Author's Comments: Hey! I bet you guys were freaking out that I didn't post yesterday, huh? Just kidding! I was just a little busy, no worries. This chapter is not as long as the last (mostly because the last one was super long), so apologies. In this chapter, we have the New Year's Eve party mentioned in the last chapter and we'll see what happens after Coach Washington caught the group being bad in the choir room. We also learn the set list for Sectionals!
Featured Pairings: Finchel (Finn/Rachel), Klaine (Kurt/Blaine), Brittana (Brittany/Santana), unrequited!Flamotta (Rory/Sugar), unrequited!Tike (Tina/Mike), implied!Samcedes (Sam/Mercedes), failed!Cohart (Tina/Joe), implied!Quartie (Quinn/Artie), implied!Kandler (Kurt/Chandler)
Warnings: Strong coarse language
Chapter Nine
We Be Makin' Love At 5, Still the One I Do This 4, I'm Tryin' to Make Us 3, From That 2, He's Still the One
("Countdown" by Beyoncé)
"C-c-coach Washington!" Tina stuttered, shifting nervously, "Wh-what brings you here?"
"I was just doing my usual after school routines," the tyrannic swim coach started, "Takin' a few laps in da pool, polishin' my damn Olympic Bronze Medal dat I won for Individual Synchronized Swimming at da 2008 Beijing Olympics."
"They have those in the Olympics?" Pendleton whispered from behind the piano to Hank, who simply shrugged his shoulders in response.
"And after I was done replacing Coach Sylvester's protein powder with crushed-up laxatives, I could've sworn I heard a commotion up in this place and color me surprise when I found a whole room of students after hours." Coach Washington inched closer to Tina, who was so frozen in fear that she couldn't run away. "Now tell me this, Jamie Chung, why are you here in this fine educational establishment at nighttime?"
"Uh... Bible study?" Tina squeaked.
"WRONG!" the swim coach shouted, making everyone in the room jump. "What I see is a bunch of naughty chil'ren doin' somethin' bad and I wanna know what. Right now." When Tina struggled to come up with a few words, she turned to Joe, who was unfortunately the nearest to her. "What about you, Battlefield Earth?"
"Uh..."
"Okay!" Artie blurted out, defeated. "We're forming a glee club."
"And what da hell is wrong with da one you already in?"
"We're tired of Blaine and Rachel, the self-proclaimed lead singers of the group, getting everything and us getting nothing," Tina replied. "So, we decided to make our own glee club and give everybody a chance to sing."
"Damn," Roz started, "Dat is da saddest, most pathetic thing I have ever heard." Tina slumped, effectively feeling like crap. "I know a thing or two about being overshadowed—"
"I'm sure, since you couldn't get anything better than a bronze medal," Giselle snorted.
Offended, Roz turned to the snooty Vocal Adrenaline alum and scolded, "You better shut yo' mouth, Olivia from The Cosby Show, or I'll take dat Prada bag and bash you over da head with it." And for once, Giselle kept her mouth shut. "Now, as I was sayin' before I was so rudely interrupted, is dat I've been overshadowed before. Back when I was on the Olympic team for Synchronized Swimming, there was this one girl, Kenya Kukeya—"
"You were on the African team?" Pendleton asked, intrigued.
"No, Team USA. We were all from Compton, you mini-racist," Roz glared at the small girl, who hid behind Hank, "Anyway, she would always give me a hard time with my leg lifts, my hand waves, my shimmies, and she would always try her best to be better than me."
"Is there a point to this?" asked Giselle.
"What did I say about talkin', Keisha?"
"My name is Giselle."
"Well, from now on, yo' name is Keisha," Coach Washington all but yelled, "Now shut up, Keisha! As I was sayin'... All throughout Olympic practice, I had to put up with all her rudeness and her bosiness and just straight up bitchiness until one day, I got tired of it and you know what I did?"
"You went out on your own and became an individual synchronized swimmer?" Pendleton guessed in a peppy voice.
"No, Frodo of the Shire. I beat her ass down so hard, she couldn't even perform at the Olympics," Roz answered. A series of shocked looks were etched on all of their faces, except for The Mack and Aphasia, who both seemed to admire the Olympic athlete's spunk.
"Damn, you gangsta, girl," Aphasia announced appraisingly, "You should've been da coach at my school. Our coach was a short, little white man but he mysteriously disappeared a couple of weeks ago and hadn't shown up yet."
"I appreciate da love," Roz replied, "Anyway, after I got kicked off da team for violence, I had to perform in the Individual Synchronized Swimming Olympics, and you know what? I got me a damn bronze medal and I was praised for my work, while USA didn't even win squat. Russia, Spain and Japan were all better then those fools! Showed them bastards." Coach Washington let out a rather loud and obnoxious cackle.
Tina nodded her head in understanding. Even after standing up to her rival, Roz Washington managed to do well on her own and become an empowered, independent woman. As crazy as she was, she really knew how to get people pumped up, and everybody surrounded her to hear more of her amazing adventures as an Olympic bronze athlete. An idea popped into her head, and since Coach Washington was an official McKinley High faculty member and her club needed a sponsor, she decided to go for it.
"Excuse me, uh, Coach?" Tina asked.
"What's going on, Lucy Liu?" asked Roz. Tina inwardly laugh. She wondered how long it would take before someone referred to her by that particular actress.
"It's just that our club needs a sponsor," the Asian leader started, "Mr. Schue can't help us at all, he doesn't even know..."
Roz waved her hand at the girl to silence her. "Say no mo', I accept da offer. I loves me a good underdog story."
Despite having lost four potential members, being down one member from a full club, and having to deal with craziness of her current members, Tina had smiled brightly for the first time that night. She didn't even care that her one faculty sponsor was the loudest and craziest staff member at McKinley. It didn't matter because things were finally looking up for her.
"Everything's going to be alright," she said to herself, mimicking her words from her conversation with Blaine.
Now all they needed was one more member.
glee
After Coach Washington finished telling her stories, Tina decided to tell the group that she had been playing around with a possible set list and they all agreed to do Jessie J's hit song, Domino, for Sectionals and had to decide on the other two. The girls (well, Giselle) demanded that they sing the song. Artie had suggested Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga, which was instantly shot down by Azimio, as he deemed it gay. Going back and forth for almost an hour with different song ideas (Giselle and Aphasia seemed to agree on an R&B song, while Pendleton wanted a show tune, and Azimio, Hank, and Artie wanted more hip-hop or rock added in), they all called it night and decided they would meet together on Thursday, same time, same place. After exchanging numbers, they all left McKinley High, feeling energized and confident.
Throughout the holiday break, they met at McKinley High after hours until New Year's when it was time for the New Year's Eve party that Blaine and Kurt were throwing at the Hudson-Hummel home. Tina still had not found a twelth member, but they still had two weeks and decided to enjoy the night for now and worry about that afterwards. Tina came with Artie and Sugar and were the last to arrive. As it turned out, all of New Directions decided to come and Tina knew that Mike was planning to get back with her. It also appeared that Blaine did not heed her advice and break up with Kurt, as they were both currently chatting with each other, holding hands by the punch bowl and food table as Blaine tried to get snacks, only for them to be slapped out of his hand by Kurt, citing "too many calories." It was his party though, why didn't he have some low-calorie food for his boyfriend while everyone else pigged out?
Just as she had suspected, Mike was coming straight towards her.
"Quick, pretend we're having a conversation!" Tina whispered to Sugar desperately.
"Um, oh yeah, Tina," Sugar started, talking loud so Mike could hear. "I will totally help you get that hairy wart removed."
Tina furrowed her eyebrows before shooting her a look of frustration at Sugar's stupidity. She did not have any warts! Let alone hairy ones! Do warts even get hairy? Oh, well. Maybe Mike will be so disgusted, he'll leave her alone.
"Tina?" Damn it.
Tina turned to her ex-boyfriend. "What do you want Mike?"
"A second chance."
"No."
"Please!"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I gave you a second chance... twice!" Tina said defiantly, "And you still didn't trust me. For the record, Mike, after we broke up, I made out with Sam." Mike's eyes quickly darkened at hearing this news, already plotting the blonde's untimely murder. "But we both agreed that it was a mistake and I was in a vulnerable place and that we would just remain friends. So yeah, a part of me was attracted to Sam and Sam to me, but I never cheated on you, Mike."
Mike held his head down, his face still upset. He wanted nothing more than to find Sam and castrate him. But this wasn't his house, and Burt and Carole were nice enough to let them have this party, so he wasn't going to make a fuss... for now.
"You should've believed me," Tina said, effectively ending the conversation between the two exes.
Turning her attention back to Sugar, Tina sighed to herself in annoyance. "Well, this party is not at all awkward," she said bluntly to Sugar as she was trying to fight off Rory, who kept pestering her to dance to the loud hip-hop music playing. Placing the burden that was Rory on Brittany and Santana, Sugar nodded her head in agreement, stating that the party sucked major donkey ass. Not Asperger's.
And as if things couldn't get any worse, Tina was graced with the image of Rachel and Finn making out in the corner, with Finn trying his best to cop a feel under Rachel's horribly disgusting skirt only to be slapped away viciously by the Jewish girl. They're so gross. Tina would rather see Brittany and Santana make-out with each other, than those two idiots; at least that would actually be sexy. Rolling her eyes, she decided to spark a conversation with Mercedes as the diva talked away about her ideas for The Troubletones. She also complained a good measure about Santana thinking she was the boss of The Troubletones when Mercedes was the one that joined the group first.
"I should be the one making the executive decisions, not that JWoww-wannabe," Mercedes complained, sipping her punch that Puck had spiked. Tina was sure that everyone was going to be drunk off their asses by the end of the night. And why not? You'd have to be plastered to sit through a six hours of Finchel kissing other on every surface of the place and Kurt berating Blaine like he was a child. This was going to be a long night. A drunk Brittany was currently dancing on the coffee table with her top off, whipping her hair around like she was being tasered, or what she deemed as "cool epilepsy". Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
In the last hour of the year 2011, many people were so drunk to the point where it seemed to be like a flashback of Rachel Berry's Trainwreck Extravaganza disaster party. At least Blaine was kissing his appropriate gender-preference this time around. And Rachel was finally making-out with the right person too, though Tina would've probably preferred it if she did make-out with Blaine instead because the tongue-whipping she's giving Finn right now is just sick to look at.
Tina and Sugar sat on the couch, watching the last of Nicki Minaj's performance at Times Square as Santana was currently in the corner bawling her eyes out about how much she loves New Directions and how happy she was to have so many great friends. Yeah, she was definitely shit-faced. Mercedes was with her, laughing her butt off at how funny Santana was being, which made the once-hardcore Latina cry even more and say "I love you so much, Wheezy!" over and over.
What Tina found the most amusing was Joe sitting huddled up in the corner with a cup of punch that wasn't spiked by Puck, sipping every so often as he watched in awe as everyone made a fool out of themselves. Tina took a spot next to him and asked if he was doing alright. He nodded, but he seemed a little scared, contemplating if he should whip out his pocket-sized bible that he keeps on hand in case of emergencies and read to some people. Tina informed him that wouldn't be a good idea and to just enjoy himself.
"OH MY GOD! IT'S STARTING! IT'S STARTING! I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS!" sobbed Santana as the countdown for the New Year was about to begin. "I LOVE YOU BRITTANY!"
Good. Tina didn't know if she could take any more of Santana's screeching, Finn and Rachel's constant probing of each other's orifaces, or Brittany trying to give her a lap dance for much longer.
Rory, being the over-excited little leprechaun that he was, happily sat next to Sugar with a big, goofy smile on his face. Giving up on trying to get Puck or Sam to kiss her at midnight, she had settled for Rory. Sam was currently with Mercedes (Ooh! Shane's going to be pissed!) as Puck was with some random red-headed Cheerio he had brought with him to the party. Oh, there was another one too, blonde this time. She looked a little like Quinn if she was anorexic. As she had predicted, Rachel was currently trying to pick the right spot with the right lighting for her New Year's kiss with Finn. What douches. Wait a second, where did Blaine and Kurt go? Tina could've sworn she had seen them a few minutes ago. The countdown was going to start and it was almost midnight, and they were going to miss the ball drop on TV. Oh well.
Five. No more regrets.
Four. No more drama.
Three. Time for a change.
Two. Time to shine.
One.
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!" they all screamed, some spilling their drinks as they locked lips with the person next to them. She looked around sadly at everyone, knowing that she herself was the only one not kissing someone. Well, her and Mike—Oh, no he didn't! Mike was currently locking lips with that anorexic Cheerio! Damn, Puck for bringing that fucking whore!
Tina tried to cool herself down, reminding herself that she dumped Mike and she was over him, no need to get jealous because he's found someone else and she has no one and is looking pretty pathetic right now. She looked at Joe who was still sipping his punch, looking rather innocent. Tina made a play to crash her lips against Joe's only to kiss his chin and spill his drink on his pants. Fail. Fucking fail. He smelled good for someone who looked like they slept in a box though.
Tina awkwardly apologized to Joe as he hasitly tried to wipe his pants, blushing madly from Tina's sudden attempts at affection. The Asian girl turned to see Quinn sitting right next to her sipping her drink casually as everyone else made out with each other. At least Tina wasn't the only girl without a kiss-mate, that is until Artie wheeled up next to them and thanked Quinn for the amazing kiss at midnight. It was official, Tina was at her lowest and she just wanted to die.
"I need to drink until I pass out," Tina muttered, deadpanned, receiving a disappointed look from Quinn, who was ready to give her a lecture on the dangers of excessive drinking that Tina was going to ignore anyway. "I'll be right back."
With that she took off for the kitchen for another drink. When she got there, she found Kurt leaning against the island counter with an annoyed look on his face.
"You okay, Kurt?" she asked, concerned. He didn't say anything, just nodded and went to join the others.
Shrugging her shoulders, she went to make her drink. After looking through various colorful drinks, she opted on some vodka and chilled orange juice. She was about to leave the kitchen when she heard the distinctive and familiar sound of someone sobbing just outside the kitchen backdoor. Damn it, she thought. She really wished she hadn't hear that, and almost pretended she didn't. But she knew who was making that sound and probably, in the back of her mind, knew why, and she just couldn't leave that person there to cry by themselves. So, she put her drink down on the counter, hoping no one would touch it, and walked outside to see Blaine on a concrete bench in the garden area, hands buried in his hands, making the ugliest crying noises.
Sighing, Tina let out a half-hearted, "Hi, Blaine."
He looked up to see his best friend (or as he says) standing there awkwardly watching him sob like a four-year old. "T-T-T-Tina!"
Nodding her head, she took a seat next to him on the bench, immediately regretting it when he attacked in her in a tight hug. She really needed to lay out some ground rules with this kid.
"I-I-I-I..." was all Blaine got out.
"What's the matter?"
"K-K-Ku..."
"Kurt?"
Blaine nodded his head before buring his face into her shoulder, making her blouse damp with his tears.
"What did he do this time?"
"H-h-h-he told me abou-abou-about Ch-Ch-Chandler!"
Tina looked surprised for a second before nodding her head again. So they finally did it. The Golden Gay Couple finally broke-up. That's too bad. So many people were so supportive of them. Across the world, a thousand Klainers are dying right now.
"I don't know wh-wh-what I di-di-did wrong!" Blaine blubbered pathetically. "I g-gave him everything! I tr-tr-transferred sch-schools to be with him! I ch-ch-changed my wh-whole life for him!"
"It's for the best, Blaine," Tina said as she rubbed comforting circles on the sobbing boy's back, looking at him with genuine pity.
"I-I-I'm so p-p-pathetic!"
"Yeah, you're not the only one, pal," the girl muttered under her breath.
Blaine was finally able to regulate his breathing and was only shuddering every so often. Tina was still rubbing his back soothingly as the gelled-haired teen continuted, "I was so depressed when he told me that I couldn't even enjoy our kiss at New Year's!"
"Yeah, I'm sure you wouldn't—Wait, WHAT?!"
Blaine looked at her curiously, his face stained with tears. "What?"
"You kissed him at midnight?" Blaine simply nodded his head as if that wasn't odd at all. "Why?! You guys just broke up! You're not supposed to kiss your ex-boyfriend on New Year's! If that was the case, then I wouldn't have made a complete ass of myself five minutes ago and just kiss Mike."
"B-but I didn't break up with Kurt."
"So Kurt broke up with you?" Tina asked expectantly, almost hopefully. The kid was not that dumb.
"N-no." Yeah, he was. Tina stared at him in disbelief, her mouth hanging. She didn't know what to say. How on Earth could Blaine still be with Kurt even after he admitted to cheating on him with this Chandler guy? Total douche name by the way. Sounds like a TV show character.
"Blaine, what is wrong with you?" Tina almost yelled, scaring the poor boy, "You're not supposed to stay with him after he admits to cheating on you! You're supposed to yell at him, punch him in the face, bust the windows out of his car, STAB HIM for Christ's sake!" She sighed frustratingly when all this seemed to go over the naïve boy's head. She took a deep breath before calmly talking again. "Blaine, you need to break up with him. You're putting way too much emotional stress on yourself and eventually it's going to get so bad, you're either going to end up in the nut house for taking a knife to someone's neck or you'll be six feet under from swallowing too many pills."
Blaine sighed angrily. "I can't, okay! He's my soulmate! He's still the one!"
"Well, apparently, you're not the only one for him," Tina argued back.
But Blaine shook his head stubbornly, clamping his hands to his ears and shutting his eyes. Rolling her eyes, Tina got up from the bench and walked towards the door before turning back to him. "Do what's best for you, not for Kurt. If he truly makes you happy, why are you crying so much?" And with that, she left the boy to himself.
Well, this New Year is starting off just wondefully.
glee
The first week back, Tina was walking next to Artie toward glee club in the morning. Even after all the drama that had gone down in the past month, things still have not changed in the choir room. Rachel and Finn were still making kissy-faces at each other by the piano (poor Brad) as Rachel looked through some sheet music for a solo she could do. Santana, Brittany, and Mercedes were all engaged in a conversation about what they could do for The Troubletones while Rory was trying to get Sugar's attention, who was too busy texting on her cellphone to notice the Irish exchange student. When he couldn't get it, Rory decided to talk to Sam about random guy stuff that Tina had no interest in remembering. Kurt and Blaine were still there, still a couple, and talking about the latest episode from some show on Bravo. Joe was currently strumming his guitar (Mary, he said its name was, after the mother of Jesus), occasionally receiving admiring looks from Santana, Brittany, and Blaine, and jealous glares from Kurt and Rachel.
Sam and Mercedes were now officially a couple; an illegal one, as Finn called it because Mercedes was still with Shane, but a couple nonetheless and were holding hands as they talked to their respective friends. Tina took a seat in the back row as Artie wheeled himself next to Quinn. They were still friends, despite the kiss at midnight and both agreed that they only did because they didn't want to be the loser at midnight who didn't get a kiss. Well, that just made Tina feel so much better (not). Tina did not look at Mike at all, who was currently sneaking glances at her from his (now permanant) spot behind on the corner back row.
"Okay guys," Mr. Schue started, calming the chatter. "I hope you guys had a good holiday break and welcome to the New Year!" A series of applause were followed by this. "Well, Regionals is getting closer now and we still have to decide on a set list."
"Well, Mr. Schue!" Rachel beamed as she held up her sheet music, "I have narrowed down my choices to seven categories: Céline Dion, Barbra, of course, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Flyleaf, P!nk, or, for the pop culture people, Beyoncé!"
"That's nice Rachel," Mr. Schue dismissed, "But I was talking about for the group?" Rachel huffed as she sat back down in her seat.
Blaine raised his hand to speak. "I was thinking we could do Cough Syrup by Young the Giant," he suggested, earning an elbow to the ribs by a glaring Kurt.
"That would be a lovely solo!" Rachel interjected before singing in perfect pitch, "Life's too short to even care at all, oh-whoa-oh... I can totallly nail it!"
"How about a mash-up?" Tina suddenly suggested. Will looked at her intrigued.
"Yeah! That sounds like a great idea!" Finn agreed excitedly.
"But what about my solo?" Rachel cried.
"Oh shut up, Gayberry," Santana snarled, "We'll figure out your damn solo later! Let's work on The Troubletones for now!"
"And New Directions," Finn added.
"Whatever, Lumpy."
Clapping his hands again (he does that a lot), Mr. Schue had them all come up with song ideas to mash together, everyone all coming up with different ideas. Finn recommended a mash-up of Queen's We Are the Champions and Loser Like Me from last year's Regionals, in a way that was supposed to be ironic. Kind of clever for someone who once thought you could get AIDs from a cucumber. Santana wanted to do a mash-up of Bruno Mars' It Will Rain and Adele's Set Fire to the Rain, which everyone really seemed to like the idea to. Puck comically submitted a mash-up of Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend and Justin Bieber's Boyfriend. Sam and Mercedes suggested Nicki Minaj's Fly and R. Kelly's I Believe I Can Fly, which was also well-received by the group.
Tina wanted to suggest a mash-up of Don't Stop Me Now from Queen and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes soulful hit Wake Up Everybody, but had kept it to herself when she realized something. Holy crap! Those songs are perfect! Maybe not as a mash-up, but they are exactly the kinds of songs her glee club should sing for their Sectionals. She quickly ripped the paper from her notepad and stuffed it in her dress pocket as she told Mr. Schue that she hadn't come up with an idea yet when it was her turn to suggest a song.
Author's Comments: Okay guys. What did you think? Tina finally figured out her set list for the Sectionals! You heard it here first folks! I haven't written the next chapter yet and I honestly don't know what's going to be in it so your guess is as good as mine! LOL! Anyway, tell me what you thought about the chapter! What did you think of the New Year's Eve scene? A nice nod to Blame It on the Alcohol (2x14) and a cute little reference to Hairography (1x11). Isn't it horrible that Blaine is still with Kurt? How about that fail moment between Tina and Joe? Hilarious! And there's no Quartie happening in this fic, that was just a one time thing that a friend of mine suggested for this fic. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it!
