A/N: This is set before 'Pilot'.
Think of this as my holiday gift to you. Happy holidays.
"Oh look, boys. Here comes the toddler."
Mike sunk further into his chair at Karofsky's comment, keeping his eyes away from the girl walking into the classroom. He drew nameless shapes and meaningless sentences in the margin of his Spanish notebook, hoping his apparent busyness would automatically exclude him from his teammates' shenanigans.
He groaned when he felt someone nudge his shoulder.
"You're up, twenty two."
Pulling out a page from the back of his notebook, Mike thought of what his mother would think if she knew about what he was about to do. Granted, it wasn't as sticky, messy and public as throwing any icy slushie down the girl's back in the middle of a busy hallway, but it was just as bad. Sometimes he wondered if it was worse.
He quickly scribbled down on the paper before crumpling it up in his hands and taking a deep breath, his muscles loosening slightly as he felt Matt give his shoulder a light squeeze. To everyone else, it was encouragement. To them, it was a momentary source of comfort, support, and understanding.
The voice that left Mike's lips next was not his own. The call he made tasted like spoiled milk and regret on his tongue.
"Hey, Berry!"
She turned her head towards the group of football players surrounding Mike's table and before she knew it, there was a ball of white hurdling towards her. She panicked and tried to duck, but her feet made even more of a mess of the jumbled instructions sent to them from her brain. One foot knocked into the other and her legs bent, her left knee knocking into the back of her right and effectively causing her to tumble to the ground with an unflattering yelp.
Mike forced a smile as he listened to his company howl with laughter, muttering a couple insults whenever they tried to catch their breath. His eyes fell onto her as she got back up onto her feet, the piece of paper clutched tightly in her fist. He admired that about her; the way she'd pick herself up, dust herself off and walk over to her desk like nothing had even happened. Sometimes he wishes he could tell her that himself, but he fears that she would flinch and squeeze her eyes shut at the very sight of him in his stupid Letterman jacket.
The team dispersed as Schuester walked in, and he took this as his chance to glance over at her, just to make sure she truly was okay.
He couldn't help but smile a little when he noticed her slipping the paper he had thrown at her into the sleeve of the book she had been carrying. He wasn't really sure if he smiled because he was going to use this as a way to remind himself that he wasn't as bad as he had unwillingly painted himself out to be, or because she was keeping the paper. The trash can was only a row away from her.
Bidding Matt goodbye as he got his locker unlocked, a familiar looking piece of paper caught his eye. It's wrinkled and slightly torn at one corner, the corner opposite that hovering up in air. He grabs it off of his textbook, putting the book he had in his hands in its place.
He first notices his untidy "I'm sorry" written in the middle of the page. And right below it is a paragraph written by a hand he's certain he doesn't know.
I've decided it would be best to forgive you, seeing as how you apologized for your actions. Writing it down on your weapon of choice was smart thinking, I must say. It would probably be too much to ask for you to stop the throwing of items altogether but I'm pretty sure all of you jocks don't have even the littlest hint of backbone in you. So, instead, I would like to request that you keep the tormenting at this light and mostly harmless level. I'd be extremely grateful.
Signed, Rachel Berry (and her infamous golden star sticker).
He reads over the note on the crumpled paper in his hands a second time and chuckles to himself before putting it back into his Spanish notebook and into his locker again.
He hasn't gone to football practice with a smile this genuine for a really, really long time.
When his running laps around the field, occasionally glaring at Couch Tanaka who was merrily digging into his grilled cheese sandwich, he realizes she sort of insulted him (she thought of it as pointing out one of his less favorable traits). He makes a mental note to figure out ways in which he could showcase his 'backbone' after he's finished with his laps.
So maybe one of those methods involves her moaning his name and his lips peppering kisses along the column of his neck. So maybe another one of them involves her pressed against that piano lying in the choir room and her fingers clawing down his back.
So maybe he has an ice cold shower when the team's done doing their laps. It's only because the running left him really sweaty and abnormally hot. No other reason.
Mike has this habit of carrying random items in his jacket pockets around lunch time.
Most Mondays he carries along a two bars of chocolate. One for Matt and one for himself. He does this because the lunch lady, Miss Beasley, is at her absolute grumpiest at the beginning of the week, which normally results in the remains of last Friday's menu being put into her meatloaf surprise. The surprise? It'll probably be the worst thing you'll ever taste in your life. And occasionally, egg shell.
Tuesdays he spends lunch hour in the library, studying, so his pockets are normally filled with pens and a stress ball designed after a Pokeball. Thursdays are usually the same. Fridays are Brittany wants sweet Asian kisses days, so he tends to keep his pockets void of anything and everything because she really enjoys stuffing her hands into them. He tries not to think about how he purposefully didn't make it to their last scheduled meeting under the bleachers and how she's probably not going to talk to him for a week or two because of it.
Wednesdays don't have a set item. Sometimes he carries empty sweet wrappers, other times he uses his pockets to store his or Matt's iPods. This particular Wednesday, Mike pulled out a blank page.
As his hands worked on carefully folding the sides and flapping the corners upwards, he thought of Rachel. That's all he had been thinking about since their exchange a week before.
Rachel's silky looking hair and Rachel's gorgeous chocolate eyes. Rachel's cute animals sweaters and Rachel's adorable argyle sweater vests. Rachel's sinfully short skirts and Rachel's legs that seem to travel for miles and miles. Rachel's nose, Rachel's knees, Rachel's voice, Rachel's handwriting, Rachel's lips, Rachel and her gold stars, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.
He wants to be sick of it, he wants to be sick of her, but he can't.
He isn't entirely sure if it's a good or bad thing yet.
With his paper airplane completed, he lifted his head and searched through the eating crowd, looking for her face. She sat alone at the corner of the room, idly poking at her food with the fork held in her fingers.
He excused himself as he got up from the table and made his way towards her. He sends a quick glance at the jock's table, making sure he wasn't being watched, as he got closer to where she was seated. Raising his hand from his side, Mike aimed the paper craft at her shoulder before throwing it in her direction and turning on his heel, back to where he had been before.
Stealing a fry drenched in tomato sauce from Matt's plate, Mike keeps his eyes on Rachel as she picks the paper off the floor and warily unfolds the plane, with a light smile on his lips.
It grows into a grin when he notices her eyes light up as she puts the paper down next to her plate, a faint pink coloring her cheeks.
"Hi."
"Hey."
He pats the free space next to him and it takes her a moment before she presses down the back of her brown skirt and sits down, pulling her handbag's strap down from her shoulder. He keeps his hands gripping at the edge of the bench and her hands remain clasped in her lap.
They steal glances for a few more minutes, not saying a thing to one another. She giggles when their eyes meet and he colors a light red before turning his attention to the grass under her feet.
Soon, Mike hears a faint ruffling of paper beside him and fights to keep his smile contained, his eyes staying firmly on the green and the trees around them. Her hands brushes against the top of his as she hands over the sticky note (or rather, sticks it onto his knuckles) and slips her pen between his fingers.
"The park was a good choice," he hears her say as he reads the same words on paper.
"I'm glad," he smiles, neatly folding up the yellow post-it. "I'm sorry I had to throw the invite at you, though."
"It made lunch quite interesting."
He only laughs and hands her back her pen before offering his arm as he rose to his feet.
"May I have this walk?"
She eyes the park trail for a moment before biting back her words of warning ("Are you really sure you want to do that? What if somebody sees us? If you start blaming me for anything, I'm not going to take it lying down.") and simply nodding her head as she got up and hooked her arm around his.
The fact that they got spotted by a group of cheerleaders and one or two of the guys on the football team and he didn't even try to separate himself from her was probably the highlight of the entire walk, for her. Holding her hand for a good hour and a half and her hesitance to let go when they finally parted ways at her doorstep was his.
I had a great time last night. It seems you have a little backbone in you after all.
Dinner tonight? My treat.
Rachel (and her infamous golden star sticker).
He looks up from the paper plane he had crafted the day before to meet her hopeful eyes. He smiles as he leans against his locker door and laces their fingers together.
"I'll be there are eight."