OK, before you flame this; Chris is a canon character. He is seen in the pilot, flipping across the stage during Rehab, and in The Rhodes Not Taken he serves Terri and Will at the restaurant, and confesses that Carmel keeps flunking him out so he can stay in the choir. This is what gives Will the idea to find April Rhodes. So, no, he is not a character who was made up for fanfiction. Now that we have that settled, read on.
It's honestly not that strange. Mike joined New Directions after they'd had their first experience with Vocal Adrenaline, and he'd been struggling to believe that they were as terrifying as everyone said they were. So he looked up when their Sectional was, and alone (Matt had refused to come, and Mike ignored how disappointed he'd been at the 'no', and Puck had walked away as soon as he heard it was about Glee Club) headed out to watch, fresh off his own victory. The rival choir was up last, just like New Directions had been, so he settled into his seat for a long wait. The other two groups didn't seem like they'd be too much of a challenge, though the second had a tall redhead who sang amazing harmonies, so Mike took a mental note to remember that in case they won. He needn't have worried.
His first impression was something along the lines of 'weird robot choir'. The positions they assumed after they filed on stage were too perfect, the gaps between them too uniform. Even the separate members all seemed to look the same. Then they exploded into a wave of noise that lapped around the auditorium. Mike's eyebrows shot up. Maybe New Directions wasn't the rule for show choir, but he certainly hadn't expected people to be singing and dancing simultaneously like that. Heck, he probably couldn't sing like that if he was standing still. Then his eye gets caught by a tall brunet who runs to the front corner of the performance area, does a triple flip across the stage and then holds out his arms, drinking in the audience appreciation, then repeats the move back the other way, before flawlessly melding into the group of dancers.
Except not quite flawlessly because now Mike can't take his eyes of him. The male lead is at the front of the group, and, lets face it, if any of the other guys in glee club (except Kurt) were here then they definitely had other things to be looking at, but Mike's eyes are stuck on that one guy. He's ignoring the fact that he forces himself not to look at guys because of course he's not gay. He's ignoring the fact that Vocal Adrenaline are just as terrifyingly good as the rest of the glee club had claimed. He's ignoring the fact that New Directions might well lose Regionals. Because the tall, male chorus member is far more interesting. The performance passes as a blur; he can't even remember what songs they sang. He is utterly unsurprised when Vocal Adrenaline are announced as the winner.
He is incredibly surprised, however, when someone comes over to him when he's waiting for the bus back to Lima (his mom freaks out about him driving to anywhere that would take longer than half an hour). He was considering texting someone about the performance, wondering if anyone who hadn't already seen them would care, when gravel crunched under someone's shoes a few feet away.
"Enjoy the show?" No. Way. Up close he's about three inches taller than Mike, with broad shoulders. His eyes are as dark as his hair, and he makes Mike's mouth dry out. He coughs, once, awkwardly.
"Uh, yeah." If it had been anyone else who'd been onstage, Mike laments, he probably could've come up with something much more interesting. But the guy smiles in response.
"So can I consider you a fan now?" Mike leans against the bus stop (hopefully) casually.
"Well, I was here to check out the competition, so not exactly." The guy raises his eyebrows, and Mike thinks that he looks a little old to be in high school, but he's suddenly being scrutinised so closely that it doesn't really matter. The guy grins again, as if he's found something, and Mike's immediately confused.
"Oh right, you're in the McKinley choir aren't you? I thought you looked familiar. We came to your Sectional the other night." Mike blinks, and is about it ask if by 'we' he meant their whole choir, but he's interrupted by a blonde kid back in the carpark.
"Chris, man! Come on!" The guy – Chris – takes a step back, before looking back at Mike.
"I guess I'll see you at Regionals then." Mike nods, still feeling like the situation is a little surreal.
"I'll see you then."
The next day at Glee rehearsal, Mike doesn't say anything about Vocal Adrenaline. Brittany smiles at him a few times, and this time the day before he would've been falling over himself to return them, but he's too preoccupied with a pair of dark eyes set above broad shoulders.
He sees Chris before Regionals. Of course, he isn't the one seeking anything out. As soon as Rachel had dragged them all to the auditorium he'd known something was wrong. Then they'd walked in, and Jesse had been standing at the middle of the stage, looking blank. Then Mike had seen him, standing a few feet behind Jesse, looking smug. Looking at him. Which was awkward, and unusual.
Mike is well aware that he was among the less important in the glee club. I mean, sure, he can dance, but Mr. Schuester has this weird affinity with step-touch, step-touch, ball change, and because Mike can't really sing he's usually stuck in the background. All the focus is on Rachel and Finn all the time (except for the last thirty second of every song when they let Mercedes run wild all over the backing vocals). No one really notices the gawky guy in the chorus. So this Chris dude staring at him is more than a little unnerving. He doesn't take in any of the intimidating speeches, and, just like at Sectionals, he watches the one guy the whole time. There is no triple flip – he remains in the chorus the whole time. There's nothing to differentiate him from any of the others. But that doesn't mean he doesn't stick out to anyone.
Mike splits off from the rest of the club when they leave the auditorium. He slips out a fire exit (he knows that despite the signs the alarm doesn't go off when the doors open, he accidentally figured it out in Freshman year) feeling fairly sure that no one would miss him. This proves to be a mistake though, because when he's been leaning against the door for about a minute when one of the girls from Vocal Adrenaline walks past, long brown hair spilling down her back, carrying a speaker. And he realises that this must be the route they're taking their stuff, and he should probably leave before-
"Enjoy the performance?" He's standing a few feet away, holding a portable spotlight, and still looking incredibly smug.
"What, you guys emotionally terrorizing our lead? Yeah it was awesome, dude." He comes a couple of steps closer and leans against the wall next to Mike. The members of his choir walking past are giving the guy odd looks, but he seems to be ignoring them in favour of Mike. Which is still weird. The guy is still grinning, looking entirely unrepentant, and he shrugs.
"It's tradition." Mike doesn't think that's much of an excuse, so he decides to ignore the other boy, turning to face away from the wall. "Did it work?" Mike looks up to see that he's moved closer again. He automatically straightens up, even though it brings their faces closer together, and steels himself against moving away – he doesn't want to seem intimidated.
"Nah. We're still going to kick your ass at Regionals." It's bravado, of course. Mike's fairly sure that you don't need to have spent as much time with New Directions as he had to see they were seriously spooked. There's a weird look on the guys face – he's stopped grinning, but his lips quirk a little at Mike's reply (not that he's staring at the guys lips) – but he doesn't get a chance to reply, because the girl with the long brown hair is back.
"Chris, I have your keys, and if you don't come now I'm driving your car home without you." Chris starts, and moves past Mike. He turns a little before he goes.
"See you at Regionals, then." Mike nods slightly and forces himself not to watch as the other boy walks away.
But it isn't Regionals the next time they see each other. Mike's extremely glad they made the decision to give the Carmel glee club a taste of their own medicine. He wishes he could see their faces as Kurt starts the song. It's not as polished as the Vocal Adrenaline number, but that's hardly the point. When he leads his line out from behind the screen he catches sight of the shadows in the audience. He can't see their faces, but unfortunately he's pretty sure he can tell which silhouette is Chris. Which is annoying. He tries as hard as he can to not look at the audience, focussing on the dance moves. It doesn't help that whenever he dances too close to Brittany he sees the shadow shift a little. When he goes manages to almost hit the splits before popping back up the figure jerks in its chair. Mike's most of the way off the stage when the house lights come back up, but he still sees Chris sitting right where he'd thought he'd been. And, again, he's staring straight at Mike. His eyes seem darker over the distance. Mike has to force himself to walk off the stage with the rest of the club.
By the time he walks out to the parking lot he's feeling less jittery. But then he sees the sole range rover still parked in the lot, and the tall figure leaning against the back of it. He makes a very pointed turn towards his car, and surprisingly is able to ignore the approaching figure until he's turning his key in the door, and the guy is standing beside the boot of his car staring at him, with this weird look on his face. He pauses with his key still in the lock, waiting for the guy to say something.
"… You guys are good." He pauses for a long moment, as if waiting for Mike to react. "We're still better though." Mike, not particularly feeling like having a conversation based in posturing, begins to pull open the door to his car. "No, wait." The fact that he actually stops irritates Mike, but he'd paused before he realised he'd done it. "How come you didn't dance like that at Sectionals?" He moves up the side of the car as he walks, towards Mike, and his eyebrows are furrowing together.
"A couple of reasons." He stops himself from saying anything else, but can't quite keep himself from taking a step towards the other boy. There's less than a foot of distance between them, and he – Chris – closes the distance a little more.
"Care to share?" His voice is weirdly husky.
"Not particularly." Mike suddenly becomes aware that he's kind of swaying towards the other guy, and the realisation snaps him out of the weird spell that was kind of hanging between them. He jerks backwards, and Chris seems to jerk upright in response. "You are the enemy." With that he forces himself to open his car door the rest of the way and climb into the drivers' seat, slamming the door shut after him. Chris doesn't try and stop him and steps out of the way when he reverses out of his parking spot. Then Mike stops, and winds his window down, leaning out towards the other boy, who's staring at him with a kind of confused look on his face. "See you at Regionals." And with that he drives off.
It's almost surprising when the next time they see each other is actually at Regionals. It's just a glimpse backstage after the performance. Mike had been going out of his way to avoid members of Vocal Adrenaline backstage, but when Quinn goes into labour they can't really plan their route for the least amount of contact. Luckily, they're going to fast to stop for conversation. Vocal Adrenaline pass by in a blur of pink and black, but Mike still saw Chris's face looking confused and almost… concerned? But he doesn't really have time to think about it when a member of his club is about to give birth. Rachel's already volunteered to stay behind and watch the other choir (It doesn't matter how she reacts to Finn's confessions of love, she's clearly not over Jesse) so the rest of New Directions drives to the hospital. Where it becomes clear that the majority of them are going to sit in the waiting room feeling stressed out about Quinn, and the competition, for however long it takes.
After about five minutes it becomes obvious that the nearly panic struck group might tear apart the waiting room, so Mr. Schuester confirms with Quinn's mom that she might be a while, and suggests they drive the ten minutes back to the auditorium that Regionals was being held in, and come back after the announcement had been made. So, pale and fidgety, the New Directions made their way back to the competition, just in time to file onstage for the results to be read out. The results don't even seem to matter anymore, and Mike knows that the future of the Glee Club could rely on the words read out in the next few minutes but Quinn is having a baby.
He isn't that surprised when they don't place. Things only very rarely go right for them. It isn't particularly nice to see the Vocal Adrenaline group celebrating on the other side of the stage, but there are more important things. More distracting is the fact the Chris is staring at him again, looking exhilarated with his victory. Mike shakes himself, and excuses himself to the bathroom. He wants a moment or two alone before they go back to the hospital and more stress. He's both unsurprised, and annoyed, when he's followed in.
"You're Mike, right?" An awkward pause. "I looked in the program." Mike follows through his original intent of splashing water on his face before nodding.
"Come to gloat?" Chris is standing at the sink next to the one he's using, staring at him like he's a puzzle that's unable to be solved.
"Not exactly." Mike sighs, and straightens up, turning to face the taller boy.
"Well whatever you're here to do, could you speed it up? I've got more important things happening at the moment." The other guy steps closer and, god, could he be any more confusing.
"The blonde girl… She go into the labour?" Mike nods, wondering if that was really all Chris came in here to ask. "Why'd you come back?"
"The waiting room was awful and we decided we might as well hear the verdict. Babies generally aren't born in twenty minutes." Chris shuffles a little closer. "Anything else?" He's tempted to just leave but it's getting increasingly hard to tear his eyes away from the confused, dark ones above him. Then suddenly there are large, rough hands gripping his shoulders and Chris is crushing his lips against Mike's and he was not expecting this when he was followed into the men's room. He's completely frozen for about two seconds, and then his body takes over and he grabs two fistfuls of the guy's shirt as he kisses back just as hard. Then his brain kicks in, and he pushes Chris away, hard, before walking as calmly as he can out of the bathroom.
A few people give him dirty looks (he hopes they're from taking too long in the bathroom, not from suspicion) before they drive back to the hospital. They sit in the waiting room for several hours, half stressed about Quinn, half trying to process the fact that they lost. But Mike's still kind of stuck in the men's room. Because Mike's kissed girls before (he's still on the football team, and it's actually surprisingly hard not to) but he'd never been kissed like that before. And as much as most of him was confused and angry, there was still a part of him that hadn't wanted to stop. And kind of wanted to go find the other boy and start doing it again. Which is most definitely a bad idea. When they go to take their first (and probably last) look at Quinn and Puck's daughter, he can't even focus on the 'miracle of life' or whatever the girls are talking about, because his head is kind of going 'kisskisskisskisskiss'. The situation is less than ideal.
By the time they meet at Mr. Schuester's house to mourn the end of glee club he's mostly shoved it out of his head. And it least if New Directions is disbanded it means he probably won't have to see the other guy ever again. I mean, they aren't likely to run into each other in Lima. Which is a good thing to hold onto, at least up until they're told that Glee Club has, for some reason, been given another year to prove their worth. Which, on the one hand, is awesome. But on the other… All Mike can hope for is that the damn guy's graduated.
Summer provides a welcome distraction in the form of Tina Cohen-Chang. Tina, who his mom loves, and who dances and sings, and is completely distracting (or at the very least, the most distracting thing he's found). And he does really like her. It's one of the things that makes him thankful for glee, because if he hadn't joined he probably never would have talked to her. And even if Artie doesn't talk to him anymore after they come back from summer break, things seem to be going really well. Up until the duet competition. He's never been to Breadstix, so he doesn't really understand the appeal, and he really doesn't want to sing solo in front of anyone, but Tina is so intent that he ends up giving in. He has to give her credit for finding a song where he doesn't actually need to sound good, and can focus on dancing, which is really the only thing that gives him an edge over anyone else. They don't win though, and Tina is so disappointed that he offers to take her to Breadstix anyway. To be honest, he's pretty eager for a date that his mom won't force herself on.
He really should've known something would go wrong. It didn't help that, as much as he liked Tina, their relationship was starting to feel weird. It's not helping that he's kind of starting to think that maybe he is gay. Which is awkward. But nothing became more awkward than arriving at the restaurant, and meeting their server. Mike froze as soon as her saw the guy approaching. He could see Tina starting to look worried, but he was kind of focused on Chris, who looking like an extremely tall, handsome deer caught in the headlights.
"Uh. Hi, Mike, I'll be your sever this evening. Can I- uh. Can I get you started with any drinks?" Tina's looking between them with wide eyes.
"Um, you guys know each other." Mike coughs.
"This is Chris he's part of Vocal Adrenaline. I mean was, you- uh – you would've graduated, right?" Chris's eyes are wide, and he's staring kind of fixedly at the basket of breadsticks in the middle of the table.
"Uh, no. This will be my seventh year as a senior. I can do triple flips so they like to keep me around. I only go to school part time." Mike, who's gazing steadily at his cutlery, nods, as if that makes perfect sense. Tina is less convinced.
"Is that even allowed?" Mike glances up.
"We had April Rhodes that time."
"Oh yeah…"
There's an awkward pause before Tina orders a drink, spurring Mike to get one two, and Chris practically runs away from the table. Mike and Tina sit in awkward silence for a moment, before she pipes up again.
"So how did you guys meet?" Mike fiddles with his fork, despite the fact that there's nothing to use it on yet.
"Just at the competition last year." He very casually doesn't say which competition, and she seems to accept the answer.
The dinner doesn't get better. Chris gets more awkward every time he arrives at their table, and it's not helped by the fact that Mike can't think of anything to fill the gaps in the conversation with, and apparently neither can Tina. They could have been eating the best Italian food known to man; Mike never wants to come back to the restaurant ever again. When Chris brings them their check he looks about as relieved as Mike feels. Tina walks ahead of him to his car, so he can't grab her hand or anything, and he realises that she must be annoyed at him again. He glances back at the restaurant, and sees what must be the kitchen door open at the side of the building, and a familiar shape step out and lean against the wall. Mike jogs to the car, which Tina is already standing beside, before the other guy can look up and see him.
So he might have gone a little bit overboard when Tina had said Coach Bieste's name when they were making out. But he'd realised when she'd pulled him into the classroom that he'd never had to think about anything to cool off. Which kind of freaked him out a little. And, yeah, he maybe had been avoiding Tina, just a little bit, since it happened. Because he'd realised he had to break up with her. And he really didn't want too. At least most of the time. Then she showed up to school in a bizarre cheerleading outfit, and started glaring at him whenever he was in the same room as her, and he avoided her because that was just scary. Which wasn't exactly the most productive reaction, but with Sectionals to focus on he really didn't feel like dealing with anything else.
The green room had been one of the less fun experiences of his life, but once they got onstage everything kind of felt alright. The performance passed in a blur, but Mike can't remember the last time he had so much fun onstage. He comes offstage feeling exhilarated, and then Tina pulls him away from the green room, down to a deserted part of the hall.
"Um, I heard Artie and Brittany talking before we went onstage and… I'm sorry for thinking you cheated on me…" Mike blinks, and it's such a weird time to bring it up that he takes a long moment to process what she was even talking about.
"You thought I cheated?" Tina starts to say something, and he realises he doesn't actually want to talk about it. "Wait, it's irrelevant." He leans back into the wall and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I think we should break up."
"What, because I thought you cheated? Mike, that's-"
"For a couple of reasons." Tina reaches out, and he folds his arms tightly across his chest.
"Do I get to hear them or am I just a bystander." He doesn't really want to tell her, but he knows she deserves to hear it.
"I… We're fooling ourselves if we think our problems started with you thinking I cheated. We were fighting a lot before then, and I-" he breaks off and swallows, before continuing quietly, "I think I might be gay." Tina jerks in surprise, before turning and walking towards the green room. He calls after her, but she doesn't turn around, and he doesn't really have the energy to go after her. He leans his head back against the wall and is contemplating slamming the back of his skull against it repeatedly when he's interrupted by an awkward cough.
"So this would probably qualify as a really bad time, huh?" He looks up to see Chris standing next to the back door of the theatre, and isn't this just the most awkward situation ever. "Um. So your choir director finally decided you could dance at a competition, huh? That's cool." Mike tightened his arms around his ribs.
"Yeah, it is. Um. How much of that did you hear?" Chris shifts his weight awkwardly.
"From about when you mentioned fighting a lot?" Mike nods, not looking at the guy.
"Um. Anyway, I just came to say that you guys were awesome up there, and I'm really sorry for… For, um, Regionals last year, that was a stupid thing to do-"
"No, we were both being weird, I mean I hadn't even figured out I was gay yet-"
"Which is exactly why I shouldn't have done it, I mean-"
"I should probably talk to Kurt about that he might know how to deal with this a little better than I've been-"
"Do you want to go to coffee with me?"
"… Yes."
"Awesome."