Since there seems to be enough interest in this fic, I'm really looking forward to continuing it, but I do have a few notes before we start. One, I probably won't include any of the spoilers that we already know for season two in this fic, and if it continues long enough to overlap with the second season, canon will probably have little impact on it. Second, I'll probably just stick to the original twelve Glee kids, at least for the beginning, and most likely will not add any characters ever (even the ones that we've been spoiled for), because building on Matt and Mike and writing all the other characters will be enough without having to create important OCs. Now that I'm done rambling, on to the story!
The blaring of his alarm causes him to groan and roll over. Matt hates Mondays, even Mondays in the summer, because Mondays mean he has to go lift at 6:30 in the morning for the next four days before he's free again. Not that Matt minds lifting, it's just that he wasn't even aware that the sun rose until about noon in the summer until he'd started high school.
When his phone starts buzzing along with the alarm clock, he gives up on the hope that this is just a bad dream and gets up to get dressed. The rest of the house is quite, since everyone else is asleep, but his sister must have left the television on last night, because he pours himself a bowl of cereal as some Disney Channel show plays in the background. He shakes his head at his sister's taste as he shovels most of the cereal into his mouth in three tries while he checks his messages.
Mike: can u pick me up? cant find my keys
Matt rolls his eyes at his best friend and taps out a reply quickly as he leaves the bowl in the sink and heads out the door. Since Mike loses his keys about every third day, Matt had left himself the required fifteen minutes it took to get to Mike's house and back to McKinley.
It's only a five minute drive to Mike's, and the other boy is waiting on his porch when Matt pulls up in his Dodge Dart, wearing shorts and a cut-off, and looking as though a comb hadn't come anywhere near his hair in at least a week. Matt throws open the passenger side door, since it won't open from the outside, and Mike slides in, groaning when he hears the CD that Matt has in.
"Julia Nunes again? Seriously? Don't you ever get tired of listening to her?"
"One, hell to the no. Two, I know you ain't be bashing on my girl Nunes. Cause I will slap an Asian boy who needs a ride to weights or he is walking. Three, if you don't want to listen to her, maybe you should keep track of your car keys."
"Maybe I lose them on purpose because I enjoy your company so much."
In response, Matt just turned the music up, and Mike groaned again.
"It's better then that techno crap you're always blasting out of your car. That is, when you can start it."
"Oh, you watch it, Shaft. Cause I will slap you, and then I will put nasty, wet, disgusting things in your trunk during football camp."
"If you lay a finger on my car, I will kill you, Chang. I have absolutely no reservations. At least if I'm in prison, I won't have to drag your sorry butt around anymore."
"Oooh, I'm so scared, Matt. Gonna get your sister to beat me up for you?"
"You know Jane could kick your ass any day, Mike, so stop flapping your jaw. I have good news," Matt said, and Mike wiggled his eyebrows in a way that would have seriously disturbed Matt if he hadn't been doing it since third grade, "Kurt's in."
"No way! You talked him into it? In one shot? You should work for the FBI, dude, cause your negotiating skills have got to be sick mad. Did you have to pull the Mercedes and Quinn card?" Mike asked, and Matt shook his head.
"I rambled for a bit about all the reasons I thought he should do it, and told him about my five-step plan, and he sort of just said yes. It was actually kind of easy," Matt said, before reaching to turn the radio up even more.
"Seriously, man? We're like thirty seconds from the school."
"Shut up. 'I Think You Know' is my favorite."
"I thought 'Comatose' was your favorite."
"That was my favorite, like, two weeks ago, dude."
"Okay, you're crazy. I'm officially not talking to you," Mike said as Matt pulled into a parking spot near the gym.
"How am I supposed to pick between one song? Julia Nunes is a genius of epic proportions," Mike just shook his head as the two made their way towards the weight room.
The vow of silence lasted for about twenty seconds; until Mike turned to Matt, and asked, "Want to partner?" even though they'd been partnering up everyday for weights since they'd first started four years ago. Matt just rolls his eyes and goes to get their logbooks.
Kurt hates alarm clocks, with a passion that most people reserve for telemarketers or the New York Yankees (and yes, Kurt does understand most sports, he just doesn't like them that much). But his dad expects him in the shop ready to go by 9:15, so if he wants to properly moisturize and eat breakfast, he has to get going now.
He spends about fifteen minutes in front of the mirror, but doesn't bother fixing his hair, as five minutes in the garage will destroy all that work anyway. His dad has already headed down to the shop, but he left the Cheerios, milk and coffee on the table. Kurt makes himself a bowl of cereal, but opts for grabbing the orange juice out of the fridge over his usual coffee. Coffee will only make him ever so slightly jittery, but ever so slightly usually wasn't good for pulling apart cars.
Once he's finished his third bowl of cereal, he washes the bowl in the sink, because Carole and Finn are both still asleep, and he doesn't want the milk caking to the bowl too badly. As he passes the door to the basement, he can faintly hear Finn's snores. Like a chainsaw, he thinks, shaking his head at how quickly he's gotten used to the noise at night.
"Morning, Dad," he said as he came through the door to the shop, and his dad peeked over the hood of the Ford he was working on to acknowledge him.
"Morning, sport. You still tearing apart that Chevy?" he asked and Kurt rolled his eyes at the nickname before he nodded and headed over to the broken down red truck he'd been ripping up for spare parts for the past week and a half.
They worked for almost an hour, with occasional conversation breaking up the classic rock station his dad had won the right to put on by being the first in the garage. Kurt whined about it for a while just to be a pain, though the station didn't really bother him that much. He was just starting to work on the truck's cooling system when he realized that he hadn't told his dad that he'd be unable to help in the garage in a few weeks because of football camp. Kurt hadn't even told his dad he planned on playing next year.
"Dad? I have something I need to talk to you about," he said, climbing out of the cab of the truck as his dad looked up from the paper he'd been reading while he took his donut break. His dad raised his eyebrows, and Kurt realized that he'd spoken just as his dad had taken a bite of his donut.
"Well, uh, you know how Matt was over here yesterday? Well, he asked me if I would maybe consider playing football next year," he said, but didn't mention that Matt had asked for a two-year commitment. Kurt didn't really want to give his dad a heart attack from happiness.
"And so I'm not going to be able to help around the garage in a couple weeks, cause there's apparently some kind of camp we have to attend," he said, the last words slightly muffled as his dad pulled him into a tight hug.
"You're playing football next year?" he said, the happiness evident in his voice before he moved Kurt out to arm's length and bent down slightly to look him in the eyes, "You're sure you want to do this? You know you don't have to, just because you're friends or I want you to."
Kurt nodded, "Yeah, dad, it's what I want. I wouldn't have thought about doing it just by myself, but Matt, he pointed out all the reasons I should do it. And he was right. I like kicking, dad, and I like how much you love it, and I've got friends on that team. And if I can help them out, then I should."
His dad hugged him again. "Dad, my lungs. I can't breath. No oxygen. Face turning blue. Dying," Kurt said, and his dad still didn't let him go for five more seconds.
"This weekend, we'll go out and get you some new cleats, some good Nikes. You just used the school's last year right?" Kurt nodded, "Well, if you plan on really giving this a go, you should have the proper stuff. You need anything else?" he asked, but Kurt shook his head.
"I'm so proud of you, kid. Your mom would be proud of you, too. Have you told Finn yet?"
"No, I went to bed before he got back last night, and he's still snoring away downstairs. Dad, I think we should take him to a doctor. It's so bad."
"What's so bad? Who are we taking to the doctor? Is Kurt sick?" asked Finn, appearing in the doorway, still with horrible bed head and in his pajamas.
"No. But I have a question for you, Finn? Did someone stuff an acorn up your nose as a child, and leave it there? Because you snore like a bear. How am I supposed to stay rested during football season with you making that much noise?"
"It's not that bad!" said Finn, before he tilted his head to think about what Kurt had just said, "Why would you need rest during football season?"
Kurt raised his eyebrows, "Just because the kicker isn't out there every play, doesn't mean that we don't need our rest." Finn seemed to think about that for just a second, then got that huge grin that he had when he was both surprised and happy about something.
"You're playing football next year! All right!" he said, and jumped off the stairs down to the garage floor before he swept Kurt up into another bone-crushing hug.
"Oh, dear God, if another person hugs me like this, I'm quitting before camp even happens," Kurt said, trying to wiggle in such a way that his lungs could actually get air, "Why didn't you go to weights this morning anyway?"
Finn put him down and shrugged, "Didn't feel like it. Too tired. I'll go tonight. I'm going to have breakfast now. Did you leave some for the rest of us, Kurt?" Kurt just rolled his eyes at his almost stepbrother before going back over to the Chevy. Despite the fact that it was barely 10:30, it was already stifling in the garage, and Kurt took the top part of his coveralls off his shoulders and kept it hanging around his waist by knotting the sleeves together behind his back.
It was going to be a long day. Hanging out with friends would definitely be required at the end of it.
"I'm not saying she's not a great song writer, or a awesome singer, but how can you listen to her all the time?" Mike said, and Matt looked over at him in annoyance.
"Are you seriously still talking about this? And I don't listen to her all the time. I listen to other stuff too. It's just that Nunes is the bomb, and her new EP just came out, and I like listening to her. If you would be able to keep your car keys someplace you could find them, then you could drive yourself around, and listen to whatever you wanted. But until then, please kindly shut your piehole, Mr. Chang."
They pulled up to Kurt's house without much further incident, until Mike tried to get out, and found that the door wouldn't open.
"Oh, heck, dude, your door is broken again. Why do you have such a sucky car?" he said, fiddling with the handle.
"Don't be saying things like that about my baby," said Matt, running his hand lovingly over the Dart's dashboard, "She's like the car equivalent of my grandma. Now please ignore that analogy as I tell you to just kick the door really hard. You should know how to do this by now, since you like, live in my car. But if you break my baby, you will be walking home, and then, I will end your life."
"Dude, I would not live in this car for a bizillion dollars. I don't understand why you don't just let your parents buy you the sick mad car they've been promising since you got back from that football camp you went to. Seriously, I can smell the dinosaur pee in this thing," Mike said, as he delivered a powerful kick to the door and Matt pulled from the outside.
The moment Mike pulled himself out of the car, Matt grabbed and tackled him, and the two of them have a semi-serious wrestling match on the lawn until they hear Kurt's voice call out from the porch, "Oh, really, guys? On my lawn? Could you two act anymore like toddlers?" As soon as he said that, Mike pushed Matt off him and sat up sucking his thumb, and Matt whipped his jacket off his shoulders and curled up with it like a blanket.
"You two have serious problems," Kurt said, making his way off the porch to meet the other two boys. He stopped when he saw the imprint of the Mike's shoe and loose handle of Matt's passenger door. "Oh, Mary Mother of God, Matthew Rutherford, if you absolutely refuse to replace this ancient piece of crap car, would you at least bring it in tomorrow so that Mike doesn't have to go all Kung-Fu Fighting on the door every time he forgets his keys at my house," said Kurt, holding up Mike's keys, the dorky disco ball key chain making it impossible to mistake them for anyone else's.
"Mike, I gave you a ride here yesterday because you couldn't find your keys. How'd they end up here?" Matt asked, and Mike just shrugged, but Kurt seemed to anticipate his next words.
"You left them here yesterday, not three days ago. You gave them to Brittany for a while because she likes the way the disco ball makes the pretty lights. I'm pretty sure you pulled them out of your pocket, Other Asian."
"Dude, what the hell? You had your keys in your pocket the whole time and you could not find them? I swear, if you weren't my best friend, I would have killed you a long time ago," said Matt, shoving Mike in a friendly way.
"First off, you know how bad I am with those things. Second off," he says, turning to Kurt, "Tina is totally the "Other Asian."
"What did you say about me, Mike?" said Tina, pushing Artie up the street towards Kurt's house.
"That you're amazing and talented and pretty, Tina dear." Mike replied, giving a show smile that would have made Jesse St. James proud.
"Chang, are you putting the moves on my girlfriend?" asked Artie, holding up mock fists.
"Artie, I wouldn't dare. You're much too physically intimidating for me to try anything with this gorgeous young lady. Ooops, did I say that out loud?"
"Speaking of intimidating, your outfit is intimidatingly awful. Seriously, Artie, did you get dressed in the dark?" asked Kurt, but Tina slapped him softly on the shoulder.
"Play nice, boys. Plus, I think Artie looks adorable," she said, kissing Artie on the top of his head. Matt brought his hand up to his cheek and groaned. The others gave him a funny look.
"I think I actually got a cavity from all that sweetness," he said, imitating Mike's show smile as they made their way up to Kurt's house.
"What are we watching anyway?" asked Matt as he, Mike and Kurt lifted Artie up the stairs.
"Footloose, then I promised Finn he could pick something," replied Kurt as they followed him towards the basement staircase. They were silent as they maneuvered Artie down the stairs, cause that was damn hard work.
"Again, man? We just watched that last night," said Matt. It wasn't that Footloose was a bad movie; he just liked a little variety.
"Finn, Artie, Tina and Santana weren't here, and Quinn had to leave halfway through, so we figured it was only fair."
"Plus, you're just sore that they think I can dance better than Kevin Bacon, but you can't," said Mike, showing off a few of his moves.
"You guys are totally wrong about that. Maybe I couldn't keep up with him in his prime, but ownage would take place today. Dude is, like, super ancient. He's so old it's almost a superpower."
"Matt, he's like 52."
"Like I said, old."
"Yeah, almost as old as your car," said Mike, and Matt glared at him.
"I wasn't going to do it, but your recent actions have forced my hand," said Matt, and turned towards Quinn. Mike realized what he was doing a second too late.
"Quinn, Mike was insulting Julia Nunes all day. He apparently has a problem with me playing her music in the car all the time. Thoughts?" he said, and Quinn whirled around with a mock gasp.
"Michael Chang, haven't I warned you that mocking Julia would lead to me killing you and leaving your body somewhere that no one would find it, ever?" she said, and Mike nodded sheepishly as he sat on the floor in front of her, "All right, well, I better not hear any more reports of this behavior. I wouldn't want to have to kill my second favorite dancer." Mike made a motion like he'd been shot through the heart and the rest of the room rolled their eyes as Kurt started the movie.
Despite the fact that Mike and Matt insisted on stopping the movie several times to show that they could indeed out-dance Kevin Bacon (Kurt drew the line at reenacting the punch dancing in the warehouse), nobody was ready to go home, so Kurt rolled his eyes and opened the DVD cabinet for Finn to peruse.
"I still don't understand how you have all the seasons of Frasier, but no Will and Grace," said Finn as he ran his fingers over the titles. The room gave him weird looks, "What? My mom got me hooked on them!"
"Because Frasier is a show worthy of owning on DVD, while Will and Grace is a good show to catch on reruns, but not worth the shelf space. I think everyone here would agree with me," Kurt said, turning to the rest of them for conformation.
"Never seen Frasier," said Matt, and Tina and Santana nodded their agreement. Matt kind of wanted a picture of Kurt's horror struck face.
"First season marathon, now," he said, and Finn groaned.
"Again?"
"You watched four episodes a month ago, Finn. And besides, you like Frasier."
"Still wish it was Will and Grace," muttered Finn, sullenly returning to his seat.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Good, because I would hate to have to post that as my Facebook status," said Kurt, and Artie looked up from his phone guiltily.
"Wait, we weren't supposed to post that on Facebook?"
Matt and Mike barely restrained Finn as he lunged toward Artie and Kurt.
"Sit down and enjoy the show, Hudson. Don't make me hurt you," Kurt said, and Finn shook his head at his friends.
"My revenge for this will be slow and painful," said Finn, but Kurt just rolled his eyes.
"Try it, Finn. I will shave off your eyebrows while you sleep if you do anything."
"Will you two shut up so I can watch the show?" asked Mercedes, and Kurt and Finn looked properly chastised.
Matt rolled his eyes and leaned back against the couch. He was going to play professional football someday, but right now, Lima wasn't a bad place to spend some time.
Pointless chapter is pointless. This chapter is really just for establishing Matt and Mike's voices and friendship, and also the camaraderie between the Glee kids, and Kurt and Finn's relationship as brothers, and Kurt telling his dad that he's playing. So it wasn't totally pointless, but it wasn't really that important plot wise. I promise it will get better in that aspect. As to Matt and Quinn's love of Julia Nunes, I just get kind of a singer/songwriter vibe from Quinn, and I get that vibe from Matt to, in that he'd like a lot of different kinds of music, but that he'd love some JuNu. Because I love Julia Nunes, and I think Matt would love her too. Also, Matt drives a '76 Dodge Dart because Toby Ziegler from The West Wing drives a Dodge Dart.
Also, you know how I said that I wouldn't have OCs in the first author's note? I was sort of lying. I won't be adding characters to the Glee Club, but I will need to create some teammates for the guys, otherwise this fic would be kind of boring. So I'll be giving some personalities to some football players, but I promise they won't just run off and join Glee all the time.
Next chapter: Kurt fixes Matt's car door, Matt explains his five-step plan to Kurt, Kurt has to tell Sue he needs a 3 month hiatus from Cheerios and somehow convince her that it's beneficial to the group, more Glee bonding, and the event you've all been waiting for, the first day of football camp.