Title: Car Troubles
Type: One-shot
Rating: K+
Word count: 3,422
Authoress: LDA-MCR
Warnings: I wrote this quickly and this is also my first finished fanfic in a year, so it's a little rough writing and character wise. Takes place sometime before season three sectionals.
Pairings/characters: No focus on pairings. Will centric.
Summary: An auditor comes to visit WMHS, and the glee budget as well as a suspicious Mercedes-Benz put a damper on everything.
Inspiration: Prompt by aalikane from the Glee Awkward Meme over on Livejournal.
Point of View (POV): Third person
Disclaimer: I do not call myself Ian, Brad, or Ryan; therefore, I do not own Glee.
000
Will Schuester stepped out of his busted car and stared at the nearly empty parking lot of William McKinley High School. It was early; only the very dedicated teachers and students were stirring and rushing into the building to start the day like little ants carrying their food into the mound for winter. Speaking of winter, it was slightly chilly, so Will gathered his coat from the passenger seat and bundled himself up.
On a normal day, Will Schuester was usually waking up from his sleepy haze at this time. However, Principal Figgins had sent out a special bulletin to teachers about the fact that McKinley would be blessed with visitors this morning.
Instead of the usual guests of alumni or school board officials, it was federal auditors doing their every-so-often check-up on the school to make sure all money was being funneled to its correct places as well as to check up on any possible chances of child endangerment which would affect future funding.
Will grimaced as he pulled open the front doors to school. There was no way, with the staff at McKinley, that this day was going to be pleasant.
"Principal Figgins, you called me?" Will Schuester popped his head in and kept a tense smile. The auditor, a tall black man with thick rimmed glasses, was standing with a clipboard in hand. Will knew it was him because he was on speaking terms with most of the teachers at the school. That and Figgins looked like he was near a nervous breakdown.
The auditor was writing furiously and Will felt a little unnerved as if every stroke of his pen was a slash of a sword. Will exhaled and decided to brace himself.
"Will Schuester, I presume?" the man asked as he held out his hand, "My name is Charles. Pleasure to meet you." They shook hands and Figgins gestured Will to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk. Will wrung his hands together.
"I hope this is quick- I still have a whole stack of Spanish quizzes to grade," Will tried to joke, but his laugh came out stilted and awkward. Charles paid it no attention.
"I'll cut to the chase," Charles started. "We've conducted a full scale investigation of the school. For what budget it has, McKinley is doing very well for itself." He paused.
"We have, however, run into a few issues," Charles now moved to hand his clipboard to Will. Will took a look at the sheet and read the neat print scribbled along the lines.
"I don't understand. This is the equipment we use in Glee Club…?"
"Yes. We only stumbled upon it on accident. Fog machines. Rain machines. Elaborate costumes to clothe hundreds of kids. Spotlights. Filters for the stage lights. And so on and so forth," he took another pause. "This is all for a club that is barely pushing the minimum required students and is adding up to be more than what the school pays for lunch in the cafeteria." Will was about to comment that the food was practically prison food in terms of cost, but then decided against it when he realized that would do more harm than good.
"We actually started with a very small budget," Will decided it was best to tell the whole story if he wanted this to end without any dire changes. "The Glee Club was small. Passionless. These kids had no direction. But, putting them together and getting them to grow and challenge themselves made them better. It made them win their first Sectionals. Principal Figgins had actually cut Sue Sylvester's- she's the Cheerleading Coach- budget to give us money for clothes. She had the largest budget and therefore could afford to have a little siphoned off.
"In the next year, we took sectionals and regionals and due to our hard work were given a large portion of Sue's budget due to her very troubling defeat at her own Nationals," Will, although shaky starting, couldn't help the little smirk that crawled on his face as he finished about Sue's downfall.
"So, you see, it was just a change around in the budgets. All done through Figgins. Also, we have some talented seamstresses, so the clothing isn't really an issue." Will recalled a frantic Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, and Rachel desperately pulling together thirteen outfits in less than twenty-four hours with Kurt doing most of the designing and ordering. Yeah, they definitely had some talented seamstresses.
"I see," Charles murmured, but he didn't appear to be placated. Then again, Will figured this man always looked hard-set and rigid. Must come with the job.
"Principal Figgins, will you also please have Ms. Sue Sylvester called into the office as well?" There were several exchanged looks and after a few minutes and assistance from Figgins' secretary, Sue Sylvester strode into the office with her head parallel to the floor.
"Hello. Charles Dirk, correct? I'm Sue Sylvester, a current congressional candidate. You may have also heard me for my achievements in cheerleading and on television" Sue held out her hand and Charles raised his eyebrows. He looked, for the first time, impressed. Will's stomach dropped. This was not a good sign.
"I had to leave my precious Cheerios with my head cheerleader, Becky. She's a handicapable student here- capable of whipping those girls into shape," Sue let out a little cackle and sat cross-legged on the only empty chair which just so happened to be next to Will.
Will stared at Sue as if she was some foreign and newly discovered creature. Was… Was she being nice to this guy? No, being nice is not something Sue can accomplish. This was more… Diabolical. And then Will thought back to downtime during glee rehearsal and the benefits Santana, Brittany, and Quinn would sometimes let slip about being in the Cheerios. It slowly started to piece together in Will's head: if anyone has a lot to lose from this visit, it's Sue Sylvester.
With a newfound smirk and a sense of power, Will turned to Charles.
"Should I leave? I'm sure you and Coach Sylvester have quite a lot to talk about," Will began to stand up with an air of triumph, but Charles beckoned him to sit again with a wave.
"No, stay. This next conversation is for both of you." Will stopped and his face slackened. Both of them? But what about all of Sue's ridiculous expenses? For the love of anything holy and fair, she likes to get the Cheerios' clothes dry cleaned in Europe!
"There is another incident that has come to our attention, and there is no way this can be explained away because it is a severe break in how the budget is spent," Charles pointed out of the window. "Outside in that parking lot, there is a silver Mercedes-Benz sitting in the front row."Although Charles was pointing in a close-blinded room, Will knew what vehicle he was talking about. It had recently appeared, but he had since walked past it every day; he was always curious who it belonged to. He always had a suspicion that it was Sue's, but there was no need to bring it up in regular conversation.
"I'm worried that someone is supplementing their salary because no teacher, at least in mid-western Ohio, should be able to afford a Mercedes-Benz. That's not even factoring the gas and insurance! You two have the biggest budgets for your extracurricular in the entire school, and after doing the math," he paused to eye Will. "We find that there's a miscalculation with what is being spent and what is recorded." Will's mouth dropped. He must look ridiculous, but at this moment he didn't care: he was being accused of stealing money from the glee budget.
"You're our prime suspects," Charles took the clipboard from Will's slack grip and turned to another page that listed Sue and Will's list of materials and such bought over the few short months of this school year. Several words were circled red and math was done of the sides with question marks in the same ink. Will, for the first time in ages, felt like a child who failed a test he had honestly tried studying for.
There was a beat of silence.
"If I may speak," Sue started as she sat up straighter. "I am appalled that you think that with my campaign based on bettering schools that I would be so devious as to rip funds that could easily support my campaign for better special education classrooms. If I had that sort of audacity, I wouldn't need to run for congress. I stand by my moral convictions of the needs of special education kids and to destroy unnecessary programs like glee club until our students have a higher level of intelligence."
"Besides, I have a Le Car." She sat back in her chair and shrugged, "It's one of the few in existence. I have no need for something as frivolous as a Mercedes-Benz."
At that moment, everyone in the room turned to Will.
He could barely stop the sweat building up on his brow.
"I- think of what you're accusing me here! I love the Glee club! I took on an extra job for pay of the pay just to keep it alive when it barely had any money! I would never try an risk that," Will felt like he was hitting a wall, but that wall was sticky and glued him down and suffocating him as he tried to find a way out of this because they were still staring at him.
"Look! I'll show you my car! For God's sake, the muffler is falling off!"
After several minutes of silence with the exception of shuffling feet, Will led Sue, Figgins, and the auditor, Charles, into the parking lot. He didn't know why Sue was tagging along. She was obviously believed without even fighting for it. How come it was so easy for her? She lies on a regular basis, so why isn't karma doing anything to her?
They passed the Mercedes-Benz; Will didn't even bother to stop. He felt like its existence was mocking him.
"Here it is," Will unlocked it and opened the door to sit in. He did not close it, but instead faced the auditor.
Charles looked less impassive than he did earlier, but that did nothing to improve Will's mood. If anything, it made him feel worse. Charles touched the dented and flaked sides of the car that has obviously been used passed its expiration date.
"Alright, Will." He buried a hand in his pocket and gripped the clipboard even tighter. "I believe this is your car. However, that doesn't clear the school or the miscalculations in the budget. I'll be sticking around for a bit until we figure this out. Figgins?" Figgins and Charles exchanged goodbyes and left toward the school. Sue was silent for a few moments. Finally, her lips stretched into a smile that would make even hawks fly away in terror.
"Will Schuester, although my first instinct is to kick a man while he's down, for you, I'll make an exception and just let you sift in your ways of caring too much. Have a nice day," with that, she put her sunglasses on and made her way back to Cheerios practice.
Will stayed sitting in his car for an hour until going back inside.
000
Over the next few days, Will felt like he was kindred spirits with a lot of the other teachers. After the humiliating accusation that he was siphoning money from the glee budget to pay for a luxury car, Will had been spending all of his time trying to figure out the discrepancies in the budget. Usually, he let Rachel or Kurt handle it, but obviously that didn't work out. So, he spent a lot of time pouring over records and inadvertently listening to the conversations swimming around him.
Apparently, a lot of teachers were also confronted. Mrs. Carlisle, a sweet overweight widow, was especially ruffled and seemed to be teary-eyed at the thought of a teacher taking money away from the students. Other teachers, like Brenda Castle, didn't seem to care and were a little off-put that they didn't think of slowly picking money out of the system themselves (and nevermind that they would have been caught; Brenda Castle was certainly not the type to worry about those issues). There was also Mr. Kidney, the janitor, who spent a lot of time on the phone ever since the questioning went down.
Will didn't want to spend too much time thinking about that last one.
Before he realized it, it was time for New Directions rehearsal. Luckily, Will was indeed finding some slight miscalculations in the way Rachel and Kurt added up the budget. After this is over, he should really make them consider going to math tutoring.
When he arrived, most of the members had assembled and were talking amongst themselves, but the choir room looked empty. And very masculine. Most of the girls had defected to The Troubletones, so they only had Rachel and Tina left. Although Will didn't want to admit it, the loss of Santana and Mercedes' voices and Brittany's dance skills were a huge hamper into the routine. But they've had worse to work through, so Will wasn't completely dejected.
"Alright, guys. I was thinking about adding a ballad into our potential set-list for Sectionals. The Troubletones are powerful vocally, but their emotion, when any does surface, comes out too wildly. It's uncontrolled and it messes with their message. So, this week I want you to find the most powerful ballad that reflects you- I don't care if it is nowhere in your natural key. I want to see you in the lyrics." While Rachel looked disgruntled at Will saying to forget the key, she did not voice her opinion. Instead, most of the group followed Will's lead to split up into groups to practice vocal runs and discuss potential ballads. However, he stood back and wasn't really listening. Will's mind was lost to that stupid Mercedes-Benz that was still parked in the front of the school.
"Mr. Schue?" Rachel's voice broke Will out of his thoughts. Her group- Finn, Kurt, and Blaine- were also looking at him.
"Uh, I'm sorry Rachel. I didn't hear you. What did you say?"
"I said," she started with an air of impatience that was punctuated with an outstretched tapping foot. "how are you supposed to hear my moving ballad that is worth every tear and, more importantly, Sectional-worthy when you're not even listening?"
"I'm sorry, Rachel. I have a lot on my mind."
"Mr. Schue, we are in glee club! All other problems are supposed to be out the door and all ears are supposed to be trained to listen to my voice when it's my turn to move you all with a heart-stopping Barbra medley."
"Well," he started. "This is a glee problem." After a few seconds, Will decided to continue, "Look, an auditor came to visit and he found a discrepancy in the glee budget. I've been doing the math and found that there was a lot of mistakes in how the expenses were added up, so I've been trying to fix that. Not to mention the auditor has been jumping down all of the teacher's throats, especially mine, because he's positive that one of the teacher's took money from the school's budget to pay for that stupid luxury car in front of the school."
"Wait," Kurt started. "The 'luxury car'? Do you mean the Mercedes out front?"
"Yeah. That one." And, for a second, Will thought that the combination of pressure from his senior year and hair product had finally gotten to Kurt because he was downright giggling with no shame. Finn was a mirror for Will as he has an eyebrow raised at his stepbrother. Rachel paid him no mind and Blaine looked uncomfortable.
"Is there something wrong?"
"No. Nothing wrong at all, Mr. Schue," he answered and then reigned Rachel's crazy away from Will so he could continue fixing the errors in peace.
000
"Principal Figins, you called me?" Will had a weird sense of deja vu as he stepped into Figgins' office. Charles, the auditor, was standing to Figgins' left. However, instead of Sue, sitting in her place was none other than Blaine Anderson. He looked slightly fidgety and was drumming his fingers against the armrest as if he had bounds of nervous energy ready to bounce out of his body.
"Is there something wrong? Is everything alright?"
"Everything is fine now," Charles had put an emphasis on the now which caused Will's eyebrows to quirk up.
"Mr. Anderson here was just telling me that you solved the error between what was recorded and what was spent which clears your glee club from blame."
"Um, well, I'm not finished yet, but yes," Will was taken aback. Why did Blaine seek out Charles Dirk to tell him something Will was going to do tomorrow?
"Good. I'll stop by tomorrow to check up and pick up your documentation and hopefully this will all be behind us."
"But, wait, what about the Mercedes-Benz?"
"That's mine." Blaine turned around to face Will and looked genuinely sorry. "My mom was getting on me for driving her old station wagon around everywhere. She says it's beneath me and that I should be using my Uncle's gift, the Mercedes, more often. She was already a little mad that I wanted to transfer, so I decided to do what she asked. I'm really sorry that this caused a lot of trouble."
"No need to apologize, it wasn't your fault," Figgins said with an earnest smile. Will, however, was stunned into silence. The idea that one of his students was driving around a luxury car when his car was barely kept together- some of it with duct tape!- made Will feel… Well, it made him feel like crap.
After the last of the meeting, Will walked a bit with Blaine as his classroom was on the way to the Spanish classroom.
"Your family must be well-off," said Will simply in an attempt to break the awkward silence. Blaine shrugged in response.
"Well, yeah. My trust fund's probably bigger than the school budget… " he trailed off when he saw his classroom approaching. "See you at rehearsal."
Will gave a jerk of the head and a simple good-bye. Walking to his classroom, all Will could think about was how much he needed a drink. However, on his way back, Sue passed him by with a handful of copies.
Will was then hit with a thought.
"Hey, Sue." She stopped walking and pivoted on her feet. However, she did not walk any closer.
"They solved the Mercedes mystery. Just thought you wanted to know."
"Oh, they found out it was Porcelain's boyfriend already? I was hoping they would be stuck in a haze of stupor for at least another two days." Will then gaped.
"You knew it belonged to him? How long?"
"Will, will, will. I get here even before Mr. Kindey, the janitor, gets here to unlock the doors. Of course I knew it was his." And, for a moment, Will was blinded by rage. If Sue knew this entire time… She could've said something… He didn't have to beg for his innocence or literally show that his muffler was falling off… The rest of the teachers at the school didn't have to of been interrogated…
Instead, Sue had followed and watched even though she knew she had the power to end it.
"Sue, you -"
"Look, Schuester, I'd love to not stay and chat, so I'm going to go get these copies to the Cheerios box in the office before the bile in my mouth projectiles in response to the smell of gel in your hair. See you around." Before she could get far, Will called out:
"Your budget had some discrepancies as well. Did you mess up your math? It seems a bit of a coincidence…"
For the first time, she stopped, pivoted, and walked right up to Will's face.
"Will, let me break it down for you. Sue Sylvester does not make mistakes. She also sometimes talks in the third person. But, more importantly, she gets what she wants." And with a wink, she walked away without any interruption.
Will stood in the hallway, alone, with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.