Fic: Enough Is Enough
Author:SC182
Beta: Lexi
Characters: Mercedes, Rachel and Jacob. Gen
Rating: PG
Words: 2,240+
Spoilers: Season 1 through 2.14-Comeback
Summary: A real diva strikes with words.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters herein. The characters of Mercedes Jones and Rachel Berry are the property of their creators and Fox Studios. Any deviation (or deviant behavior) from the originals, however, is mine.
A/N: I wanted to build on the friendship shown in Silly Love Songs and Combeack. Remember Take Me or Leave Me?
Check out: .com/watch?v=s_Rs2kSrTIo&feature=related
Feedback is much appreciated.
Mercedes loved Saturday sleepovers. It was the one tradition that she and Kurt firmly clung to despite separation and the emergence of potential love interests. She'd been hesitant at first when he mentioned adding Rachel to the mix for many reasons. However there were just as many plausible reasons for them to finally be friends that Mercedes felt badly for being resistant for so long.
Especially when they got fake diva-offs like Take Me or Leave Me out of the mix. Which by the way was quite simply a bucket of awesome sauce plus ten.
During their sleepover that Saturday, Rachel and Mercedes could only tell Kurt about their amazing duet, as they were sleeping at Rachel's house and she reminded them that her neighbors were a noise complaint away from owning her house. Miffed that he had not been given a chance to see greatness in action nor style their outfits, Kurt blithely reminded them that they shouldn't have given away a potential competition song.
Rachel laughed, reminding Kurt that as Dalton had no girls, any girl-girl duet, specifically a duet between her and Mercedes that would render them starry-eyed and awestruck.
Kurt was not amused.
The gauntlet had been thrown and Kurt, along with the Warblers by extension, was ready to rumble Sharks vs. Jets style at Regionals.
Kurt challenged—no, pointedly dared—Rachel to find another female duet that was competition worthy .In his words, the Warblers were bringing it and New Directions had best be prepared.
All of which had led to now.
Rachel's fanatical mission to prove him wrong, and more importantly prove herself right, had flown into high gear that Monday morning. Mercedes was left as her sounding board and coconspirator, which was hard to deal with on a Monday morning.
Pages of sheet music fluttered like spasmodic butterflies in front of Mercedes' nose as Rachel waved her findings victoriously. The excessive motion tickled Mercedes' nose and the need to sneeze grew with each sweep. Between Saturday night and Monday morning, Rachel's passion had elevated to meltdown proportions—think Chernobyl and Mercedes had to bear the brunt of it.
Again, the sheet music danced before Mercedes' eyes like little flags, heralding the arrival of the Queen of Sheet Music. The urge to sneeze burned the back of her throat, which was unfortunate. Despite her cute ensemble that day, it only took one moment or one sneeze accompanied by massive crazy face to ruin the whole effect. As her luck would probably have it, Jacob Ben Israel would be somewhere in the vicinity to capture her descent into fug mug territory and put her picture on his blog under the title "Freak of The Day".
Rachel was completely oblivious and simultaneously dismayed by Mercedes' lack of attention.
Mercedes managed to stop the tickle assault on the tip of her nose by grabbing Rachel's shoulders. The moment the tears cleared from her eyes, she was given her first real look at what Rachel was wearing. The ensemble Rachel had the misfortune of working that day was a combination of pinks, plaid and argyle. Mercedes thought Rachel looked like the chairwoman of the Geriatric Toddlers League. The skirt straddled a precarious line between obscene and tasteful provocative. Her argyle Barbie pink and white sweater set conjured up visions of stomach medicine and Lisa Frank stationary. It was impossible for Mercedes to begin unraveling the fashion statement Rachel was trying to convey.
Undeterred by Mercedes' wary expression, Rachel explained the reason for her sudden sneak attack with sheet music. "In my possession is the greatest unsung duet of female empowerment and genre-bending of the last thirty years. A true underappreciated classic that is begging for the collective might of our combined vocals."
Classic female duet, she said. Mercedes could get behind that.
Mercedes could only think of one song that fit the bill. One that had touched her so much that it resulted in her practicing it every day afterschool when she was eight. That was until her brothers broke her DVD and blamed it on the dog.
"Please, please tell me that you're talking about Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston's Prince of Egypt song? Because, if so, then I am one hundred percent behind you and seconds from screaming like Oprah. If not, then I'll admit that I'm a little scared," Mercedes confessed.
Rachel waved the music around with such vigor that it appeared as though she was trying to wipe away Mercedes' incorrect guess. "No, Mercedes, I'm talking about the seminal disco dance ballad Enough is Enough by Divas Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer." She paused for breath and then resumed convincing Mercedes of the inherent strengths of her idea. "Granted, Mr. Schue has been misguided in his unerring love of disco at times, I do believe that a disco-fuelled ballad will be the answer to crushing our competition at Regionals and ultimately showing Kurt the error of his fashionably incorrect ways."
The bubble that was Kurt and Mercedes' friendship had been tenuously fragile over the past few months. But time apart and lots of talking, real and true conversation, had lead to a restoration of their bond. Then, the bubble expanded to include Rachel. Mercedes found that this new friendship could be trying at the best of the times and flat-out irritating at the worst. Grated, this friction was mostly due to the obvious desire to be stars among the divalicious trio.
Mercedes couldn't possibly indulge Rachel in her musical flight of fancy. Not this time. "Rachel, puh-lease, no one is better than combined strength of Mariah and Whitney. No one."
Rachel slid the sheet music into Mercedes hands. "Mercedes, so musically gifted, yet so shortsighted in execution."
It was at that moment that Jacob Ben Israel decided to make his presence known. Mercedes had noticed him approaching and like everyone else, she pretended he didn't exist. That was until he decided to his big fat gap-toothed mouth.
Jacob rubbed his palms together like a cartoonish lecher. Rachel's diatribe tapered off into silence. Disgust was a natural conversation suppressant. One that even Rachel Berry wasn't immune to.
"Hello Rachel and Sassy Girlfriend." He pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and breathed in heavily through his mouth. "You look delicious as always. I thought I'd let you know that you are making today's poll rise with that skirt."
Simultaneously, Rachel and Mercedes shuddered. "That's disgusting, Jacob," Rachel hissed.
Jacob's laugh spiraled into a choking snort. He sounded like a bridge troll from one of Mercedes' childhood fairy tales. Who was she kidding? Jacob was the media troll of McKinley.
He reached out to touch her and Rachel recoiled. "Wanky, wanky," he purred like an overgrown cat. He licked his dry cracked lips with too much tongue and wet noise, and trailed his eyes over Rachel from head to toe in a very slow crawl. "Trouser snake goes wakey-wakey when looking at you."
At Rachel's jolt, Mercedes lost whatever rein she had on her composure. The mental clock in her head had steadily counted down to five, four, three, two, and one, and Jacob was going to be read like a drag queen reads the phone book-with sass and bitch fire. "Listen here, Geraldo-No- Talent- Rivera, do you see this girl? This is one Ms. Rachel Berry. You are forever banned from approaching her, talking to her, looking at her or hell, even smelling her. If you don't leave her alone, I will see that the football players string you up the flagpole and make you dance like a human marionette."
Jacob shuddered, but remained annoyingly undeterred. "You can't fault me for speaking the truth. Those sweater puppies are hankering to be petted. And I'm offering to do the job."
Mercedes stuck her finger in his face. "Uh, no, frankly, hell no, Short Stuff." She stepped in front of Rachel, effectively blocking his creepy leer. "I guess I'm not being real clear here, so I'll use words that you can understand. If you don't leave Rachel alone, I will personally shove your keyboard up your butt, then you can update your blog with your colon. And you can quote me on that. Period, end of report."
Pale from shock, Jacob gaped at her like a fish. A really pervy fish with big hair and stupid glasses. "Now run away," she advised in a cold voice.
He trembled and swallowed audibly. "Yes, ma'am," he whispered and scurried down the hallway like a mouse with a burnt tail.
The hum of the hallway became noticeably quieter, making it so that Mercedes heard Rachel's gasp behind her. "Mercedes," she began in an uncharacteristically small voice, "Though I wouldn't have made such as public denouncement, I do commend you for implementing a successful cease and desist strategy that will in all likelihood result in Jacob peeing himself whenever he's within fifty feet of me."
Mercedes rolled her eyes. "You're welcome," she said.
Even now, Rachel was incapable of saying two little words instead of twenty. Friends accepted their friend's quirks and Mercedes was coming to accept Rachel's. This occasionally included allowing Rachel to have the last word. "We glee girls have to stick together and I won't stand for any of my friends being harassed. Not again."
Rachel nodded in understanding, knowing full well who and what Mercedes was talking about. Despite their sudden melancholia, she smiled anyway, wrapped her arms around Mercedes and hugged her. "Usually, I don't have a problem with words, but Jacob's attentions as they were seemed to-"
"Leave you speechless and grossed out?"
"Yes, definitely that," Rachel released Mercedes and looked her in the eyes. "I think the fear of public humiliation coupled with physical violence may actually deter any future attempts at contact, or at the very least, I hope that that they will."
They were working on this friendship. A task that became easier by the day when they looked at the similarities and not so much their differences. After a year and a half in glee, they'd learned to sticking together wasn't optional, it was completely necessary.
McKinley wasn't known for being the softest and cuddliest of places. At the best of times, it could a small pond teaming with big fish; at the worst, a shark tank full of man-eaters.
As Mercedes hooked Rachel's arm through hers, she smiled, thinking back to her words at the start of the year. Glee was a family and they were the only ones allowed to hurt each other, no one else.
"I'll keep my eye on him, and if need be, I have no problems taking him to the carpet. I'm sure Santana, Lauren and Puck would love to have a go at him. Or maybe just watch." Which was very true.
They shared a laugh at the exploits of some of their more exhibitionistic friends.
"Well, thanks. I appreciate all the help that I can get," Rachel said as they walked down the hall to her class. "Plus, this time has given me the opportunity to tell you that I'm happy that we're friends."
The hallway was abuzz with news of Jacob's verbal smackdown. Their fellow students were giving Mercedes congratulatory looks and smiled in their direction. The smile on Rachel's face was wide, proud and blazingly white; she looked like pageant parent. It was a little freaky in Mercedes' opinion.
Their respective classes were separated by the span of the hallway. After a quick sweep of the hall that would have made Coach Sylvester proud, Mercedes deemed Rachel safe to go to class. She gestured at the door with a wave of her arm. "Your stop."
Rachel's grin had managed to grow to such an extent that, Mercedes braced herself for whatever was to come next, by asking, "Are you okay?"
"Of course, I am," Rachel declared. "I'm simply basking in the knowledge that I, Rachel Berry, am once again ahead of the curve. I'm friends with one of the most talented people in school, possibly in all of Ohio, and she also happens to be one of the most beautiful. Like the song I found, she tends to be forgotten about until you hear her in all her blazing glory."
Rachel squeezed her hands. "Now the rest of the plebian masses will try to ingratiate themselves to you due to an undoubted spike in your popularity, but I'll have the satisfaction in knowing that I was your friend first and I'll still be your friend after their interest has peaked; and that makes me proud."
Leave it to Rachel to turn a simple act into an occasion to make Mercedes cry. "Rachel-"
Rachel waved her off and motioned for Mercedes to go to class. For once, Rachel wasn't interested in talking and that was enough to color Mercedes shocked.
Rachel crossed the threshold into her English class, but swiveled on her heels to face Mercedes once more. "Please don't think that I've forgotten our previous conversation. I will convince you of the merits of performing my ill-cherished classic Streisand-Summers duet."
"Sure, you do that, Honey." Mercedes enjoyed watching Rachel pout and make longsuffering sounds at Mercedes' unrelenting stubbornness.
Behind her, Rachel politely called out, "See you in glee!"
It wasn't until Mercedes was on her third page of history notes that she realized that Rachel had once again gotten the last word.
Since they were friends, she was perfectly okay with it.
The End