A/N: Now that Christmas is drawing dangerously close, I decided to put this up after working on it for a few months. Sadly, I am only halfway through being finished thanks to the joys of real life and procrastination and writer's block. But enjoy anyhow.
Disclaimer: Don't own Glee. Sorry folks, but if I did, Puck and Quinn's storyline would be dealt with and there wouldn't be as many songs per episode. (Something else about Will and Emma sexing it up a lot more here as a bone for Wemma fans reading this.)
Under the William McKinley High School football field's bleachers, many unscrupulous and morally depraved things happen. One time, a rumor spread that Noah "Puck" Puckerman would steal girls' virginities against the third pole from the left. When Jacob-Ben Israel investigated this claim, Puck and his football team friends threw Jacob into a dumpster. Although it is certainly false, it was said that a girl gave blow jobs for five dollars under the bleachers. Not to mention, countless couples make out under the bleachers during football games and school hours. It's a well-known fact around school that there is a group of kids who smoke Chronic Lady marijuana bought from ex-teacher Sandy Ryerson, although no kid is allowed to approach him. Since Sandy branched his drug trafficking to an entire network of runners after his dishonorable discharge from Acafellas, it is that much easier to obtain Chronic Lady marijuana. None of the teachers know that every morning and afterschool, rain or shine, those kids go and smoke their joints.
The school called them the Sunshine Gang, partly because they look like innocent rays of sunshine to everyone who didn't know of their seediness. The name also came about because of their leader. To the unsuspecting faculty, the four members were four separate and very different teenagers: Sunny Brue, Mitchell Davis, Brad Isaacs, and Violet Connell. They look like every other kid in Lima and get fairly good grades…on paper. All of them lead double lives away from their parents, who never cared too much about them in the first place. Their broken home lives and a love of smoking are the only things all four share. But none of their differences or the rest of their lives matter under the bleachers. At school, it was their ultimate sanctuary.
Sunny draws in sharply on her joint before letting a flood of smoke expound from her nostrils like a dragon of medieval lore. "I don't understand it," she remarks while pulling her jacket closer around her. The winter weather—snow slushie on the ground and all—arrived in Lima early, just in time for a white Christmas.
After a silence of kids smoking and a couple making out…"Sun, where's the light?" Brad, clad in a sweater vest and half-frame glasses, asks her. She grunts and throws the black lighter to him. After he lights his, he says, "What are you talking about anyway?"
"Why'd you call us here?" Mitchell gestures at Sunny with his joint. "I thought it was Christmas tradition to break out the bongs and shit at Brad's house and watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians while his parents are gone on vacation."
"We'll do that on Christmas Eve. For now, we need a plan to make sure next year's grades are A's again."
Violet, a shadow in the background except for the orange ember off of her joint, bristles at this. "Can't we ever pull something as a practical joke? We haven't done one of those since freshman year. It always has to be about the stupid grades when we're never going to leave Lima anyway!"
"What did you not understand anyway?" Brad asks again, pulling his red hunting hat down over his ears.
"Brady, you need to stop with the fucking questions. They'll get you killed." Mitchell kicks against a pole for the sake of the vibration and echo from it.
"I just don't get Christmas sometimes," Sunny says.
"You can't be baked this fast. We aren't like this for at least another hour, and I don't feel like getting into that until I'm out of it," Mitchell draws in on his joint again.
"I'm starting them early. Deal with it."
The group thought about Sunny's statement for another eternity. The marijuana sank into their systems some more. The couple grew bored of making out under the bleachers and left. As Brad watched them silently converse before disappearing completely, he suddenly said, "It's just like any other holiday; getting drunk and high off your ass. But it's also about the fuzzy feeling you get when you're drunk or high. You're supposed to feel good about yourself during Christmas, so maybe because we don't feel good about ourselves due to school and home, we can't take Christ's birthday seriously. In fact, it's not even Christ's birthday, and the holiday was pagan before the Christians decided to steal it."
"Hail the Christians for being slimy thieving bastards," Mitchell raises his hand in a mock preach gesture before closing his eyes and leaning against Puck's pole.
"Thanks to them, we have one of the most superficial holidays known to mankind," Brad continues. "It's all about the booze—"
"And the girls in sexy Santa's helper suits at the mall—"
"Those God-awful songs on the radio—"
"—God, they're so damn sexy. I'd sit on their lap any day."
"—Black Friday and all of the sales…"
"The Christmas specials we watched as kids," Brad interrupts the absent-minded remarks from Mitchell and Violet.
"I get high to those every Christmas morning," Mitchell grins.
"Then there's the staff party the teachers are having—"
"Wait!" Sunny throws her joint down and crushes it with the heel of her boot. "I know how we're going to get our grades next year! Brady, you're a fucking genius!"
Brad is exasperated from his monologue, not happy with Sunny's compliment. "Just because I have Brady Bunch hair does not mean you get to call me Brady! You guys keep interrupting my train of thought…ugh, what's the idea?"
"Brady, we're going to need your parents' alcohol stash at our disposal again. Vi, we'll need you to use your insider sources. Mitch, do you still have your brother's camera equipment at your place?" Everyone grunts yes, except for Brad. He had hopped onto Sunny's thought train quickly.
"Sun, we can't do this. It's illegal!"
"So's what we're doing right now dipshit!" Mitchell, frustrated with the relatively moral group member, throws his short joint onto the ground and stamps it into oblivion.
"Bu-but we're not causing harm to anyone but ourselves. We'd be hurting people and clearly implicating ourselves as the criminals if we did it!"
"Then we'll hide ourselves carefully or something," Sunny interjects to stem off Mitchell's displeased mood. "but we need to do this. Not only is it going to be hilarious," she peeks over at Violet, who suddenly breaks into a Cheshire grin. "but it's also going to give us that fuzzy feeling you were talking about."
"Hey, you can't use my answer against me!"
"She's Sunny. Of course she can," Violet deadpans.
"So, here's what we're going to do. We've got two days until the staff Christmas party goes down. Tomorrow after school, we'll go over to Brady's and whip up our drink spiker. Violet, you and your sources are going to find out where the party is taking place and how much spiker we'll need—today. Also Brady, set up the cameras we'll need for watching the party. Mitch…just show up this time." After a pause of agreements, Sunny warned her gang, "I'm going to impose a smoking ban on us for the next two days. We can't afford to be anywhere near stoned when preparing or actually doing this. Get it?"
"Got it," they all reply.
"Good." The final warning bell rings in the distance. "Meeting over." Violet and Brad extinguish their joints before they all walk back to the main building.
After school on the next day, the Sunshine Gang is at Brad's house. They are all filled with ennui, but manage to busy themselves in various ways. Brad and Sunny examine four test drink spikers, all mixtures of various types of liquor from Brad's parents' stash, on the marble countertop while Violet and Mitchell test the cameras.
"Say something to the camera please," Violet says to Mitchell, who is on the other end of the large living room. The program the group is working with is a new wireless surveillance system Brad's parents are beta-testing for the company they work at, but it's practically bug-free.
"I want to go to California," Mitchell scoffs and rolls his eyes.
Satisfied, Violet smiles for the first time that day. "The sound is coming in clear. Brad's parents have done a marvelous job tweaking this," she mutters to herself. "Mitch, elaborate please."
"What the fuck? Shit…California. I want to go there to smoke all of the pot I want. The girls—"
"Lower your voice now. I need to test how well it can pick up whispers."
"Fuck that! I didn't agree to test for you anyway!"
"Hey!" Sunny suddenly shouted. "Mitch, this isn't for her, it's for all of us, including you. One more blowup like that and you're out." It is Mitchell's weak spot: good grades for his mom to be proud of. He decides to whisper the rest of his thoughts about California to the camera. "Vi, what were the drinks at the party tomorrow?" Sunny hollers to her friend.
"Hot cocoa, coffee, eggnog, water bottles, soda in liter bottles. No punch, but there'll be Coffee Mate and stuff like that there. The camera seems to be working fine, by the way," Violet turns off the camera to Mitchell's joy.
"Do you know if the eggnog is going to be alcoholic? It'll make our job a whole lot easier," Brad asks her.
"Unconfirmed, but I'm sure they'll have both virgin and alcoholic eggnog there. If not," at the counter, she grins before carefully tasting one of the spikers, "we can always make the virgin eggnog alcoholic. Needs more rum."
"They're testers," Sunny slides the cup away from Violet. "Do you have the drinks in the fridge Brady?"
Brad ignores Sunny's misnomer again. "I'm going to pull out the virgin and alcoholic eggnog."
"You have both here? Man, you're really fucking loaded," Mitchell jumps off the couch and clomps to the kitchen.
"If we try to spike the hot cocoa or coffee," Brad pushes up his glasses and continues without missing a beat, "we'll have to make a near tasteless combination."
"I'll make the coffee and cocoa, I guess. You have the ones I told you they were going to bring, right?" Brad nods absently at Violet while she prepares the hot drinks.
Once he poured out equal servings of both eggnog and spiker, it was only fit for them to test it. "Bottoms up." Brad, Sunny, Violet, and Mitchell test their various drinks, eight different combinations per person. When the hot chocolate and coffee were tested, they found that if it were consumed while still hot; the taste would be nonexistent for all of the spikers. Therefore, a new combination wasn't needed after all, much to Brad's relief.
In the end, the gang decides on the one with a good mix of light rum because it matches up the most with the alcoholic eggnog Brad's parents made. "We're spiking both eggnogs and the hot drinks. Wonderful," Sunny grins. "More targets for us."
"So Vi," Brad readjusts his glasses. "you'll be in charge of the actual spiking and setting up our hidden cameras. Mitchell, Sunny, and I will provide a distraction to buy you time."
"The key here is to get Sylvester and Beiste distracted. If we get those two hard asses, we've got the entire staff," Sunny adds for clarification and to reaffirm her position as leader of the gang.
"Just one problem," Violet says. "I don't know what I'll be able to do if Mr. Schue and Ms. P aren't distracted. They're the most curious of the staff and have a weird tendency to being alone in a room when no one else is around. It's like some sort of TV show—"
"We'll try to involve them in the distraction, but worse comes to worse, take a picture of them and threaten to send it to Ms. P's dentist boyfriend."
"Sun! You can't possibly consent to threatening Ms. P's relationship!" Brad warns to no real end. "It's not right!"
"Nothing we do is fucking right anyway!" Mitchell shoves Brad's shoulders.
"Don't touch me motherfucker!"
"We'll see who's—"
"WILL YOU TWO SHUT THE FUCK UP?" Sunny finally shouts at them both, before suddenly coming to yet another realization. "Brady, you remember lines from The Room?"
"That movie we got high to Thanksgiving weekend?" Mitchell asks.
"Do you get high to everything you watch on TV?" Mitchell was ready to respond to Brad's question, but Brad suddenly says, "No, don't answer that. But yeah, I remember some of it. It was just really trippy and horrible. Why?"
"I know what our distraction's going to be. We'll need to find the script online," Sunny adds.
"Do you still need me to catch a photo of the lovebirds?" Violet pipes up.
"As an absolute last resort. You hide otherwise. And if you catch them being close and they don't notice you, film them. Mitch, Vi, is all of our recording and camera stuff in absolute working order?" He grunts in response, still glowering over Sunny's obvious anger at him, while Violet gives a simple thumbs-up. "No holes and plenty of our spiker. We stay as long as we can, but we'll have to get in for our cameras and out of the school fast the next morning."
"We should be set for next year though." Brad, for the first time that day, smiles. "Get ready for an early merry Christmas everyone."
A brief silence follows before everyone begins laughing out loud. "Merry Christmas!" they all shout before laughing all over again.
A/N: As a final notice, I may or may not add more canon characters into the mix-still no New Directions kids. However, I am planning to start up a series of one-shots on the Sunshine Gang's antics around the school for the back part of Season 2-when the show comes back after the Super Bowl next year. Something for everyone to look out for.
Reviews are appreciated!