AN: Getting to know the club a little bit.

Chapter 3 - rated T, posted 04.07.12

"Mr. Schue, as a red-blooded alpha male, I feel it's my duty to say something about the shameful lack of tail in this club."

"Puck, please sit down."

"Nu-uh, I mean seriously! I know we got the wonder twins over there," he gestured to where Santana sat with Brittany draped over her "and we got Brittany too," Santana glared "but ever since they got all up on each other, neither one of them will get all up on me! Something must be done!" he cried.

Mr. Schuester just sighed as the inevitable argument broke out.

Quinn was sat near the back of the room with his head in a book. He'd grown to enjoy glee club over the few weeks he'd been a part of it. He'd even learned everyone's names.
The only thing that tempered his contentment was currently sat two rows ahead of him, laughing dopily down at a beaming Ryan Berry.

For some reason, he just couldn't stand Finn.
Now if he could just put his finger on why…

"Hey! I'm in this club too, ya know!" Mercedes squawked.

"A-a-and me!" added Tina, albeit far more quietly.
Kurt just folded his arms.

"You had better keep your hand out of your pants when you're talking about my Britts, Puckerman!" Santana warned from the other side of the choir room.

"What about when I'm talking about your twins?" the boy asked with a smirk which was wiped off his face when the Latina lunged for him.

Quinn turned the page. The story was getting good.

"You know what, Mr. Schue? Maybe we do need more girls." came the ever-confused-sounding voice of the current object of Quinn's ire.

"And how do you propose we get more girls to join up, Finn?" the teacher asked, glad that the brawl had died down.

"Um…I don't know…maybe…uh…we could…like, advertise the club?"

A few seconds of silence ticked by before the curly-haired man's excited outburst.
"That's a great idea, Finn! We could get the word out around school! Once they know how great it is, lots of people will want to join!"

Quinn was sure that the boy had meant some kind of television advertisement but let it go.
Right on cue, Ryan stood from his seat and started frantically spewing ideas and plans and doling out tasks.
It seemed like they hardly ever actually sang in glee club anymore.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

The greying teacher hunched over her desk as she stared at the screen of her laptop. Just one more number and she'd have full house.

"Thank you, Mr. Cook." she said, without looking up, cutting off the speech of the small girl who was currently reading out her work to the class. The girl hung her head and slinked back to her desk. "Mr…Puckerman? Would you care to share your work?" Damn that last number!

Puck strode to the front of the class and ruffled a crumpled piece of paper which was very clearly covered in obscene doodles.
"What's up, English Language two-twenty-three?" he began "So listen up; I got a story for ya."

For the next sixteen minutes, the class proceeded to be shocked, appalled and generally grossed-out by Puck's creative retelling of Lewis Carroll's classic, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.

"…And you know that worm was smoking more than just tobacco. But anyway, so Alice goes to the hatter - who's bench-pressing the tea trays at the time - and she's all 'Oh, hatter, you're so strong! Let's forget about that dumb rabbit and get crazy on top of the writing desk!' and the hatter's gonna tell her to take a hike 'cause she's a prissy, little bitch but she also has a super fine ass so he's just gotta give her a test drive!"

At this point, the teacher had rage-quit her bingo and was staring at the mohawked boy as he made vulgar sex noises in a high-pitched girl's voice.

"Thank you, Mr. Puckerman. You may sit down."
The boy grinned lasciviously and returned to his seat at the back of the room.

"Oh!" Puck exclaimed from the back as another girl was making her way to the front "Ladies! If you liked that, don't forget to check out glee club." he grinned.
The class just looked disturbed.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

"Hey, guys." called a girl in a very short skirt. "You were great out there today!"

"Totally great!" her friend, in an equally trampy outfit, replied.

Matt and Mike looked at each other. They'd just gotten off the field after a particularly tough training session.

"Um…yeah. Well…we try, I guess." Mike replied with a cautious grin.

The girls giggled and each put a hand on one of the boys' arms teasingly.
"We're sure you do. And I bet you'd try really hard at other things too." one girl flirted.

"So…" the other girl started "you guys wanna hang out some time and…y'know…?"

The boys thought for a second and shared a look. It occurred to them both that this could be the perfect opportunity to plug their club.
Goodness knows why.

"Sorry, girls, but we're swamped with glee club." Mike said, fake-dejectedly "But if you really wanna hang out with us then I'm sure we could figure something out…"

"Like what?"

"Well…do you like to sing?"

Suffice to say, the boys did not get dates.
Nor did they recruit any new club members.
Though Matt did get a strange rash where that girl had touched him so it was probably for the best.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Winston paddled happily around as Julia followed him incessantly. O'Brien was brooding in the distance and Mr. Charrington was chatting quietly with Syme. Parsons was arguing with his wife again as his children played around them.

Brittany smiled as they all gathered around her when she threw a handful of seed into the water. She watched as Parsons' kids splashed each other in effort to get there first.
She fought to contain her giggle as his wife was left at the back of the crowd; she was her least favourite.

"Hey, duckies." Brittany greeted them as they tucked into the seed. "I know I haven't been around a lot lately but I have a good excuse. Santana - you remember Santana, right? - anyway, Santana took me out on a date. I know!" she exclaimed as Mr. Charrington quacked "Finally, right? But that's why I've been around less often. We're sorting out what we are to each other."
Another quack.
"No, not yet." she sighed "I know I want her to be but I don't think she's ready. I don't want to push her because I'm afraid she'll pull away."
It was Parsons who quacked this time and Brittany laughed.
"Tell me about it! Anyway, I know that you guys like to sing and dance so I came to ask you something…"

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Kurt reclined on the bed as he watched Mercedes pace.

"What? Am I not woman enough for the glee club?" she huffed.

Kurt, used to this after the first two hours, replied "Honey, you're woman enough for the entire New York Giants team."

"Damn right I am! Why they gotta mess with my flow? Can't they see that I work better without the drama of new people? I'm an artist!"

"You're an artist." Kurt repeated distractedly, imagining Mercedes bare-knuckle boxing with a team of abnormally large men dressed in baseball uniforms…or was is basketball…?

"I'm a star! A powerhouse!"

"A phenomenon." Kurt added "A straight-up sensation." his eyes had glazed over; the giants had taken off their shirts.

"Yes! So I say to Hell with Ryan Berry and his stupid 'Bring In More Girls' plan and we just watch a movie and eat pizza.

Kurt didn't care how many females were in the glee club. He'd much prefer to have a plan to bring in more cute, eligible boys.

With muscles.
And tight jeans.
And no shirt.
And a sheen of sweat that glistens in the creases between toned abs and…

Oh.

So he nodded his head and let his friend pick the movie.
He hoped it was something with zombies and gore; it felt like a zombie kind of night.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Santana was lying on her stomach on her bed with music blasting throughout the room.
She was filing her nails when one of her favourite songs came on which caused her to fling the nail file across the room and jump on the bed like a maniac, screaming out the chorus.

"Oh I swear to you
I'll be there for you
This is not a drive by-y-y-y!"

"Santana! Keep it down up there!"

Santana sighed.
"Yes, Mami!" she called back.

She climbed down from the bed and restarted the song at a lower volume.

"Oh but that one night
Was more than just right
I didn't leave you
'Cause I was all through
Oh I was overwhelmed
And, frankly, scared as Hell
Because I really fell for you."

She hummed softly as she hunted for her jettisoned nail file.

"On the upside of a downward spiral
My love for you went viral
And I loved you every mile
you drove away
But now here you are again
So let's skip the "how you been"
And get down to the "more than friends" at last
Oh but that one night
Is still the highlight
I didn't need you
until I came to."

Her phone buzzed on her desk and she abandoned her search.
It was a text from Brittany.

"Oh I swear to you
I'll be there for you
This is not a drive by-y-y-y!"

'Hey, S! You'll nvr gueS wat! I went 2 da duk pond 2day! Dey sed dey cudn't join glee coz dey had 2 migrate or w/e bt I tnk it's jst a covA so dey cn plot 2 tak ovr da wrld. Dey're lk dat bt dn't wori; dey've triD B4 n dey nvr gt vry fr. Nyway, I'm jst checkin in, sAyn hi, u knw. How's it goin w/ u? Ms u!'

Santana smiled, tapped out a response to her quirky best friend and replayed the song again.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

"So are we really doing this?" Artie asked dejectedly.

"I g-guess so. I mean…Ryan would b-be pretty pissed if we ignored his orders or w-whatever." Tina sighed "He m-may e-even storm out and we all know h-how annoying that is."

Artie hung his head and wheeled over to where Tina was arranging piles of manuscript paper.

Twenty minutes later, Artie asked Tina what she had come up with so far.

"I-it's not f-finished but…it's a s-start, I guess." she took a deep breath a softly began to sing the lyrics she'd been working on.
When she had finished, he plastered on a light smile and nodded.

"I, um, I like it," he started "but I'm just not sure that Mr. Schue would be all that ok with us singing a song with the words 'and then I lost control and gouged his eyes out' in front of the school. And maybe that bit about the 'crimson love trail dripping onto the clean, white carpet' is a little dark for a morning assembly."

Tina sighed and nodded.
"Y-y-yeah, I guess they're not ready f-for that just yet."

Artie stared.
"No. They're not."

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Turns out the camera wasn't on the first time they shot it but Finn had triple checked this time.
He counted down from three on his fingers and signalled for Brittany's cue.

"Hey! I'm Brittany S. Pierce. Yes, I know, I know, please hold your applause for after the announcement."
She beamed at the camera before adopting a stern expression which looked rather out-of-place on her normally-bubbly face.
"I'm afraid that I have some very grave news: Due to the effectiveness of our last announcement in which we asked more guys to join, McKinley High's glee club is experiencing a shortage of girls. That's right! We have too many men! We need more ladies to balance out all of those hot, eligible boys or else all their hotness and eligible-ness will go to waste! Please! We need your help! McKinley High's glee club has too many men!"
She took a breath and smiled lightly.
"And here to speak to us today is one of those men to tell you why you should all join glee. Finn?"

Finn rushed around the camera's tripod to stand next to Brittany.

"Yeah…hi, Britt." he smiled "Well…glee's all about singin' and dancin' and stuff so if you like junk like that then you should come to glee. Also, if you don't like that stuff but you're a hot girl, you should join anyway 'cause it's super fun and I could, like, show you my muscles and stuff."
He grinned nervously at the camera.

"Thank you, Finn. So there you have it, women of the world: hot guys, singing and dancing, Finn Hudson's muscles…you'd be crazy not to join!"
With that, Finn rushed back around the camera to stop the recording.

"That went really well, Britt!" Finn exclaimed excitedly.

"Of course it did," Britt smirked "I'm a natural."

It took three more tries (with the lens cap off this time) to get a "TV-ready" take.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

"So will you do it?" Ryan asked with his big, pleading eyes.

"I don't think I get what you're asking me to do." Quinn replied from his spot on Ryan's bed.
They'd been hanging out ever since their talk and had found that they made quite good friends.
Apart from the fact that Ryan bossed the blonde around like a controlling girlfriend and Quinn would occasionally fly into a jealous rage when he caught glimpses of the singer with Finn.
It was going well.

"Quinn," the brunette sighed "I want you to use your status in school to boost the reputation of the glee club."

"And how do I do that?"

"You are, for lack of a better term, cool and -"

"I'm cool!" Quinn laughed and Ryan frowned.

"Yes, Quinn, you're cool. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you were unaware of this fact?"

Quinn just laughed harder.

"Ryan," he said once he'd caught back his breath "I'm not cool."
Ryan looked as though he were about to protest but Quinn cut him off with a raised hand.
"I'm mean. I'm smart and ruthless and cold. I'm in all the right groups. I'm in charge of all the right groups. I put people down just to make sure that I stay on top. I hurt people. That isn't cool. That's being a bully."
Quinn hung his head in shame and Ryan placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Quinn, you are cool." he said "Sure, I don't agree with the bullying and the hurting people but if I was to ask anyone what made Quinn Fabray cool, they wouldn't even think to list those qualities. They'd say that you have an air of cool indifference. That you always seem in control even when you're just in the background. That you don't take any nonsense from anyone. They'd talk about how you're always kind of a mystery. How you're always reading even when the world is going to Hell around you." Quinn chuckled at this. "How you're captain of the football team even though you really prefer baseball. How you joined the glee club even though it's quite possibly the least cool club in school…and maybe the planet."

"AV club." Quinn interjected.

"Ah yes, well, the second least cool club then. You also dress well and have nice hair." Ryan finished with a beaming smile and Quinn couldn't help but grin back.

"Ok, ok, I give. I'm cool but I don't see how that supposed to help. Everyone already knows that I'm in glee club and it hasn't made a difference. The only way I can think of that it would help is if everyone in the club was cool."

The boys thought for a moment before a wide grin stretched across Ryan's face. Quinn looked at him, confused.

"Quinn," Ryan breathed and Quinn almost blushed "I have the best idea!"

Now Quinn was definitely blushing. He swallowed hard and leaned closer to the grinning boy.
"What?" he asked with a puff of air.

"You could teach me to be cool!" Ryan exclaimed and jumped from the bed the collect various items from around his room.
Quinn just sighed and smiled.
Well, he wasn't going to be getting any for a while. Might as well spend all this spare time making Ryan Berry cool.

Song: Drive By - Train

AN: Britt's line about TOO MANY MEN! is from that Match dot com advert. Gosh, that was a stupid advert.