No we didn't forget about you all...real life became unexpectedly ass-kicking these past few weeks. So this is later than intended...but we also wanted it good you know? Anyways...more to come soonish!
"RUGRATS ARE OUTTA HERE!" Santana cried triumphantly as the last current member of New Directions left for the night, much to BJ's regret.
"NOW WE'VE GOT A PARTY!" Puck yelled, emerging from the back door with two cases of beer and Leah appearing close behind him with bottles of vodka and rum and plastic cups.
Burt got his Wild Turkey from the top of the fridge, Carole broke out a bottle of Mad Housewife Merlot and poured a glass for her, Leah, Courtney, and Susan Chang while Burt busied himself with shot glasses for him, Finn, Matt, Mike, Artie, Puck and Jim.
With the Glee kids gone since it was way past their curfew, Kurt was left to take over Chase's rightful seat on the piano, and Kurt's fingers deftly gliding across the keyboard playing the introductory notes of I Will Survive.
Matt preferred not to dwell on the fact that Kurt learned how to do that from an ex of his from his partner's sophomore year in college, but he learned useful skills from his exes, too, and Kurt was his now, so he couldn't complain.
Nor did Matt did not miss the fact that Mike took the opportunity to duck outside when Mercedes tossed back a shot of something and said: "We all know who THIS song is for."
"Sing it baby-girl!" Kurt said as Mercedes voice riffed along with the chord.
"At first I was afraid,
I was petrified
Thinkin' I could live without yu
By my side
I spent oh so many nights
Feelin' sorry for myself
I used to cry
But now I hold my head up hiiiiiiigh…"
Matt just shook his head and BJ rolled her eyes.
"I have GOT to get out of here."
"I think the twins and Little Burt are in the basement, " Matt offered.
"The Bitches of Eastwick?" BJ groaned. "And that's better than Auntie M belting out a hate-song to Uncle Mike because…"
"Oh come on, they're not that bad!" Matt protested.
"All they do is sing lame show-tunes at the top of their lungs and do each other's make-up and ugh! SOOOOO freakin' annoying."
"Aside from the make-up bit, Daddy does that every night, so you should be used to it."
"Yeah, but unlike Daddy, they sing OFF-KEY! BADLY!"
"It's either that or this….take your pick, Bumblebee. Besides, I think Burt'd like some quality time with his favorite cousin."
"He should. Because awesome attracts awesome and we are both awesome."
"Agreed. Although I think he's slightly more humble than you are."
BJ stuck her tongue out at him and headed downstairs into her dad's old room.
"Oh thank GOD!" Burt Hudson breathed as he spied BJ bounding down the stairs. "SAVE ME!"
"Tell me they haven't tried giving you a makeover?"
"That would have been more appealing. At least then I could undo the damage imprinted on my brain when I got home."
BJ just looked over at "Little" Carole and Amy, who were deeply involved in staging Popular from Wicked. "They're trying to make me sing the Fyero part in Dancing Through Life." Although the fact that Carole and Burt were both referred to as 'Little' still even though both were in their twenties was something Neil got a chuckle at, Finn's lack of originality when it came to names necessitated the additional detail.
"Don't worry BJ," Amy said as she thumbed through the song selections of 'Wicked.'
"We wouldn't dream of you being Elphaba."
"Neither would I," BJ said flatly.
"But Burt, we simply HAVE to have a Fiyero if we're going to do this properly," Carole insisted.
"Um, why are you doing this at all?" BJ asked, looking back and forth from each twin. "Because seriously, you've just gone from 'Pain in the Ass' to 'Disturbing' in about five seconds."
"Bethany, you've witnessed Aunt Rachel and Uncle Kurt fighting, yes?" Amy said.
BJ nodded slowly. "So?"
"And we all know what a bumbling idiot our dear father can be," Little Carole said.
"That was the part I couldn't ignore," Burt interjected helplessly.
"And well," Amy added, going over to the stereo. "Either one of those things are ingredients for a disaster, and the show must go on."
"It must," Carole agreed.
BJ rolled her eyes. "And you're going along with their demands because…" she said, eyeing her favorite cousin suspiciously. Seriously, he was older than them. He could just tell them no.
Burt just shrugged and rolled his eyes. "You try fighting them sometime and how well you do."
"And since you ARE my brother," Amy continued, "the idea of you being Fiyero is not AT ALL appealing in any way, shape, or form, we're just going to have to employ our highly-trained acting skills."
"We'll pretend you're someone who's actually hot," Little Carole explained
"And not related to us," Amy supplied, making a face.
"Because…ew…incest," they both said at once.
"But yes, pretending you're someone hot would do," Little Carole said.
"Like that young man playing the piano," Amy finished with a dreamy look on her face.
"OH my GOD You mean Chia-Pet?" BJ said, making Burt snort. "Seriously, for little Prima Donnas, you need to have higher standards in men. Oh, and not to mention, you two are IN YOUR TWENTIES. HE'S A TEENAGER! Last I checked, that was kind of, oh I don't know…ILLEGAL. And OH MY GOD. The fact that you are IN YOUR TWENTIES and still playing dress-up and torturing your brother? Seriously? Could you BE any more immature?"
They ignored her and pressed play on the stereo. BJ and Burt made their way over to the bookshelf. Apparently her father's taste hadn't changed much since high-school, she decided as she glanced over his book collection. On the bottom shelf was an impressive DVD collection. The middle shelf consisted of old school books that obviously hadn't been read since he was forced to read them all those years ago. But the volumes of every Harry Potter book that had ever been published was lined up neatly in order and all had obviously been read multiple times.
"Wonder how much we could get for those on E-bay?" Burt mused.
BJ just smacked him, and continued to glance over the titles, most of which were trashy romance novels. On the top shelf were books on sewing, books on decorating, old issues of some Interior Design magazine and Cosmo. There were also pattern books instructing how to make your own clothes, and song selections from what BJ imagined must have been every show-tune known to man.
But it was a hard-bound red book that had been tucked behind the shelf that caught BJ's attention with The Thunderclap 2012 embossed in gold letters on the spine.
"What's that?" Burt asked, every bit as curious as she was.
"Ooooh, it's Uncle Kurt's old year book!" Amy squealed and dropped the ridiculous pencil decked out in pink glitter and matching feathers she was using as a wand and bounced onto the bed, snatching it from BJ's hand.
"Give it," BJ said with a murderous glare. "Give it or I'll…"
"Or you'll what?" Carole said, folding her arms.
"Be listening to Journey's Greatest Hits the whole way home." She said, and then turned to Burt. "Are you up for a little MP3-Player and CD-switching project, favorite cousin of mine?"
"Yeah," Burt admitted. "Dad sort of DID have a 'let's listen to Journey while we're on a journey!' plan. But oh my GOD that would mean I have to put up with it, too!"
"Thank God I'm adopted so the bad music taste gene just passed me by." BJ smiled brightly.
"Hey!" Burt protested. "Who turned you on to some of the coolest bands EVER?"
"Ok, so you're the exception to the rule."
"I love my family. I just hate long car-trips with them," Burt said.
"That's what iPods are for," BJ declared, taking the book from Amy. And then she squealed at the sight of the first page of pictures.
"Ugh, chearleaders!" BJ groaned as she eyed the first page of pictures, but then her eyes grew wide as one face smiled back at her with alarming familiarity.
"Please tell me you're not seeing what I'm seeing," BJ asked Burt. But she knew who the boy was in the Cheerio uniform.
"You mean the hot blonde at the top?"
BJ smacked him. "You do realize that's Aunt Quinn, right?"
"Uncle Kurt was a Cheerio?" Carole squealed, crowding BJ.
"How come dad never told us?" Amy asked.
BJ knew he'd been involved in cheerleading in high school, but it never occurred to her for some reason that he was…one of them. It just seemed so…..well completely perfect for him now that she had to think about it but really? A cheerleader? Ugh.
There were a lot of "good luck" and "stay awesome," from people she didn't know. But there were names she DID recognize.
"Yearbooks are so lame and unbadass," BJ read aloud, finally tearing her eyes away to a signature on the next page. She did not even having to glance down at the signature to know it was her Uncle Puck's. "And dude, I also have to thank you for not complaining about the dumpster dives. Anyway, yearbooks are so lame and unbadass. But I'm getting' high off the sharpie fumes."
"What can I say to my Boo? I know things will change, I know that WE'LL change, but you'll ALWAYS have me. That will never change."—Your Baby-girl, Mercedes.
A glance at the next page, there was one in bubble-letters: "You'll always be the one who got away— Britt"
"I don't do sappy yearbook sigs. But what the hell? It's not like we won't see each other on Christmas and stuff anyway, so the reason I'm sniffling right now has to be seasonal allergies. It is the only explanation I will except and if anyone tries to say otherwise, they are SO dead."—S.
"Thanks for making Rachel over," Uncle Finn had written on the Football team's page. "Seriously. Love, your sort-of big brother."
"Although Finn's appreciation for my new wardrobe is, without a doubt, so my boyfriend can objectify me, I'll quote from the seminal musical, Wicked, from which we sang a duet our junior year, as I feel that expresses my thoughts the best…" And Aunt Rachel never got to complete that thought, as a long thick black trail of marker squiggled to the end of the page.
""I may be the kid in the wheelchair, but I could still whip you in a dance-off. And also? Sorry if my plaid and suspenders were offensive to your gay sensibilities, but really, Kurt? Go near them and I WILL run over your Ipod."—Artie
"If I couldn't be Head Chearleader, at least it went to someone as fabulous as you. Also...you are still on call for all wardrobe consultations, so no losing your phone."- Quinn.
"Oh my God. Head Cheerleader? Really?" BJ groaned. "No wonder he never mentioned that lame part."
"Thanks for introducing me to Couture combat boots. And nobody can do a hairstreak like you. Stay fabulous-T."
She'd seen every club that could ever exist except one…New Directions was nowhere to be found.
"It'll be in the back," Burt said. "Dad always said Mr. Schue could never get the Glee picture anywhere else."
She eagerly flipped to the back and that's where she saw Matt's signature. ""The movie wars? I soooo won. And the date war. I also have a feeling I will never look at cornfields in the same way again. -Matt. PS: Ditto." Wrinkling her eyebrow in confusion, she wondered if she even WANTED to know what half of that quote was in reference to.
BJ suddenly got an idea, and one look at Burt and she knew who she could count on to make the idea a reality.
It was a look that Burt knew all too well.
"Ohhhh no," he said, shaking his head. "I still have scars from the last time I saw that look."
"What? All I want is you to sneak this out to the car so I can get a better look at it later!"
Burt knew it was hopeless, and the only thing scarier than trying to defy his twin sisters was trying to defy BJ. Resigning himself to his fate, he braced himself for whatever scheme his former favorite cousin had in mind.