Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 64th cycle. Now cycle 65!
"Where There's A Will"
Gen2 world: G1!Jesse, G2!Will
Berry-St series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)
He thought for sure the worst would be the bathrooms. He knew from personal experience how bad the McKinley boys' room could be, and it was a chore all on its own. So to say that there was something worse, that was saying a lot.
He thought he would have been able to power through it simply out of necessity, out of needing to be nearby for Quinn, and for Kurt and Mike and the others, but he was discovering what it meant to be on the janitorial staff in a high school, when he was of an age with most of the people around him. He'd come near to losing his temper more than once, and then he would remember that he couldn't give Figgins reason to fire him. So he said and did nothing. Now he looked like a pushover, which made matters even worse.
But he had to try and work through it, to remember the real reason why he was there. He had to help Quinn, had to help get this Glee Club back on track so maybe they would finally get to go home, their home. For that, his first personal goal, was to see about their old director.
He would be knowing his third Will Schuester. The one from his world had been left thrown, after his debacles with his wife, but he was still on point most of the time. Then there was the one he had met in the first world he'd been thrown into. This one had issues with his wife as well, but they'd been handled differently, and he'd been better for it. But this new Will Schuester, he'd had it the roughest of all. If things with his wife hadn't been bad enough, he'd also had the loss of the Glee Club to contend with.
From what he knew, after the failure of the Glee Club, Will Schuester had resigned from McKinley and become an accountant. He had been away for the whole of the school year that followed, but sometime over the summer they had learned that he would be returning. Things with his wife had disintegrated, and his accountant job had floundered after that. He'd tried to get another job, but nothing had worked out, which forced him to swallow his pride and come crawling back to McKinley High. His post as Spanish teacher had been filled already, by a former night school teacher. There were no openings at the moment but the principal, perhaps taking pity on the downtrodden Schuester, had offered him a position in cafeteria. Will Schuester was now filling plates for the long lines of hungry students, hair net and all.
Jesse would watch him, and he could practically see his soul dying a little more each day. Some people could rise above hardships, even when so much was thrown at them at the same time. Others needed a little nudge, something to motivate them. This one, he needed a giant shove. But a nudge would be a start.
One morning, while all the students were off in their classes, Jesse and his mop had made their way into the cafeteria, discreetly seeking out their target. He would find Will Schuester hard at work, cleaning his work area before the food was brought in for lunch. He worked in silence, like he was locked away in his own world. It might have made Jesse's job look cozy. If he could just find a way to rally the man into their plan of reviving the Glee Club, it might give him his joy for life back. Jesse had seen what he was like before, and this was almost too painful to see.
"What's the special today?" he'd finally approached the man, who turned his eyes up, shrugged, and turned his eyes back down. Well this should be easy, he frowned to himself. "I'm sort of new here, but I heard you used to be a teacher, is that right?"
"I was the Spanish teacher. Don't know why. I speak Spanish about as well as this brush does," Will mumbled, continuing his work.
"But you coached the Glee Club, too, didn't you?" The brush stuttered to a stop, then started again.
"There's no Glee Club at McKinley," Will informed him.
"No, not now, I know. But there was one before, when you brought it back? The New Directions?" The brush was dropped, more like thrown down, as Will looked up.
"What do you want?" he asked, unnerved. Jesse flinched, leaning on his mop.
"Did you ever think about trying again? It'd be a better use of your time and talents than standing behind that counter, no?"
"I tried it, and it didn't work. I'm not going to put myself through that again," Will got back to work.
"Don't you think you owe it to them to try? Not just those kids but yourself? They need someone like you, they need your… well, the optimism you used to have. You can get it back."
"What do you know about it?" Will stared at him, and Jesse wondered if he had spoken too quick. He wasn't supposed to know the man after all.
"I used to be in show choir myself. I had a great teacher… You remind me a lot of him sometimes. And he helped me become who I am today."
"A high school janitor?" Will pointed out, and Jesse wished he hadn't been holding on to his mop at the moment.
"I'm not talking about my job, I'm talking about myself as a person. Those kids, they still need you. Some more than others." For a moment, he thought he had him. But then he shook his head and got to cleaning again.
"I need to finish before the lunch rush starts. We all have our parts to play. This is mine and I've accepted it. Maybe you should, too."
It wasn't going to happen, not today, not like this. They had a lot more work ahead of them than they realized.
THE END
A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!