushing against his, tangling briefly before they part for separate classes, and so, somehow, it kind of feels like a compliment.
*
Will Shuester would like to think of himself as the total HBIC at McKinkey High.
Sure, he didn’t have any knowledge of that acronym until he found it as an addendum to Kurt Hummel’s name on the front of his Spanish notebook and got curious, but now that he’s Googled it, he’s pretty damn sure that title belongs solely to him.
After all, he is the most feared teacher at school, ruling the classrooms and hallways with a combination of scathing wit, cutting-edge teaching methods, kick-ass dance moves and an innate knowledge of his students’ weak-spots.
Kids cower; Sue Sylvester seethes; mothers come to parents’ night with their panties in their handbags, and now?
Now he has Glee Club.
William Schuester: HBIC.
It hadn’t taken much to persuade Rachel to rat out Mr Ryerson. All he had to do was crown her official Club Captain and sign a ten-page contract stipulating all musical numbers performed by the female lead in West Side Story went directly to her. Then it was goodbye creepy old Mr Ryerson, and hello success.
This year's crop of Glee kids were a veritable powder-keg of talent. The only minor worry Will had was the lack of numbers, but Will wasn't about start recruiting any old riff-raff into his chorus line-- New Directions had five National titles under their belts and Will knew: to keep that up, to win at Nationals, his New Directions could have only the best. The very best.
He knew he was right when he saw how his kids were treated by the rest of the school: worshipped, feared; lusted after. They ruled the school, topping even the mathletes (sometimes literally); and they were his kids.
William Schuester: HBIC.
So what really, really pisses him off, is that the one person who he wants to fall at his feet; then one person he wants to gasp in awe at his manliness, the one person who could legitimately be the Cleopatra to his Anthony, refuses to acknowledge his Head-Bitch-In-Charge-ness.
“Hey, Emma, can I sit--”
“My personal space extends at least five feet.” Emma Pillsbury interrupts icily, gesturing delicately around her with one plastic-gloved finger.
Will obediently takes a step back. He looks around and sees the nearest free chair is at another table-a table occupied by Sue Sylvester nonetheless-and it looks like someone puked up mint trifle over it.
Gingerly, Will lowers himself onto the edge of the chair.
“Wow, that’s a really uh, attractive, necklace, Emma…” Will tries again, plastering his most winning smile on his face.
Emma lifts her big brown eyes; gives him a scrutinising expression:
“How’s your pregnant wife Will?”
“Ouch.” Sue hisses from behind him.
Will ignores her, shifting to a more casual position on his chair.
“She’s good. She’s uh… moody.” He finishes a bit lamely.
Truth is, Terri’s a complete pain in the ass at the moment, but he figures women probably get a bit ‘female solidarity’ about pregnancy and stuff.
“So.” He tries to change tack, taking a sip of his latte: “I imagine you’ve heard Figgins has bumped up the Glee Club budget. Now I’m in charge he expects us to make quite a showing at regionals--”
“--Excuse me?”
Sue Sylvester’s fury is hard to ignore, as futile as it might be. Will sighs heavily and turns around, noticing with a thrill that Emma has stopped peeling grapes to listen in. She obviously expects a smackdown.
The cheerleading coach’s nostrils are flaring in the same way a young male silverback gorilla’s might during mating season.
“The farcically mal-adjusted collection of over-sexed Bratz dolls you call Glee Club already command over a third of this school’s extracurricular budget!”
“Thirty eight percent, actually.” Will agrees charmingly. He spares a conspiratorial glance for Emma, who rolls her eyes. “That’s because, Sue, the Glee Club carries the morale of the entire school on their shoulders-”
“--In case you hadn’t noticed, William:” Sue retorts “the members of your Glee Club carry nothing on their shoulders-- including essential items of high school paraphernalia-- because there’s a whole swathe of less musically-endowed freshmen employed through various forms of bribery and personal intimidation to do that for them.”
Will shrugs: “And?”
Sue slams her palms melodramatically down on the tabletop.
“Your Glee Club have turned this school into a playground of psychological horror, and Figgins wants to hand them my cheerleaders’ seasonal uniform budget??!”
At this last outburst, Will feels a tiny smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. This is the problem with Sue Sylvester: she can start out on a fairly sensible, valid point, and then she ruins it by mutating into a blonde, polysyllabic screech monkey.
Glad that Emma’s here to witness him taking Sue to the carpet (in a verbal, totally not physical in any sense, way) Will leans across the table, ignoring the blazing hellfire in Sue’s eyes and getting into her space.
“Sue. I understand your frustration.” he says, mock-soothing: “But face it: your cheerleaders will never be as important to the school as my Glee Club. My students encourage harmony, expression, creativity... Yours spell out words. With their arms.”
Sue stands up, scraping her chair agonisingly along the floor. Will just smiles.
“You won’t get away with this William.” She hisses “It’s gone on too long already. There are other students at this school who deserve the chance to shine.”
“Well I’m holding auditions at the end of next week.” Will reminds her beatifically. “Tell any of them they’re welcome to sign up.”
He rests his chin in his hand, pleased at the look of apoplectic rage on Sylvester’s face. He risks a glance back at Emma-- her expression remains bored and condescending: but that last grape never quite made it to her mouth.
He’s so caught up in staring at the sweet, pink lusciousness of her lips, he only barely manages to stifle a shriek when Sue’s chair clatters violently against the tiled floor, and the cheerleading coach stalks, snarling, from the room.
*
Sue marches down the hallway, elbowing students aside, impervious to their shouts; their grunts of pain as spine connects with locker.
Will Schuester.
He’s insufferable at the best of times: the king of the miscreants, personality permanently disfigured-probably a side-effect of the amount of dangerous chemicals absorbed into his brain via his hair follicles.
But this is the last straw.
Glee Club have ruled the school for too long. Yes; the Cheerios may possess the collective intelligence of an undercooked soy burger. But en masse Sue knows her cheerleaders are an athletic force to be reckoned with.
There are schools out there-Sue’s heard- schools that are proud of students who are fit, and healthy; proud of glowing young Americans who can run up stairs to the Taco Bell without having to stop off for a sneaky Krispy Kreme on the way, weeping as they massage Biofreeze into aching cankles.
Sue spares a glower for the choir room door as she passes. She’s positive it rattles on its hinges a bit in fear.
William McKinley High will be one of those schools, she vows. That extra budget money will be hers. She deserves it. Her Cheerios deserve it.
And the Glee Club?
Glee Club will be no more.
Prologue | 'A Little Role Reversal' | 'Popular' 1 |
Verse: Reverseverse
Author: test_kard_girl
Rating: PG, for the odd unexpected f-bomb.
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) 2522
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.
Part 1 of episode 1, Popular. This is the real beginning my story, and takes place the morning after 'A Little Role Reversal'. No-one's really sure how Kurt's playing this. Including Kurt, apparently.
Puck spots Kurt's Navigator in the parking lot as he skids past towards the bike racks, and his stomach instantly tightens so much he thinks he might pass out. But he breathes deep and keeps peddling and he's ok, and if his fingers are trembling a bit as he chains his bike up, well, who's really watching?
As it turns out, freakin' everyone's watching. In all the emotional wreckage of yesterday, he'd kinda forgotten that he'd actually dropped to his knees in front of the most infamous bitch in school in the middle of the cafeteria and serenaded him for like a full hour and a half or something. Turns out, big public declarations of love? They're kind of big and public.
No-one says anything of course. Because nobody knows what way Kurt's playing this ('cos he must be playing. Hummel and Puckerman? Not gonna happen. Not fucking ever. Has the dude lost his mind?) and no-one wants to risk muttering something that might end in social castration. But they just stare. And whisper. And keep staring.
Puck gets to his locker and manages to undo his combination and unload his rucksack without incident. He shoves half a notepad of paper and a pen in his back pocket and slams the door shut, thinking of maybe running to the guys' and having another piss and washing his face again 'cos he feels shaky and clammy all over. He has the second verse of 'With Me' stuck in his head and it's driving him a bit crazy 'cos he thinks that when he does finally run into Kurt he'll open his mouth and just that will come out and... and... well that wouldn't be cool in any way Puck can think of. If nothing else- he's decided resolutely- at some point today, he and Kurt will have a normal conversation that doesn't involve singing or casual sadism.
"Hey dude."
Puck jumps like three feet in the air.
"Fuck man, what the...?"
Finn just grins lopsidedly at him, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Embarrassed, Puck leans forward and hits his forehead off his locker:
"Finn; dude… what you creeping up on me for?"
"You're kinda jumpy man." Finn observes, looking a bit concerned. Puck just shakes his head and Finn falls into step with him as they make their way along the corridor.
"No way, I'm cool." Puck assures him, then sighs. "Fuck- what're they all staring for?" Puck can't think of another time when he's had this much attention. His cheeks are burning.
"Nah, they're not staring..." Finn shrugs, then looks kind of apologetic when a gaggle of mathletes burst into giggles at their passing.
"Uh, y'know, they're just happy cos it's mint trifle day."
He gets a little cheerful smile on his face at the idea of mint trifle day.
"You seen the guys yet?" Puck asks vaguely, mostly just in the hope that stupid small talk will stop his brain from exploding.
"Matt's in. Mike's got that physio thing today, you know, ‘cos of his slippy disks..."
Finn breaks off to smile at Santana Lopez and Quinn Fabray, who are sitting at their usual spot on the bottom step next to the girl's bathrooms, their cheerleading uniforms picking them out as the social lepers they are.
Puck smiles at them too, then-'cos they're kind of friends-- forces his feet to stop in front of them.
"'Sup?" he says. Santana just gives him a deadpan sneer:
"So are we calling you Princess Puckerman now?"
"Fuck you Lopez."
"Don't think I've got the parts you like sweetie."
"Hey Finn." Quinn says, a bit too loud to be normal. She tosses her ponytail.
Finn tries to look not too embarrassed.
"Hey. Uh, how’s it going?"
"Really great." Quinn says, and smiles. She's pretty when she smiles, if kind of creepy and stalkerish.
Santana raises an eyebrow at her:
"You done?"
Finn and Puck leave them bickering, Finn's blush still high on his cheeks. Puck narrows his eyes at him:
"Does Rachel know Quinn's kind of stalking you?"
"Yeah, well, I think so. She checked under my bed last time she came round." Finn admits. He runs a hand back through his hair.
"She's not worried though, I mean, she knows I don't think of Quinn like that..."
Puck snorts a laugh: no-one thinks of Quinn Fabray like that.
Then his heart seems to jump straight up into his throat, because they've rounded the corner and suddenly there are the glee kids, chatting happily, lounging against their lockers; then, as a collective (it seems to Puck) they turn their perfect faces and stare straight at him.
"Good morning Finn!" Rachel's smile breaks wide across her face and she moves across to kiss him elegantly, once on each cheek, before arranging herself in his arms in a way that makes Finn look like handy piece of furniture in a magazine shoot.
"Uh hey babe..." Finn grins back, once he finds his voice. Despite his blushes, his eyes actually seem to have little gold stars in them.
Puck forces himself to look away, to scan the row of mildly amused faces in front of him.
Kurt isn't even looking at him.
He's in the middle of some fairly intense looking conversation with Mercedes, one hand gesturing sharply and the other arm folded defensively across his chest, and Puck's just about to gather all his courage and clear his throat and say something when Mercedes slaps Kurt lightly across the shoulder and his head snaps up to meet Puck's gaze.
"Hey." Puck manages, sounding about as casual as a police cordon.
Kurt just stares at him for a second longer; then, as if he'd actually forgotten his lines, he blinks and replies:
"Hello Noah." and returns immediately to his conversation.
Puck swallows, feeling his stomach churning. Unable to stand all the curious pairs of eyes watching him, he looks at the floor.
The rest of them clearly don't know what to do and, after a second, Artie starts talking very animatedly about the multimedia extravaganza he has planned for winter prom, and then, over the top of everyone's too-cheerful laughter, the bell goes for first period.
Everyone starts to move, and Puck moves with them, thankful to be part of a crowd and not so obviously a fucking stupid loser. He's glad he has math first- none of the glee kids are dumb enough to be in class with him. He’ll probably tell the nurse he has a headache and get out of it anyway. Maybe she’ll send him home.
He shuffles his feet a bit, lets the gleeks go ahead, Finn too caught up with Rachel to wait on him.
He's such a fucking loser. Fuck it, fuck it… he's gonna screw this up, he just knows it. Kurt can't even talk to him...
"Hey, Puckerman."
The familiar clipped enunciation starts Puck out of his reverie of self-hatred. He looks over, and finds Kurt walking beside him--
actually, voluntarily beside him. Briefly, the other boy catches Puck's gaze before his ice blue eyes zip immediately back to appraise the cluster of heads in front of him.
"Uh… hey." Puck returns, outdoing himself with wit. He feels like the butterflies have overthrown the defences of his stomach and invaded his whole fucking entire body.
Kurt looks as on-trend as ever, skinny pants and t-shirt and casual blazer thrown over the top. He has a navy cord hat set at a jaunty angle at the back of his head and Puck suddenly feels dramatically under-dressed.
"So…Your shirt could be imprisoned for psychological abuse." Kurt observes with unhidden disdain, as if he'd heard Puck's thoughts; and Puck would be cowed-- but he's distracted by the slim, cool fingers brushing against his, tangling briefly before they part for separate classes, and so, somehow, it kind of feels like a compliment.
*
Will Shuester would like to think of himself as the total HBIC at McKinkey High.
Sure, he didn’t have any knowledge of that acronym until he found it as an addendum to Kurt Hummel’s name on the front of his Spanish notebook and got curious, but now that he’s Googled it, he’s pretty damn sure that title belongs solely to him.
After all, he is the most feared teacher at school, ruling the classrooms and hallways with a combination of scathing wit, cutting-edge teaching methods, kick-ass dance moves and an innate knowledge of his students’ weak-spots.
Kids cower; Sue Sylvester seethes; mothers come to parents’ night with their panties in their handbags, and now?
Now he has Glee Club.
William Schuester: HBIC.
It hadn’t taken much to persuade Rachel to rat out Mr Ryerson. All he had to do was crown her official Club Captain and sign a ten-page contract stipulating all musical numbers performed by the female lead in West Side Story went directly to her. Then it was goodbye creepy old Mr Ryerson, and hello success.
This year's crop of Glee kids were a veritable powder-keg of talent. The only minor worry Will had was the lack of numbers, but Will wasn't about start recruiting any old riff-raff into his chorus line-- New Directions had five National titles under their belts and Will knew: to keep that up, to win at Nationals, his New Directions could have only the best. The very best.
He knew he was right when he saw how his kids were treated by the rest of the school: worshipped, feared; lusted after. They ruled the school, topping even the mathletes (sometimes literally); and they were his kids.
William Schuester: HBIC.
So what really, really pisses him off, is that the one person who he wants to fall at his feet; then one person he wants to gasp in awe at his manliness, the one person who could legitimately be the Cleopatra to his Anthony, refuses to acknowledge his Head-Bitch-In-Charge-ness.
“Hey, Emma, can I sit--”
“My personal space extends at least five feet.” Emma Pillsbury interrupts icily, gesturing delicately around her with one plastic-gloved finger.
Will obediently takes a step back. He looks around and sees the nearest free chair is at another table-a table occupied by Sue Sylvester nonetheless-and it looks like someone puked up mint trifle over it.
Gingerly, Will lowers himself onto the edge of the chair.
“Wow, that’s a really uh, attractive, necklace, Emma…” Will tries again, plastering his most winning smile on his face.
Emma lifts her big brown eyes; gives him a scrutinising expression:
“How’s your pregnant wife Will?”
“Ouch.” Sue hisses from behind him.
Will ignores her, shifting to a more casual position on his chair.
“She’s good. She’s uh… moody.” He finishes a bit lamely.
Truth is, Terri’s a complete pain in the ass at the moment, but he figures women probably get a bit ‘female solidarity’ about pregnancy and stuff.
“So.” He tries to change tack, taking a sip of his latte: “I imagine you’ve heard Figgins has bumped up the Glee Club budget. Now I’m in charge he expects us to make quite a showing at regionals--”
“--Excuse me?”
Sue Sylvester’s fury is hard to ignore, as futile as it might be. Will sighs heavily and turns around, noticing with a thrill that Emma has stopped peeling grapes to listen in. She obviously expects a smackdown.
The cheerleading coach’s nostrils are flaring in the same way a young male silverback gorilla’s might during mating season.
“The farcically mal-adjusted collection of over-sexed Bratz dolls you call Glee Club already command over a third of this school’s extracurricular budget!”
“Thirty eight percent, actually.” Will agrees charmingly. He spares a conspiratorial glance for Emma, who rolls her eyes. “That’s because, Sue, the Glee Club carries the morale of the entire school on their shoulders-”
“--In case you hadn’t noticed, William:” Sue retorts “the members of your Glee Club carry nothing on their shoulders-- including essential items of high school paraphernalia-- because there’s a whole swathe of less musically-endowed freshmen employed through various forms of bribery and personal intimidation to do that for them.”
Will shrugs: “And?”
Sue slams her palms melodramatically down on the tabletop.
“Your Glee Club have turned this school into a playground of psychological horror, and Figgins wants to hand them my cheerleaders’ seasonal uniform budget??!”
At this last outburst, Will feels a tiny smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. This is the problem with Sue Sylvester: she can start out on a fairly sensible, valid point, and then she ruins it by mutating into a blonde, polysyllabic screech monkey.
Glad that Emma’s here to witness him taking Sue to the carpet (in a verbal, totally not physical in any sense, way) Will leans across the table, ignoring the blazing hellfire in Sue’s eyes and getting into her space.
“Sue. I understand your frustration.” he says, mock-soothing: “But face it: your cheerleaders will never be as important to the school as my Glee Club. My students encourage harmony, expression, creativity... Yours spell out words. With their arms.”
Sue stands up, scraping her chair agonisingly along the floor. Will just smiles.
“You won’t get away with this William.” She hisses “It’s gone on too long already. There are other students at this school who deserve the chance to shine.”
“Well I’m holding auditions at the end of next week.” Will reminds her beatifically. “Tell any of them they’re welcome to sign up.”
He rests his chin in his hand, pleased at the look of apoplectic rage on Sylvester’s face. He risks a glance back at Emma-- her expression remains bored and condescending: but that last grape never quite made it to her mouth.
He’s so caught up in staring at the sweet, pink lusciousness of her lips, he only barely manages to stifle a shriek when Sue’s chair clatters violently against the tiled floor, and the cheerleading coach stalks, snarling, from the room.
*
Sue marches down the hallway, elbowing students aside, impervious to their shouts; their grunts of pain as spine connects with locker.
Will Schuester.
He’s insufferable at the best of times: the king of the miscreants, personality permanently disfigured-probably a side-effect of the amount of dangerous chemicals absorbed into his brain via his hair follicles.
But this is the last straw.
Glee Club have ruled the school for too long. Yes; the Cheerios may possess the collective intelligence of an undercooked soy burger. But en masse Sue knows her cheerleaders are an athletic force to be reckoned with.
There are schools out there-Sue’s heard- schools that are proud of students who are fit, and healthy; proud of glowing young Americans who can run up stairs to the Taco Bell without having to stop off for a sneaky Krispy Kreme on the way, weeping as they massage Biofreeze into aching cankles.
Sue spares a glower for the choir room door as she passes. She’s positive it rattles on its hinges a bit in fear.
William McKinley High will be one of those schools, she vows. That extra budget money will be hers. She deserves it. Her Cheerios deserve it.
And the Glee Club?
Glee Club will be no more.
Prologue | 'A Little Role Reversal' | 'Popular' 1 |