Nick wasn't sure there had ever been this much tension in a Warbler rehearsal before, even the time Blaine's suggestions had made the council leap up in arms, and that's when the famous Kazoo comment… and now he was feeling depressed again.
It had been decided- or maybe just accepted was a better word, since decisions implied talking and communication, something not currently occurring in the deathly silence occupying the large room- that Nick, Jeff and Trent would lead the Warblers. Currently, Nick was eyeing the gavel lying on the table before him, trying very hard to block the image of his friend throwing it at his head the previous day. It was almost as bad as how David wouldn't talk to him when he tried to apologize, or at least see why this one action had enraged him to the point of quitting. People didn't quit the Warblers, unless they were leaving Dalton like Kurt or Blaine (and the guilt was back).
"Should we practice?" Jeff suggested half-heartedly. Sebastian hopped up, and a few others followed a little more reluctantly. They all promptly sat down though when none of the more experienced Warblers showed any indication of following through with Jeff's suggestion.
"Warblers, we're just going to cancel rehearsal for today. Go… do homework or something," Nick conceded. The Warblers filed out of the room, just as silent as they'd been for the entire ten minutes of the rehearsal/ train wreck.
"What are we doing?" Trent inquired dejectedly.
"I don't know!" Jeff replied angrily, slamming his head down onto the table. "But this fucking sucks."
"Did you guys see David today?" Nick asked in a muted volume. He had a suspicion that this was what shock felt like. The other two nodded.
"It was… it's creepy, seeing him like that. And the vest- this is final, isn't it?" Trent asked, looking to the other two as though hoping for them to tell him otherwise. "He doesn't plan on coming back." Jeff and Nick exchanged a look.
"We need to fix this," Nick announced. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" Jeff asked as he and Trent followed the dark haired boy.
"We are going and apologizing to David. I refuse to accept that there is no way we can talk through this." The three then continued through the hallways in silence until they reached David's dorm room.
"David, can we come in?" Trent asked, banging on the door. He received no response. "David?" No response. "We know we've been stupid!"
"Please, David, we really want to apologize!" Jeff tried.
"We can stay out here all night if we have to!" Nick agreed. When they continued to receive no response, the three Warblers settled themselves around the door.
"Come on, please just talk to us!" Trent begged. "You can just yell at us, but say something." The silence was rather deafening.
"I guess we wait," Nick told the other two.
-GLEE-
The climate in the Warbler's rehearsal was much more energetic than the last time. Given a guess, Nick would say it was because everyone was past shock and onto being angry, whether it was anger at themselves, or their former "captain" who suggested this path, or just because he, Trent, and Jeff had drug them in here at six on a Saturday (when they'd woken up, invaded David's room, and discovered he wasn't actually there).
"Come to order!" he demanded. He refused to use the gavel before him because it wasn't his. The Warblers thankfully shut up. "We have two points of business today. The first is a change in our set-list for Regional's. We've struck the Michael Jackson numbers." There was a bit of a murmur of unrest.
"We understand that everyone wants to do them because they're fun," Jeff cut in. "But we can do Michael in all sorts of non-competitive venues where it doesn't cause a compromise of integrity."
"This is pathetic!" Three glares were sent at Sebastian, echoed by a large portion of the room.
"Second point of order," Trent snapped. "Sebastian, you are going and extending a formal apology to Kurt, Blaine, and any other New Directions you can find. The rest of us need to find a way to show David how sorry we are."
"We're really going back to-" Sebastian didn't get to finish his sentence because the sprinkler system suddenly triggered, quickly drenching all of the uniformed boys.
"What the…" Jeff asked, looking upwards.
"Is there a fire?" one of the new Warblers- a sophomore- had spoken. His friend smacked his shoulder.
"Warblers, we're moving to a different location," Nick declared, directing the general movement to get out of the soaking sprinklers. Once they had exited the room, they discovered the sprinklers to be off everywhere else. Sebastian started off toward the dorms.
"Sebastian, car, Lima, NOW," Trent ordered. Sebastian looked like he was going to argue, but seemed to accept that the ten glaring boys weren't budging, so he just turned around and headed for his car, still dripping. Jeff surveyed the rest of the dripping Warblers.
"I guess we should change before working out an apology," he conceded. There was a murmur of consent and the club migrated towards the dorms. They were stopped by a lone figure on the staircase, whose very presence froze every Warbler. He was not fazed by the sudden silence, simply crossing his arms across the "Penn" written in block letters on his sweatshirt and glaring down at the younger boys.
"What," Wesley Montgomery snarled, "the hell are you all doing?"
-GLEE-
David was bored. He was an earlier riser, and thus had woken up at seven thirty. It was now nearly eight. David had become bored of the games he had on his phone, but the other three boys still were sound asleep. He couldn't really get up and do anything, because he'd never actually been in Kurt's house before, and felt it was rather rude to go exploring. He considered Blaine and Kurt, who were curled up on the couch. He had nearly woken them up about four times, but been dissuaded by the wrath of Kurt Hummel which he knew he'd face, as well as the fact that Blaine must still be exhausted from the trip to the hospital (Blaine was usually as much, if not more, of an early riser as he was). But now it was eight, so they'd slept for almost eleven hours… David picked up a pillow and crept closer to the sleeping pair.
"Don't you dare," Blaine whispered fiercely at David, who pouted but obediently sat back on the floor in Finn and his fort.
"Whaz going on?" Finn slurred groggily from where he was lying.
"Blaine's a kill joy," David replied. "And mean for not telling me he was up."
"Can you to be quiet, Kurt's still sleeping," Blaine whisper/snarled again. David's face burst into a grin.
"Oh, I see. We're interrupting your Kurt cuddles time," he teased.
"What time is it?" Finn asked through a yawn as he sat up and stretched.
"Eight in the morning," David replied. Finn leapt up, all semblance of sleepiness gone.
"Breakfast time!" David grinned at the notion. Kurt stirred against Blaine.
"Finn!" Blaine hissed. Said boy's eyes widened.
"David, we'd better go start on breakfast so Kurt doesn't murder us," he concluded as both boys rushed from the room. Kurt stirred once more before opening his eyes slowly, looking slightly annoyed at being woken. Blaine pressed a kiss into his hair.
"Morning," he whispered. "I tried not to wake you, but Finn and David are easily excited." Kurt's annoyed air vanished, and he nodded before curling back into Blaine.
"I'm not waking up yet," he mumbled. Blaine smiled, more than happy to gain cuddle time. "You're a good pillow."
"Why thank you." Kurt just "hm"-ed. Then a loud, blaring ringing snapped both boys out of their sleepy haze.
"Who comes around at eight in the morning?" Blaine asked.
"Does this mean we have to get up?" Kurt whined. Blaine opened his mouth to respond when Finn's voice rang through the room.
"What the hell do you want?" Blaine and Kurt shared a look, then both hurried to see what had him worked up. He stood at the door glaring at an unfortunately familiar Warbler. Kurt wrapped an arm around Blaine protectively.
"I-"
"Stop right there!" David interjected. Sebastian raised an eyebrow.
"Hiding out here Thomp…" he raised an eyebrow as "Under the Sea" began flowing from David's phone. "What the hell is that?"
"Well, we find it rather amusing you were named after a nervous little crab," Finn informed him. Sebastian seemed affronted.
"Childishness aside," he drawled. "I've been sent to apologize." The silence hung for a little while.
"We're waiting," Finn snapped gesturing towards Blaine and Kurt without allowing Sebastian to actually move towards them.
"I'm sorry I hit you with a slushy you were allergic to," Sebastian declared monotonously. "I'm also sorry to the New Directions."
"That's all you have to say?" Fin asked in disbelief.
"What, do you want me to say something else?"
"Go away Sebastian," Blaine recommended. "Come back when you stop being an asshole." All four other boys stared at Blaine.
"What's going on down here?" Burt was on the stairs, watching the interaction. Finn still stood in the doorway, while a boy in a- wet?- Dalton blazer stood outside. Kurt and Blaine were behind Finn, Kurt's arm wrapped around Blaine. David stood a little ways from the couple, but close enough to intervene. Everyone was staring at Blaine, who was glaring at the Dalton boy.
"He's leaving," David threw out, jerking his thumb at Sebastian.
"Oh, not when I just learned-" Finn slammed the door in Sebastian's face.
"Are you boys' alright?" Burt asked.
"We're fine Dad," Kurt replied, turning around and smiling. "We were about to start breakfast."
"Yeah, David and I-"
"Finn, what did you do?" The brothers flew into the kitchen, Finn babbling excuses and Kurt running damage control.
"Don't kill him!" Blaine called, rushing after his boyfriend after giving Burt a quick wave.
"Good Morning sir!" David offered, then followed. Burt nearly groaned.
"I'm not a sir!" he informed them before going back upstairs to tell Carol what was going on.
-GLEE-
"Dude, did you really swear at that guy?" Finn asked once they were all eating scrambled eggs which had been deemed safe by Kurt.
"Finn, will you stop calling everyone 'dude'?" Kurt asked.
"But it just…"
"Oh, Blaine swears sometimes," David informed them. "Like this one time when he fell… okay, Jeff sort of pushed him…"
"We do not all need to hear about the time I sprained by ankle and you all thought it was cute that the freshman said damn!" Blaine injected. Kurt and Finn laughed. "And that really hurt!" Kurt gave Blaine a consoling hug.
"Though I guess Blaine only swears in really negative circumstances," David mused. "Like he's either hurt or someone else is hurt or… well I guess Sebastian just is a negative circumstance." Kurt and Blaine shared a smirk.
"Yeah, sure," Blaine agreed.
"What was that smirk?" Finn demanded. David looked between the two.
"Finn, are you sure we want to know?"
-GLEE-
"How dare you side with some stranger! Doesn't once a Warbler, always a Warbler mean anything to you? Obviously not, because you let some guy waltz in and manipulate you into alienating David, Blaine, and Kurt in one fell swoop!" The Warblers had found another hall to congregate in, and were now all sinking progressively deeper into their seats as Wes lectured. "How stupid are you idiots?" The Warblers remained deathly silent as the fuming Asian glared at them.
"We were about to work on an apology," Nick half whispered.
"What?"
"We were about to work out an apology when you arrived," Nick repeated, a little stronger. Instantly, Wes' fury lessened.
"Well, if you'd already realized you were being complete and total nincompoops, why'd you sit here and let me lecture you for half an hour?" No one dared answer. "And I would like to state this had better be one heck of an apology, because you were behaving like Vocal Adrenaline. Have ANY of you ever dealt with Vocal Adrenaline?"
"They're the group who won a bunch of nationals in a row," Jeff offered.
"They barely beat us their first year," Wes informed them. "So the next year, they actually started harassing our members a bit. I wasn't very aware of what was going on since I was a freshman, not to mention the Warblers were in transition that year and didn't actually compete, so they backed off. But you know what happened when we stood back up the next year? They took David, our freshman, gave him a bloody nose and locked him in a closet for nearly three hours before Thad and I could find him!"
"We didn't do anything like that," one of the new Warblers dared to whimper.
"You are showing warning signs of going in that direction," Wes informed the group. "So you'd better make one heck of a turn around, because if you don't I swear to God I will go to the head of school and tell him that for the first time in one hundred years, the Warblers seem to be unable to lead themselves, and are need a faculty supervisor."
"We were going to sing an apology," Trent informed Wes after the former Council head's threat had fully sunk in.
"Does anyone have a song idea?" Nick stood and asked the group at large.
"I Want You Back?" The same Warbler who had made the fire comment got hit by his friend once more.
"Yeah, apologize for insisting on singing Michael Jackson by singing Michael Jackson," the friend quipped. "Someone should ban you from speaking."
"Your life would then lack animation," the first replied.
"Oh, save your sexual tension based bickering for later," Nick informed them. "We're in crisis." Both flushed and muttered unintelligibly. Wes smiled.
"There may be hope for you yet," he told Nick. "You do still need to figure out you're in love with Jeff though."
"We are not!" Jeff and Nick chorused. Wes grinned in victory.
"Can we stop embarrassing each other?" Trent inquired. "Because I think I have an idea."