Prompt: Born This Way – give a new character a BTW shirt or update an original character's.
Characters: Sugar & Emma
Words: 563.
Because Finn sucks as a leader - seriously, he does, ask Tina - Sugar is stuck with the idiotic letter press, in the middle of the rest of the club, trying to think of an insecurity she can put on her shirt that won't be totally embarrassing. She feels really badly for Brittany, Artie, Tina and anyone else who was actually in glee when Mr. Schuester led it, because now, they had to do the same lesson. Twice. Finn is totally unoriginal and not creative. But Sugar doesn't care about that most of the time, just today, because she can't stand this.
The only thing worse than humiliating herself once would be doing it twice. She waits until very last. Sugar hates this. Really hates it. There are a million things she could put on a shirt like this. Words and phrases come to mind easily: Stuck-up, Spoiled, No Asperger's, Can Sing, Intelligent…but Miss Pillsbury is totally on them about being honest and using this as a chance to open up to the rest of the club.
But what if Sugar doesn't want to open up? What if she likes the shallow image she's perfected, and feels a sense of safety inside its walls?
She waits until everyone leaves and then takes a deep breath, scribbling seven letters on a scrap of paper and shoving it at Miss Pillsbury.
Thankfully, she doesn't comment. She makes the shirt first, and then asks, gently, what Sugar's insecurity is, exactly.
"My name. It's Egyptian," she says, tipping her chin up to make her appear taller. It never works, but Sugar never fails to try.
"It's beautiful," Miss Pillsbury comments, and she seems like she means it.
"Can I make a back-up one, too?" Sugar asks, suddenly nervous.
"Of course," Miss Pillsbury smiles. "I did, too, my first time. My original shirt was going to say OCD, for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but at the last minute, I changed it to Ginger. I wasn't comfortable with being uncomfortable."
"Who is?" Sugar sighs, and is quiet for several minutes, waiting for Miss Pillsbury to create a shirt that reads SPOILED just in case Sugar needs it. "What do I do if people laugh?" she asks, letting her guard down just a little.
"Well, you can remember one thing: they're all going to be just as scared as you. They won't laugh. No one did last time."
There's something about the quiet that makes the walls around Sugar waver just a little. She takes a breath, and starts to speak.
"When I was a kid, after my mom left, my dad suddenly just…started calling me Sugar… When I asked him why, he said it made me sound 'less international' and made people want to treat me better. Legally changed it. We went to court and everything. My mom named me, and he was pissed at her, so…" she shrugs, her voice faraway and sad.
"So he took it out on you," Miss Pillsbury finishes.
"Yeah," Sugar nods.
"How do you feel about that?" she asks carefully.
Sugar shrugs. "Like he didn't love me the way I was. So he had to change me."
"That's how you think he felt. How do you feel?" Miss Pillsbury presses gently.
"I still feel like Shukura…" she admits, glancing down at the shirt she held in her hands and clutching it to her chest.
The End.