A/N: Another crazy idea of mine... which mostly had to do with the fact that the Warblers sing Raise your glass at Regionals, and in the end, New Directions also raises... slushee cups. So this is what happened then. I'd originally planned the initial conversation to be much shorter, and the confrontation(s) to be longer... but obviously that didn't happen. Also, the Warblers don't perform immediately after Aural Intensity in this. And the POV changes virtually every line. I hope none of that is too much of a problem.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
Hopefully you'll enjoy the story, and please leave a review at the bottom! :D
As the Warblers walked the short route from their greenroom (where they'd all sat together for a moment while Wes gave a speech (of sorts) about how lucky they were to be here and how they were going to beat the other two teams and… well, nobody really knew what came after that) to backstage, they were scattered about within seconds. Some of the slower members of Aural Intensity lingered around, Kurt and Blaine were trying to work up the nerve to get on stage and perform in a moment (well, Kurt was; Blaine had never had much of a problem with that), the council members were speaking about something…
And Nick and Jeff were running around like madmen.
They had been warned several times to watch out and not do anything stupid (the choreography would look completely ridiculous if so much as one single Warbler was missing), but that wasn't something they worried about much. When they came across a closed door, their interest, of course, was instantly piqued.
The door wasn't locked, they observed, as Jeff could easily open it. The object inside the small room was much more fascinating, however, than the fact that the door wasn't locked.
"What are you two doing now?" David sounded actually a little annoyed by the two, and they shot him hurt looks – for which he didn't fall, unfortunately.
"We found this," Nick replied, gesturing inside the room. It wasn't usual for them to share their findings with the rest of the team (unless those findings actually concerned the rest of the team), but now, they had no idea what this thing was, let alone what to do with it. Maybe one of their teammates did.
The three of them walked into the room to investigate a little further. "Let's pull it out of here," David suggested, and with combined forces, they managed to do so.
"What's this?" By now, many of the other Warblers had also made their way over to where they were standing.
"I have no idea," Jeff said truthfully.
"Look, here it says… 'Chill out with Slushee'," Thad muttered, having walked around the thing for a better look.
"Wicked!" Nick and Jeff cried out in unison. It wasn't even a fake, from the looks of it.
"I've always wanted to try one of those," Trent said happily.
"How long until we get on?" Nick asked Wes, almost begging with his eyes.
Wes just shrugged. "It's not even plugged in," he pointed out. "Aren't those things supposed to be ice cold?"
"What things?" Apparently, Blaine and Kurt had decided to join them as well.
"Slushees," Wes replied, nodding at the thing. Kurt's eyes widened at the mention of the things.
"Where?" he asked, sounding a bit panicked.
"Here," Nick told him, waving his hand. "Isn't it cool? We found it in some small room over here."
Kurt kept staring at the thing in horror, something that nobody else quite understood. The worst thing that could happen was a brain freeze, right?
"What's wrong with slushees?" Jeff asked, looking both hurt and disappointed.
"Nothing," Kurt replied, trying to wave it off. "Just some… bad memories."
"McKinley?" Blaine asked worriedly. "Did they have these things there?"
Kurt shrugged. In the end, though, he cracked under the pressure of everyone's gazes on him. "Okay, fine, yes," he admitted. "There are slushee machines there."
"So…," David started, obviously not quite understanding the problem. "You don't like them?"
Kurt smiled wryly. "You wouldn't like them much if the jocks at school managed to come up with a game that involved slusheeing the Glee kids every opportunity you got."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Blaine asked confusedly (he might've also sounded a little hurt, though).
The other Warblers remained silent. "Wow," Jeff muttered in the end.
"That must suck," Nick added. Kurt just nodded.
"Wait a second…" Wes frowned, deep in thought. "So… you're saying that students at McKinley throw slushees at the New Directions members?"
"There are so many things wrong with that, by the way," someone at the back of the group muttered.
"And now this thing shows up, backstage, during a competition…," Wes continued. Nobody seemed to have any clue as to where he was going with this. They all stared at him with bemused expressions. "Kurt, what would you say that an average New Directions member would do when seeing a slushee?"
Kurt gave him a pointed look. "Just so you know, there are no 'average' New Directions members. But, I'd say duck for cover, hope that the jock in question had another target in mind… maybe try to sneak off inconspicuously?"
"Hm."
At that moment, someone approached them. "Two minutes until you're up, boys."
Wes nodded briefly, clearly still thinking.
"Is he alright?" Blaine asked David, who shrugged.
"No idea."
"And," Wes suddenly said, turning back to Kurt, who just eyed him warily, "you said that Aural Intensity's coach is the cheerleading coach at McKinley?"
"Yes, she is," Kurt replied. "And before you ask, yes, she hates New Directions."
"Just what I thought," Wes muttered, grinning widely and looking every bit like an evil, but also slightly nutty, professor. In a private school uniform instead of a lab coat, of course. "She must've put that thing here, in order to intimidate them!" he exclaimed. "Think about it, guys – New Directions on stage, not expecting any attacks from anyone, and boom! Slushees out of nowhere. They don't even have to be thrown at them," he added when a couple of Warblers opened their mouths to object. "Maybe seeing them will make them react instinctively and mess up their entire performance."
"But that's good, right?" Jeff asked, still not understanding. "That means we're closer to winning this competition!"
"No, that's not good, Jeff," Wes lectured him. "Of course, we want to win, but we want to win fair and square. That won't happen if one Glee club messes with the other, even if we're neither of those clubs."
"There's confetti in these cups, though," Trent suddenly mentioned, staring at the cups. "Not any liquids."
"Probably just a distraction," Wes said offhandedly. "There's liquid in those machines, after all."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Blaine questioned Wes, asking the question every Warbler was too afraid (or confused) to ask.
Wes grinned. "I've got the perfect idea." With that, he started ordering his minions – alright, his teammates – around hastily. After all, their performance was about to start, and it had to go perfectly. Absolutely perfectly.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
When Candles ended, all the Warblers were set for the next song. They knew what they had to do – what had been changed in the choreography (fortunately, not too much; but at least all the Warblers were there, or else it would've probably looked very wacky) – so it shouldn't be too much of a problem, Wes reasoned.
They really only had a few seconds to do this – as they all walked across the stage, everyone would grab a cup, be careful not to spill anything, and make sure that, by the end of the song, everyone – that included Blaine, who was a permanent fixture at the front of the stage – had a cup. At the final 'Raise your glass', they threw the confetti into the audience… and the cups as well, immediately after that, to make sure they could end this performance the only way the Warblers knew how; with their hands clasped in front of them.
And then, the audience was cheering, and the Warblers let loose a little too. Throwing themselves in one big group hug, they failed to see the dark looks on the faces of the members of one of their competing choirs.
And no, it was not Aural Intensity.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
After that great performance and another one of Wes' speeches in the greenroom (which was interrupted by a snore that was later identified as David's, as no one else had fallen asleep), the Warblers were fairly optimistic about their chances. Of course, New Directions still had to perform, so they didn't really know anything yet.
One thing they did know, however, was that they'd courageously (damn, they really needed to stop going to Blaine whenever they had some sort of trouble) stepped in and saved New Directions from their impending doom. They didn't need to be thanked, of course – though a small group of boys certainly wasn't averse to getting one of those girls' phone numbers. Kurt (who they didn't realise already had their phone numbers… and not just from one girl, but from all of them) just threw them a slightly sickened glance.
Either way, none of them had expected a small brown haired something to come storming at them when they were walking the short distance between the green room and the audience.
They also hadn't expected said small brown hair something to start yelling and shouting and screaming at such a high pitched level that their eardrums might just give in soon. Luckily, none of them had it quite as bad as Kurt, who seemed to know the small brown haired something and thus was getting screeched at most.
(Of course, 'luckily' didn't apply to Kurt in this case.)
"Rachel!" Kurt suddenly shouted, and the small brown haired something (apparently otherwise known as Rachel) stopped damaging everyone's eardrums for a moment. "What are you talking about?" Kurt continued, sounding completely annoyed.
"You stole our act!" the girl (as she'd been identified now that the Warblers actually dared to look at her) exclaimed dramatically.
"We did?" Kurt asked, baffled by this news, and the other Warblers exchanged surprised glances as well.
"Were you also going to do Candles and Raise your glass?" Thad asked, confusion seeping through his voice.
Kurt rolled his eyes. "Well, in that case, Rachel – we're sorry, we didn't know, and obviously, you didn't spy as well as usually this time. But please. You've still got about half an hour before you're up. You can come up with something new."
The girl stomped her foot, clearly disagreeing with this, but before she could continue shrieking at them in rage, a man (New Directions' director, the Warblers suspected) stuck his head around the door to their greenroom and called the girl. She stomped away, but not before furiously glaring at the Warblers over her shoulder.
"I can see your point about the lack of average New Directions members now, Kurt," Wes told said boy in a serious tone. "If they'd have to fit in her somewhere, it's bound to go wrong."
Kurt just shook his head.
"So did you manage to gather what it was she wanted?" Blaine asked, bringing his fingers down from his ears.
Again, Kurt shook his head. He had no idea what Rachel had been trying to tell him (and the other Warblers). He sure hadn't missed her insanity, that was for sure.
As they sat down in the audience a little later, Kurt caught coach Sylvester's eye. To his surprise, she didn't look angry or thwarted at all. In fact, she just looked… normal.
For Sue Sylvester standards, that was.
Kurt was starting to believe that somewhere, somehow, the Warblers' plan had gone awry.
A/N: So... what do you think? :) Let me know, please review! :D
