THE VOICES OF WILLIAM SCHUE
"Sit your scrawny ass down, white boy. I can handle whatever he throws at me."
Her words were not exactly the validation Will Schuester was hoping for as he recruited for his brainchild. However, he would not back down. He remembered what glee meant to him and, come what may, he could get these children to follow him. By any means necessary. Besides, it wasn't show business without the critics.
She sounded exactly what she looked like- a big voice in a big body. As he listened to her soaring vocals, he wondered how high he could push her. Will made a note to himself to sound proof the choir room.
"Again?" Will asked politely. "Only this time, let me try something..."
She was much louder when he coaxed her in the right direction. Her lung capacity was off the charts. She could go from a fluid hum to shaking the roof in a couple seconds.
"Once more, from the top," Will requested, trying not to sound pushy. He had his shirt unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up to the pit stains that unfortunately came with effort.
He didn't even hear the pounding on the door, entranced by her keening. Later on, he would be grateful to get such a wonderful first Solo.
For a moment, he thought he heard a girl screaming. The fear hit him, powerfully, and his clammy hands slipped a little as he opened the door. He shouldn't have worried; the attacker was fast, but their blows lacked power. Will easily wrestled his opponent to the scratchy carpet. Will's blood pounded in his ears and the resulting ringing noise persisted as the boy under him growled and shrieked. Under normal circumstances, he would've been impressed by the effortless shift from the low guttural noises to the higher notes.
"Why couldn't it be me? Why her? She didn't deserve it, she didn't deserve it. I should've gone first."
Will took the bitching in stride. Somehow, he'd overlooked the possibility that voices came with personalities. This particular voice really grated his nerves, and Will liked to think of himself as an all around tolerant guy.
"Alright, Kurt. I can see that you are committed to proving the scope of your abilities." Will reposed thoughtfully at the piano and tapped a key. "Repeat after me, okay?"
G4. C5. A4. Will had intended to test in controlled measures, but Kurt pitched his notes a little too perfectly. At this rate, Will would be forced to hand over the Solo, but he'd already had Rachel in mind. He galloped up to D5, dived to A2, and took off abruptly at Eb5. In total defiance of normal human limits, Kurt's vocal cords did not snap. Will's finger stayed the F5 until he realized that Kurt would draw blood before he would break.
Without looking at Kurt, Will took his hands off the keys and folded them casually in his lap. He put on a smile and shakily reached for the sheet music. "It's yours. I still don't think you're ready for it, but here. Your Solo."
Kurt snatched the paper quickly and bowed with a flourish.
Will didn't need to look to see that triumphant, toothless smile. Did it make him a bad person to picture shutting the dumpster lid over that ingratiating smirk?
"Sweet Jesus, please have mercy. Oh God, Lord help me. Lord help me."
"Don't do that. It's bad for the baby," Will said, as calmly as a man could to a teenage girl with blood running down her legs and pooling on the fabric of her dress.
She flinched away from him as though struck, and screamed to the heavens before passing out with her blond hair matted to her cheeks. He didn't understand how they had gotten to this point. The kids had finally taken their bows at Regionals, and then he was suddenly carrying her limp body frantically. Whatever Will felt about Terry, he was glad that he'd skimmed through the statistics on miscarriages and C-sections. He knew where to take her, to get her and the precious life inside of her to safety. Even though the baby hadn't been his in a while, he felt honor bound to care for it. The adoption process would fill him with regret and sadness, but at least he had the kids. He would always have the kids.
"Mr. Schue, are you alright?"
Will opened his eyes and rolled into a sitting position. He'd been stretched out on the choir chairs. Though the room was dim, probably due to a light blowing out, what little light remained shined in the gentle waves of her hair and the harmonious lines of her face. For a moment, Will thought he was seeing his high school sweetheart.
"What are you still doing here, Quinn? Do you need a ride home?" Will groggily checked the watch.
"Would you? Puck bailed in the middle of the day, and I don't want the third degree from Mrs. Puckerman," she said, relief shining in her eyes briefly before she rolled them.
"I'd be glad to," Will agreed easily. He paused for dramatic effect, something he'd picked up from Rachel. "On one condition. Terry messed up my radio, you see."
He got a ton of eye rolling at his "one condition", but after he helped a very pregnant Quinn into the passenger side, she sang Journey for most of the drive.
"You're delusional, Schuester. Delusional. I want to go home! No more of this Glee bullshit."
The boy had somehow managed to get several feet away from his chair. A little blood stained the ends of his orange hoodie sleeves, from the scrapes on his arms as he crawled to nowhere. Will didn't hesitate to gently hook his fingers beneath the boy's underarms and gingerly lift him up. Kurt Hummel could say what he wanted about Mr. Schue not being supportive enough about the gay issue, but Will had no problems taking a scared teenage boy into his arms and helping him sit up, and rubbing his shoulders only to soothe away the panic attack. He could recognize a panic attack like an expert, thanks to Emma.
"It'll be okay. I won't leave you out of the dance numbers over this. Your natural rhythm really shows through when you're not thinking too hard. We need you, you bring soul to the movements," Will assured him. With no exception, everyone in the group had broken down over their insecurities. While the fighting and lashing out and the drama drove Will up the wall ninety nine point six percent of the times, their vulnerability reminded him of why he sponsored their club. There was beauty in the breaking, and it transcended the music.
Despite Will's intentions, he struggled and weakly smacked the arms winding around his shoulders, the arms holding him steady in his seat. Will got no thank you's that day, but he knew deep down, from the tears that soaked his vest, that he couldn't let go. He'd never let any of them go.
Will snapped out of it when he heard strange scratching noises from the door to the choir room. With one brow quirked, he opened the door and was greeted with Artie's chagrined smile.
"The handle's wonky," Artie explained, rolling quickly over the thresh hold. He didn't flinch when his fingers got caught between the wheel and the frame..
The door was perfectly fine, but Mr. Schue, despite what Sue Sylvester said, knew what dignity was.
"Artie, I had this idea I wanted to run by you, but I have no idea who to call to make it happen and I wanted to make sure you're okay with it..."
The next week saw the entire club picking fights with doors and pedestrian traffic.
"You're a monster, my dads aren't going to let you get away with this!"
Another bad day, another dramatic freak out. Normally, he allowed her to whirl out of the room, because it was adorable to personally witness a 5' 1" hurricaine. She certainly stormed out often enough that it could be counted as a natural phenomenon. However, she was crying, very very hard although her voice, beautiful and strong, had not wavered as she brow beat him on his ideas of fairness.
He caught her chin with his hand, tamping down the traumatizing memories of when she'd been infatuated with him. Will put aside his embarrassment over their awkward history and tried to reach out to her maturely. Her lips quivered and he drew her into a warm hug.
"Please," she said, curling her arms around her body to put him at some distance. From the way her chest heaved, he could feel how she struggled not to scream and sob. "I'm begging you. Can't you let me-"
He couldn't crack, not if he wanted to be fair to her and the other kids.
"You know how it works. You are all talented and unique, but your main strength is your cohesiveness. Your unity. You guys are a team. I am so sorry about this because I've been playing favorites."
"Mr. Schue, please listen I'm beggin-"
"Do your best. Go back in there and see if you can't work things out with Mercedes. Sing one number, and then hug. I mean it."
She stared at him, stunned, and it maybe bothered Will to get a surprised reaction during one of the few times he asserted himself.
Revulsion twisted her features. "I'll sing, but I'm NOT hugging! You can't expect me to touch her after you gave her the- the-." She was too flustered to continue.
"Fine." He felt the heat under the collar of his shirt, keenly, but he didn't want to hit her, even if their argument was making him think about the fights that had led to his divorce. How Terry never compromised. "You can take The Solo."
Will expected her to puff out her chest and toss her hair triumphantly. She only cried harder, and he had to do what he could to make her stop. She wasn't acting the way she was supposed to. He'd tried the easy way; now he had to try something different.
"That was fantastic," Mr. Schue exclaimed, clapping his hands fervently.
Though Rachel was standing front and center, breathing hard from performing, he had heard the other girls singing their own special parts, too. She beamed at him, and Mercedes had her arm around Rachel's shoulder as Quinn and Rachel exchanged acknowledging nods to one another. Rachel was learning. She'd earned The Solo.
"Please don't do this. I don't understand why you're doing this."
Mr. Schue eyed him with disappointment. "You haven't been a very good leader lately. If you couldn't commit more of your time to glee club, you shouldn't have joined."
"You made me."
For someone so big and strong, the boy acted very much like a child, and got downright self-centered a lot of the times. "Not the point. You're tired all the time, you pick fights, and I had to tie you down to a chair for you to have this conversation with me."
Drastic, yes, but necessary. Considering that he was dealing with the Titan's QB, Mr. Schue felt a surge of pride that he still had it in him, after all these years of Terry's emasculation and put-downs.
"It would be better for the group if you stepped up. I've decided to give you The Solo."
The boy tensed, a break from tugging at the ropes looped around his arms. "The same one you gave Mary? Michelle?" He choked out their names.
"Really?" Will sighed. "I'd expect Puck not to get Mercedes' name, but not from you." Will took a deep breath. "I'd like to.. I'd like to think of you as my son."
"Thanks Mr. Schue. I needed to hear that. You're more like a father to me than my biological dad ever was."
Will clapped Finn on the back and squeezed the boy's shoulder once before handing him a sheet of music.
Finn glanced worriedly at his teacher as Mr. Schue bowed his head and rubbed at his temples vigorously.
"What's wrong, Mr. Schue?"
"Oh, heh, it's nothing. I'm feeling worn down, like I'm not sleeping. It's throwing me off."
"You feel bad about Rachel, don't you? She deserved it." There was an odd note of bitterness that Will would never have expected from Finn. However, while he was the adult, he wasn't stupid. It seemed as though Finn was working through his own heart break.
Will stared hard at Finn for a while, before nodding.
"N- n- not me. I c- can't."
She really had no idea how sweet her voice could be when she tried. Will was convinced that she was deliberately trying to weasel out of singing. She never asked for leads, always content to blend into the background. While Will understood that the world was made up of movers and shakers, he was reaching the end of his patience with her. The club was in no position to turn away bodies. They needed more bodies to qualify. However, as their voices scaled and their stage grew, being cute wasn't good enough.
"You're up next," Will told her cheerfully one day. "I want The Solo to be yours, this time."
He was getting used to them crying, although the girl in question had streaks of black dirtying her face. "I d-d-don't want The Solo. N-not me."
Will studied her for a long moment, and then turned to the boy next to her. He was passed out, with his head in her lap. She saw where Will looked, and her hands tightened compulsively on the boy she held.
"It's either you or him. One of you has to Sing!" Will insisted.
The girl finally got her hitched breathing under control. She rubbed at her eyes, and the make-up smeared like a bruise around her eye. "Okay."
Will trotted off excitedly to grab the folder stuffed with songs before she could change her mind. The girl ducked her head and hummed their mother's lullaby for him. One last time.
"You helped me find my voice. I had no idea." Tina flashed a shy, but confident smile. She managed to be more moving, stripped of her usual colors.
Will played it cool, but he was dancing on the inside. With a little more work, the Tina that initially joined glee club, stuttering and afraid, she would never be seen again.
If only the club was enough to save all of them. No matter how thin Will stretched himself reaching out to them all, he couldn't catch all of them. One of his girls could dance like a dream, and the other one could sing like one, when she wasn't screaming at you and shoving you away with her hate and her hands. While he appreciated the apparent loyalty between the two, they wouldn't let him in, held fast against him by their linked pinkies.
They'd wanted to leave, wanted to shut their ears to the music, wanted to shut their eyes to the progress.
He wasn't heartless; he offered the olive branch to the dancing girl but it was her friend who took it.
"I'll take your damn Solo," she had said blithely. "Don't mess with my girl."
Will agreed to her headstrong conditions respectfully, and he allowed the other to dance outside of his reach, knowing that she would be drawn in again by the music in her heart. They were all joined by special bonds that would never break, even after the show ended and the curtains drew to a close. The real prize wasn't the trophies and the ribbons but their hearts and souls.
Her performance was very moving, it cut deep enough to wound. Santana's fine dark eyes blazed as she breathed her final note. She turned her back to Brittany, and their hands parted.
Brittany wouldn't have any of it, and she kept trying to take Santana's hand again. When it was clear that Santana could not squeeze back, it nearly broke Will's heart. He'd wanted them to choose to stay with the club and to stay together, but real life rarely played out in victories.
With her head ducked low, Brittany exited the choir room, her beautiful legs oddly stilted in their movement.
"Brittany," Will called out gently. With tears in her eyes, she fled. She would probably never get the sound of their voices, their last moments, out of her head.
He was losing grip. Another of their number left, and left Will with a nasty shiner.
"Where's Puck?" Will asked out of equal parts concern and irritation. He wearily eyed the empty chair beside Artie.
"Dunno. What do confirmed douche bags do in the wild?"
"We need to get him back. We're really close this time, guys. I really think we have a shot." Will could feel another headache coming on, probably from not sleeping well last night. Emma probably had some Tylenol to spare.
"Already on it, Mr. Schue. There's a new transfer student who doesn't know that glee sucks. I could probably get to him before the rest of the team does."
"Homeboy can dance?"
"Not like Brittany."
"She had the right idea. Why are we getting our hopes up? We aren't funded for a bus. Frigging kidding me?"
They were bickering again, the room already splitting right down the middle, their voices rising not in song but in heat. Will pinched the bridge of his nose and abruptly kicked over the piano bench. Nobody moved, shocked from their teacher's apparent anger.
"Let's not lose focus. I think Finn has the right idea; the more the merrier. No one's replacing anyone. However, considering how hard we've all worked, it'd be a waste to throw in the towel now. I've got just the thing."
Will turned to the drawing board and kept a straight face through the groaning.
"Mr. Schue, shouldn't we focus on the set list? One more special assignment's going to kill me!"
He tried not to take their comments to heart, but sometimes, Will did doubt. He did question. Emma was without a doubt the most perfect person in the world to talk him out of his moods. She was even better when she helped him without asking. It was enough that she would sit in the choir room and watch him work with the kids. Then she would help him clean up, and if there was anyone else in the world who could write an encyclopedia on spot treatments, he'd pick Emma. She was always supportive, and she would keep his secrets. Emma knew him. She knew he loved the kids, loved being their teacher, and hated to turn off the lights to a quiet choir room. In the black silence, on his worst days, he thought he could smell their rotten futures.
Will decided to go for the direct approach, since he was lousy at deception.
"... since you are new in town, I figured you wouldn't mind a little help with orientation. Where did you say you were from, Sam?"
"New York. I appreciate that, thank you," Sam answered. He rubbed his neck nervously because Mr. Schuester was outright beaming.
"Then you must have some appreciation for the arts. This town doesn't offer much, but maybe you'd be interested in-"
"Stop right there, Mr. Evans. I advise you to take twenty steps back. Before I blow my whistle."
"And why's that, Sue?" Will inquired wearily.
"Twenty steps, Goldilocks. I have better methods than detention." Then Sue turned and addressed Will with her usual grimace.
"I'm taking down your glee club, once and for all," Sue explained, with unbridled pleasure.
When she blew the whistle, all hell broke loose. A squad of brutes wearing Kevlar vests, radios, and beat sticks descended on Will. His chin smashed into the linoleum and his arms were nearly yanked out of their sockets as they were cuffed behind him.
Will only had time to roll his eyes up, his throbbing jaw hanging slack at the sight of Sue Sylvester looming over him in her yellow and black track suit, with a katana in hand.
"Mr. William Schuester, you are under arrest for 11 counts of kidnapping underage juveniles, 6 counts of first degree murder, 4 attempts of murder, several dozen counts of cruel and unusual torture, and a host of other acts that qualify you as a despicable example of a human being. You have the right to remain silent, you vomitous mass. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in the court of law. You have the right..."
Her words faded as he was hauled to his feet and kicked and shoved to the exits. She had joked about having him arrested for murdering Journey, but this was going too damn far.
"Boss, you alright?" one of the brutes inquired worriedly, as he noticed the blade trembling in Sue's hand.
"I am now," Sue said, concentrated only on the killer she'd been chasing for almost seven years now. The only barrier between her lethal training and Mr. Schuester's neck were the surviving victims and the families who would also want a shot at him.
"It's good to be Sue."
That's what she had to keep telling herself through the six o' clock broadcast when the reporters unleashed the mug shots of who America had cheesily dubbed "The Music Man."
The crumpled list of their names sat innocently by her cold cup of coffee.
Mary Jones (electrocuted) tertiary report by witness
Kirk Hummel (starvation) body recovered from dumpster
Michelle Berry (strangled) tertiary report by witness
Cynthia Fabray (stabbed) the man has a kink for alliteration
Ben Hudson (body?) most likely dead
Cao Huynh Chang (body?) most likely dead
Marty Abrams (last seen alive) likely alive
Chiê'n Chang (last seen alive) likely alive
Sandy Lopez (body?) likely alive
Bree Pierce (missing) likely alive
Noah Puckerman (recovered) poor bastard
Serial Killer! Will
glee_angst_meme: Glee Club doesn't exist. The entire club, relationships, and history are the figments of William Schuester's imagination. Every kid in the club is actually a victim of his, who is buried in his backyard. He gives them personalities based on how they seemed in the moments before their death. In his fantasies, he's the support system that keeps them all together, the kind teacher who brings out the best in them, not the monster who ended their lives.
A/N: I don't own Glee.