Disclaimer: I do not own Glee; Ryan Murphy and FOX do.
Chapter 9: Hummel & Sylvester
She threw the doors open as she walked in. All eyes in the hallway fell on her and the whispering started immediately. She nodded happy with the results; it was clear that the video about their performance had gotten attention as people usually tried to hide it when they were talking about Sue Sylvester. Now they were completely astonished and that meant they didn't know how to take in her latest move. Being unpredictable was a way to keep attention in her.
She was happy with the result but it also left her with a problem: what to do next? If the next move was similar the ones before, the interest would eventually drop, but they were a cheerleading team so there was only so little they could come up with.
As she walked to her office, her eyes found Porcelain, who was talking in the middle of a big crowd. Of course, Sue was a scary authority figure so they couldn't go around telling her how awesome she was, because she was supposed to always be more than awesome.
All this didn't mean that she didn't want to hear what they had to say about it. So, even though she had this amazing presence around her, she knew how to hide it thanks to her CIA training.
"That was amazing show you put up, Hummel," Puckerman was bumping his fist to Kurt's, the gesture was followed with eager nodding. There was a bright smile on Porcelain's face and he was more than clearly enjoying his time. "Why of course I was," he said with mock bitchery as it was no need to bitch his followers all the time. "I'm just that awesome." More nodding and laughing followed. Sue also noticed people passing them by turning to watch and listen and when they kept going, they turned to talk by themselves. There would not be a soul that had not seen the video in the school after that day, and then they would just have to wait.
"I didn't even know that the routine was his own, I was just amazed by their guts when they put up a flashmob."
"I didn't know he could do something like that."
"Has he been on some lessons?"
"Was the video online planned?"
"He could almost compete with Sylvester now."
Buzzing was all around Sue, though she wasn't that happy it was all about Porcelain. But, all groups need a leading persona, and Kurt Hummel was lot easier to approach than Sue. If she kept him showing, they would easily be on their way up the cheerleading stars in the farthest universes. Only point she had to take care was to make sure that Porcelain would not let people forget it was all thanks to her that he'd gotten this change and how amazing she was; far more amazing than he could ever be.
This was enough of listening. If she'd stay much longer she'd get tired of her new lead and that would be bad. For her, and so for everybody else, too.
She made her way to her office and sat behind her desk to create another training schedule that some people would have called impossible and crazy but Sue knew would work. Her Cheerios weren't just anybody. They were the best, the strongest and they had the potential, if only someone had the guts to drag it out of them.
She hadn't been there for long when there was a knock on the door and a greasy curly head popped in – actually it should be the greasy curly head as there was only one person in the world who would wear his hair like that. "William," she acknowledged him.
"Hi, Sue, is this a bad time?"
"I never got time for you, but that has never bothered you before." Taking this as a permit to enter, Will stepped in and was about to close the door behind him. "Leave it, you won't be here long anyway," she told him, he stared at her momentarily, and then walked to sit to the chair before her. "Sitting won't be necessary, either." So, he stayed standing. "So," Will tried starting from the beginning. "I wanted to talk to you."
"I could figure as much, the smell of grease floating off your hair tells me enough, as there could possibly be no other reason for me to stand your presence." He looked baffled. This was way too easy for her.
"I wanted to talk about Kurt." As much she'd guessed.
"So talk."
"I'm worried about him. I don't think he's truly happy." His brows furrowed and Sue couldn't help noticing how it made his forehead mirror his chin. "Ah, the symmetry," she muttered under her breath, confusing Will even more.
"What? Anyway I think you should let me help him."
"You help him? What did you do to him before?" She stood up from her table to stand before him. "You did nothing. And now you're here to tell me he isn't happy? He's been smiling and laughing billion times more than he did with your herd of subclass failures surrounding him. Besides, now he has power, what is better source for happiness than power? I tell you, as you can't possibly understand having lived in Loser town your whole life: nothing." While she talked, she tapped her index finger to Will's chest. "Gosh that smell makes me sick."
"Smell?" Confusion just grew on his face.
"Your gel. But that's not the main point here; the main point is that you. Are. Wrong."
"But when he was with Glee club, all his songs had strong emotional burst but these days all his performances are superficial and meaningless. I'm worried he might be building the feelings inside of him, and that is not safe for him."
"She doesn't need to perform like an overly aroused maniac because he doesn't live that miserable life anymore."
"All teens have outbursts; they need a chance to let it out."
"He gets to let out all bitching he has inside, that all he needs."
"How can you even be a teacher?"
"With a license. Now, you will leave this room." She returned to her desk to continue her work. Will stood there, trying to figure out what to say but when he came up with nothing, he left the room banging the door as he left. A contented smirk woke on Sue's face accompanied by a chuckle. Not happy, ha. She was sure Porcelain was more than happy, the boy she'd seen walking in the hallways with the mob following him everywhere was ecstatic. That was nothing but good.
She was feeling so good today, that she decided to set up one more practice for Cheerios. With those thoughts she headed to the broadcasting room to announce this.
During lunch there was not a knock on her door but it flew open without warning, Sue didn't value such actions and was about to comment the rudeness when her thought process was interrupted by Kurt Hummel leaning against her table so that they had little distance when she lifted her eyes. "Porcelain, how can I help you?" though the words had no sincerity.
"What reasons could you possibly have to set up practice after school? We just had an awesome and tiring performance at the mall, then we returned to school to our lessons. Now, I don't know what you do in this office all day – and I don't dare to even imagine possibilities, poor kittens – but the girls use much energy when they try to understand what the teacher is telling them without understanding a word from the blackboard." His eyes were flaring and his hair looked like it was about to break out of its prison of hairspray. Well, this was surely a surprise. Not like Sue showed it on her face, but Porcelain's comment could almost have come out of her own mouth. Concurrently she was feeling both proud and appalled. Proud because that was a perfect proof that this new Porcelain was all her handiwork, but appalled for he had just gone against her word, directly.
"I had in my mind that a good day should continue this way and my team should go and make a perfect performance."
"We don't even have a routine to practice."
"Oh, I can always come up with something."
"Coach, at this rate the girls will be too spent to have any energy during our next performance. You should let us have some rest before you drive all of us to death." She shook her head disappointed; she'd just been about to call Porcelain her masterwork, but then the boy just had to go and say something like that. A clear sign that he was nowhere close there yet.
"Think about it Porcelain. If we don't keep this up, we'll lose our momentum, it's much worse than losing your life; a life without fame is a life of a loser, and that's much worse than the life after death."How did he even have courage to come and tell her how to do her job? He had guts; that much she had to give him, because even with his growing amount of supporters in school, this was too much.
"There is no way to lose one's life if one doesn't live. We do have lives outside cheerleading. Just so you know."
"High school cheerleaders are not supposed to have life outside cheerleading. They'll fall if they let that happen. Don't tell me this is about that inch-length boyfriend of yours. Do I have to start a no-dating policy?"
"Blaine is not my boyfriend and yes, my life does include him, but that is beside the point. Think about it this way: if we only practice all day, it'll form into a routine and no-one is interested in routines; routines are boring so no-one puts any effort on it."
"I can replace those Cheerios who don't give their 279%."
"Yes, you can, but then those Cheerios will fall into routine and you replace them and then, do you know what comes next?"
"Enlighten me."
"In the end you'll have used all your Cheerios candidates and will have to choose between geeks and recycling." Horrible thought, truly horrible. Geeks have snowball's chance in hell to become satisfying cheerleaders – satisfying never wins – and recycling replaced Cheerios would give a picture that Sue Sylvester offers second changes; which she never does.
"Then I just need to keep things so busy they have no time to realize it's becoming, as you so said, a routine."
Kurt huffed, frustrated. Then, he straightened to his full length staring down at her. (She was still sitting, standing up would have meant that Porcelain was intimidating her.) "I understand, Coach," he held his head high like always when he wanted to reclaim his pride or post. "I see that I can't talk you around this." Giving no opportunity for Sue to answer, he turned on his heels and walked out of the still open door, startling people who had gathered to listen outside it. Sue was happy to feel she had won the battle, but somehow Porcelain left a bad feeling in his leave.
Sure enough, when the school was over and it was time to practice, there wasn't a soul in the gym. Beside one very, very angry Sue Sylvester.
