Sitting on a toilet seat as Tina and Mercedes helped to clear away the slushie facial, Kurt growled on about Neanderthals and annoyances. His routine was screwed and he wondered if one day he would just be forced to wear on of those hideously unfashionable plastic ponchos to avoid his clothes being ruined for the day. There would be a day of reckoning he promised himself... and he hoped it would be before graduation. Four years of this hell hole, and he was ready to go somewhere where he didn't have to worry about the bad reputation he was accumulating for his father and the idiots that would stay here and clean his septic tank everytime he came back to visit. Ah, the goodness that his imagination brought forth. Sometimes he was too fabulous for even his imagination to handle, but then he would walk towards his locker and in bold, black, ugly letters would be there: FAG and he realized that he was still at McKinley, still at Lima and still suffering.

Please, if there is anything called favor in the universe...can I please get a break this year.

Unfortunately, favor is not fair.

The manly noise over locker-speak never ceased to remind him of the last time he was on a football team. He almost turned back around with the memory of. Searching through the corridors of half-naked teenagers slapping each other with t-shirts and rough housing could never get old. Even in the military, the men rough-housed and slapped each other with wet towels, he guessed it was just a manly thing. A timeless experience that every man on any kind of team with a locker room had to go through. He just hoped he would have to break a teammates arm this time around.

Where the hell was this Tanaka dude? He decided to follow the team as they headed outdoors. The coach is bound to be outside right?

"Alright team hustle up! After the interlude a couple years ago we've gone back to the same old routine of sucking to the point of no return! I want to see some improvement this year! If we loose to those deaf kids again, you'll all run so long you'll forget you had legs."

A hand went up behind Puck, and Tanaka looked up to see the face hovering over Puck's head. Great. Just what they needed another skinny lanky want-to-be football player. He needed muscle, a star player, a real player that could back up the defensive line and maybe even break through the other's offense... He needed someone who didn't suck as much. He'd hoped and prayed for speed and power, and he'd gotten it in Puck, Finn, and Karofsky but not nearly enough to matter. After Kurt left, they'd lost their kicker and had gone back to sucking after a brief stint in winning.

"This isn't class children, what is it?"

The tall boy pushed his way through the crowd politely enough and Tanaka stared for a moment. He was fucking huge, towering over him and taller than Finn. Silver-blue eyes that shifted in the sunlight tanned broad shoulders underneath the huge t-shirt he sported as he handed a sheet of paper to Tanaka and the rest of the team mummured between themselves. From the size of his clothing, he was either very buff or very fat... he didn't want to contemplate which one as he glanced down at the paper: Emiliano Romano.

"Oh, you're the new kid Figgins was talking about." He looked at the boy and hoped he was judging the book by its cover correctly. "Go change and we'll see what you can do."

He shrugged and headed back towards the locker room. Not like he didn't expect to have to get dressed. He grabbed a helmet, shoulder pads and his other gear after changing into his normal workout clothes of basketball shorts and a tank top. Pulling a jersey overhead he headed back outside as the team started warming up and headed towards Tanaka who waved him over.

"What position did you play?"

"I've played Line Backer, Running Back, Tight End, and Kicker."

He blinked once and looked up at the heavy accent coming from the boy's mouth. It was nowhere near Iowa. East coast? West coast?

"Italy," He supplied with a smile. "I get the question all the time. But what position will I be playing trying out for on your team?"

"We'll start you off with Kicker if you don't mind. Let's see what you've got."

Puck, Finn, and the rest of the team stopped to take a breather as the new kid stretched a bit and set up the kick post.

"Let's hope we don't get another, Hummel huh?" Karofsky asked making half the team laugh.

It had been four long years of high school and they were all ready to get out of the small town where there were the same faces to to punch in, the same slushie facials to give. It gets old after a while. Especially when they were the worst football team in the history of ever. God it sucked to be them... that was until the new kid kicked. The football went zooming through the field post and ended up on the other side of the street and somehow they thought all was right with the world after three more kicks of the same distance. They gawked at disappointment on the boy's face as he rolled his shoulders and shifted the shoulder pads that seemed to be a little on the small side for him.

He wasn't really in to football, but since there was no real football, tennis, swimming, or water polo team, he would have to make due with some form of physical activity to channel some of that pent up energy. That didn't mean he had to suck at it. If he was going to be stuck to the hum-drum monotony of getting pushed around on the field, then he'd have to work back up into his former glory. Tanaka slapped his shoulder and said something about being the new kicker before practice picked up again. Running through drills he headed back inside after practice. The whole of practice no one had asked much about him as he changed and headed home. He had about six rooms to unpack in his family's house as a surprise for his Dads' coming home. When he arrived, he turned on the sounds of Nirvana and got to work. By the time his fathers' came in, the house was unpacked, everything was put away and dinner was under way.

"Had a good day, then?" Eric Logan asked coming into the kitchen as his spouse, Neil, came in behind him.

"I joined the football team," He replied turning off the stove. "Dinner's ready."

Neil set the table and Eric served. The congenial normal "how-was-your-day" talk ensued before Neil took care of the dishes and he headed upstairs to scrub the sweat off his skin and climb into bed. Surrounded by glow in the dark astronomy projection, band posters, and musical instruments, he sighed and went to sleep wondering what exactly this school had to offer other than a really bad American football team and weird teachers in tiny shorts.

The bell rang again early to start the day at Mount Carmel high and she glided towards her classroom.

No cheerleaders to run into and please, please, please no one from Vocal Adrenaline, she prayed.

Senior year had been somewhat better for Emiliana and she hoped it would stay that way, but she almost never got what she hoped for when it came to Mt. Carmel. The school had been a true test of patience, trust, and will because she really could have gotten herself kicked out of school by the number of times she'd been ready to rip someone's hair out, including her own. But that wouldn't have made things any better, it would have caused unnecessary stress and so she remained underneath the torture of Mt. Carmel students for the last four years.

Senior year had been better for her...that was until she entered the classroom, glasses on her face, hair under a baseball cap, slouchy clothing and all and some sticky substance was hurled at her. She figured it was either egg yolk or syrup and she looked into the laughing group as more of it was thrown at her and into the eyes of one Jesse St. James... The glare was unforgiving and he looked away as his friends continued to hurl things at her and she stood there not bothering to move... Not for them... not for their gratification. Not for anyone anymore. When the laughing died down and the teacher looked up.

"Are you finished?"

They laughed and jeered as she glared at Jesse once more before heading out to go to the bathroom and change clothing. She was always well prepared for things like this...after all it had started sophomore year when it was obvious she wasn't interested in being popular, or a floozy. She didn't wear skirts, she wore pants...She wore her hats low, her hair wild, and with a generally unkempt appearance she was bullied and pushed around...While no one had ever put their hands on her...there were times when she wanted to scream the world and show what she was really capable of so maybe they'd think thrice before thinking about touching her. She would have figured that putting a guys head through glass and landing him in the hospital for a few month would have taught them a lesson, but no. She guessed American teenagers needed bigger hints than normal.

One more year... she chanted, slipping her Metallica shirt over her head and changing caps before heading to lunch. It took longer than usual to get the stuff out of her hair than usual but that didn't matter. It was a class that she could pass without paying attention: Spanish. She was fluent in it after all so what did she need the class for?

"Hey look at this!" She looked up as a girl from Vocal Adrenaline, brandishing her Vocal Adrenaline jacket, turned a tape on the large television in the corner of the lunch room to show a group at Internationals. It was old she could see that, but there was something else...The voice.

It couldn't be...

She stood moving closer to the screen, her eyes glued to the flickering lights of stage as the team finished off their routine and her breath caught. Those eyes... that smile...everything about him was just as she remembered...She'd found him at last.