Hi, another one because you guys are awesome!
Original name: Checkmate
Author: R. L Mathewson.
Thank you for your continued interest and support. I appreciate it. I do not own Glee or the characters, neither do I own Checkmate.
Twenty-five years earlier...
"Mercedes is a car's name!" the mean little boy who'd pushed the girl with said name off the swing only seconds earlier announced, as he glared down at her accusingly.
Never taking her eyes away from the bully, Mercedes slowly got up and wiped dirt off her shirt and jeans.
But even when she had finally stood all the way up, she was forced to tilt her head back slightly, so that she could continue to glare at him the way her older brothers had taught her.
"It's a girl's name. And it's my name!" she said, taking a deep breath and shoving him back.
One thing she'd learned, thanks to having five older brothers, was never to let anyone push her around. Because once you did, you'd have to sleep with one eye open and keep an eye out for snakes in your bed, spit in your cereal, and toe nails in your mac and cheese.
She might have to put up with five big bullies at home, but that didn't mean that she was going to put up with it at preschool.
No way!
She stood as tall as she could and gave the boy that all the girls wanted to play with another shove.
"You're ugly!" he practically sneered as he reached over and pulled one of her pigtails, hard.
"Well, you smell like my brother's butt!" she said, shoving him again, cause she really couldn't call him ugly. He wasn't. He had honey blonde hair and green eyes.
"Well, you look like my uncle's butt!" he threw back, yanking the other pigtail hard enough to make her eyes sting.
"Well, you..."
"That's enough of that!" Miss Sylvester, the mean woman her father left her with said, as she grabbed them each by the arm.
With a firm tug, she dragged them towards the large multicolored building that Mercedes' father said looked like a rainbow took a shit on.
She wasn't sure what shit was exactly, but she knew that no matter what shit was, her father was probably right.
"She started it!" the boy pointed out as they were dragged to the small table in the far corner with the scary clown painted on it.
"That's enough of that, Sam," Miss Sylvester sternly said, as she planted them on wobbly, red blotched stools. "You will both sit here and think about what you did while the rest of the children enjoy free play."
Mercedes narrowed her eyes at the little boy that had cost her a turn on the swings, even as he narrowed his eyes at her.
"You'll pay for this," he promised tightly.
"No, you will," she said, knowing the second...the very second...Miss Sylvester turned her back on them, that the large jar of pink glitter by the window was going to find its way into his hair.
Twenty years earlier...
"Give it back, Sam!"
He held up a notebook, making little Mercedes Jones jump higher for it.
She tried to glare at him, but unlike the other boys, he wasn't afraid of her or her big brothers. And as far as he was concerned, the little chocolate cupcake was put on this earth solely for him to torture.
And torture her he did.
"Give what back?" he asked innocently, waving her notebook in the air above the brown pond water just to taunt her.
Not that he was going to give it back to her...he wasn't.
In a minute or two when he got bored with this, he fully planned on throwing it in the water with the hopes that she'd go after it.
"My notebook, you jerk!" she said, giving up on trying to get it back and moving to the kicking phase, but he was ready for that.
After five years of making her life a living hell, he knew what to expect. And he knew that if he gave her a chance she'd kick him between the legs and drop him to the ground.
Then she'd probably make him eat dirt.
Again.
"Just give her the notebook," Brian, the annoying boy from Miss Pillsbury class said. He'd been following after Mercedes for the past two weeks like a puppy dog.
Sam hadn't minded the kid before he started following after her. In his mind, the boy was a decent basketball player and knew how to make an awesome spit ball.
But he didn't like anyone getting between him and Mercedes.
"I can take care of myself," Mercedes said, never taking her eyes away from Sam, which pleased him immensely, but he was still pretty annoyed with the interruption.
"Why don't you come take it for her?" he suggested to the boy as he reached out and palmed Mercedes' face, shoving her away, before she tried to kick him while he was distracted.
With a curse that would probably have her father reaching for a bar of soap, she stumbled backwards and fell over a dead log and landed in the mud.
Normally, Sam would've laughed, but he had other things to do at the moment.
"Fine!" the slightly smaller boy said as he stormed over and made a move to grab the notebook.
With a bored sigh, Sam held the notebook higher and further away. And as soon as Brian reached out for it, he hooked his foot between his legs and pulled up just as he turned, causing the boy to lose his balance and take a header into the dirty water.
"Next time mind your own business," he said, laughing as the boy started to cry.
And then,
"Crying over a little dirty water? What a dork!"
'Mercedes wouldn't have cried. She never cried,' he thought. Which he took as a personal challenge.
"And next time..." Mercedes suddenly said, just as he felt her small hands press against his back and shove, "...don't touch my math homework!"
With that, he went stumbling and landed in the water right next to the big crybaby.
Sam rolled over and spat a mouthful of murky water at Mercedes, laughing when it hit her bare leg.
Deciding that wasn't nearly good enough, he used her now soaked notebook and splashed her until she was as soaked as he was.
But he wasn't entirely surprised when she launched herself at him, instead of running off and crying like most of the girls he knew would've done.
There was no running off and crying for the little chocolate cupcake! Not when she could try and kick his ass.
As they rolled around in the muddy water, trying to make the other one eat a handful of mud, Sam couldn't help but smile.
'She's just so much fun to torture,' he thought as he forced a handful of mud and God only knew what else in her mouth.
Fifteen years earlier...
"There's no talking in detention," Mr. Schue snapped.
With that, Mercedes shoved her green, black and pink paint splattered hair out of her face and silently wondered, not for the first time, why the school hadn't let them either use the showers in the locker rooms or sent them home to wash up and start their two weeks of detention tomorrow.
It would've made more sense and would've saved them from having to stand at the back of the room on newspapers, so that they didn't get paint everywhere, as well as the embarrassment of having the other kids laughing at them.
"That's what I told her, Mr. Schue," Sam said, discretely reaching out when the teacher became distracted by a spitball flying passed his head and shoving Mercedes, making her stumble off their newspaper mat and onto the pristine white tiled floor.
"You bastard!" she hissed, jumping back onto the newspaper, but not before her paint soaked stocking feet left large smears of black, green and pink paint all over the floor.
"Just wait until detention's over, Cupcake. You're going to pay for making me miss practice," he said, shoving her again, but this time, she managed to stay on the newspaper.
"Don't call me Cupcake! And we wouldn't be here if you hadn't shoved me into the art room," she said, shoving him back, causing him to stumble, slip and slide on the floor, leaving an impressive streak of green and pink paint behind.
"If anyone should be mad, it's me. You made me miss work!'" she added, giving him another shove that added a little bit of black paint to the mix.
After this little episode she'd be lucky if she still had a job. Her father told her that any bullshit and she was fired.
She hoped that he meant any bullshit on the job, because otherwise she was screwed, since she couldn't seem to go a day without getting into it with Sam.
Over the years their parents, teachers, the priest at their church, their coaches, and even the Neighborhood Watch had gone out of their way to keep them apart.
But nothing worked.
Absolutely nothing!
And in the past ten years, they hadn't been placed in the same classroom at school or Sunday School at church.
They weren't allowed to play on the coed teams after school either, out of fear that they'd beat each other with baseball bats or some other sporting equipment.
And Neighborhood Watches all over town blew whistles whenever the two of them were spotted in the same area.
It was really annoying.
They had not gone a day in the last ten years, not even when Mercedes was laid up in bed with the flu last year, without giving each other hell.
She still remembered waking up at two in the morning to find Sam short sheeting her bed while she was still in it!
And to this day, she didn't know how he managed to sneak into her room for two weeks straight.
It wasn't like her room was on the first floor or she left her windows unlocked.
But no matter what she did, the jerk always found a way to break in and piss her off into a speedy recovery so that she could kick his ass.
And when he was laid up for two weeks after she'd gotten over the flu, she'd made damn sure to return the favor.
"Oh please, it's not like you have a real job," Sam said mockingly, and he was the only one with the balls to do it, "I bet your daddy has you fetching his drinks."
Mercedes had to snort at that. Her father worked her to the bone.
She did everything her brothers had to do and more, because she had a talent and a skill with the saws that none of them could touch.
Every day after school, she and her brothers joined their father wherever he was working that day and they worked their asses off until dinner time.
Then they went home, made dinner, did their homework...and then passed out.
Even though she knew that her father worked them hard because he wanted to keep them out of trouble, she didn't care. She loved working with her family and earning her own money.
It also didn't hurt that she was learning a job that she hoped to do after high school.
"At least I know who my father is," Mercedes said, knowing it was a low blow. But then again, so was sitting on top of her so that he could pour gallon after gallon of paint on her.
"Well, at least my mother didn't run off with the milkman," Sam said, getting in her face.
And just like that she snapped.
It didn't matter that there were twenty witnesses or that an extra month of detention would no doubt be added onto her time. All that mattered was wiping that smug look off the bastard's face.
"It was the mailman, you bastard!" she said, lunging for him.
"Same damn thing!" he muttered as he put her in a headlock and took her to the floor.
Ten years earlier...
"But I love you, Sam," Lisa, Laura, or whatever the hell her name was, said.
"Uh huh, that's nice," he said absently, while he watched the asshole who'd been hanging around Mercedes for way too long, wrap his arm around her shoulders and kiss her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have something very important to do," he said, not caring if the girl heard him over the loud music.
"Sam!" she called, grabbing onto his arm to stop him from leaving her.
With an annoyed sigh, he gently removed her hand from his arm and walked away.
And damn neared rolled his eyes when he heard her profess her undying love for him.
Again.
He couldn't help but wonder what the hell was wrong with her. They'd had sex...and not even good sex.
Once.
There had never been any promises or declarations of love, but for some reason, she thought that meant they were together...as a couple.
Why in the hell did women get so damn clingy?
It wasn't as if he hadn't made it damn clear that he'd used her for sex.
"Whoa! What the hell is wrong with Finn inviting you and Mercedes to the same party?" Brody, a guy Sam had gone to high school with asked, laughing as he held up his beer to him in salute.
"No clue," he answered without taking his eyes off his prey, since he had about five minutes before Finn and his buddies would try to remove him.
Two hours ago, he'd been too tired to crash this party, but then he happened to stop for some gas and a cold soda and overheard the prick standing with Mercedes brag to his frat buddies that he was going to fuck a virgin townie tonight and earn twenty points.
Normally, Sam wouldn't have cared what one of the asshole college kids did, but when he heard Mercedes' name dropped, he of course decided that he had to do something.
She was his to screw over. No one else's, especially not some fucking college punk's.
It didn't matter that they were no longer kids, she was still the best part of his day and he'd be damned if he let some other jerk cause her grief when it was still his damn job.
Once upon a time he'd hoped for something else, but...
It was never going to happen and it was pointless to wish for something that common sense told him would never happen.
He'd messed up big time and made damn sure that there would never be anything more between them a few years ago.
For now, he'd have to settle for keeping an eye out for her, liking their daily antics, which happened to entertain him immensely.
And since this was all they would ever have, he made absolutely sure that he enjoyed himself.
A minute later Sam smoothly stepped in Mercedes and the guy's path, blocking them as they tried to leave.
He ignored her as she glared up at him since he had more important things to deal with at the moment.
His eyes dropped to their entwined hands and his jaw clenched before settling back on the prick's face.
"Did you earn your twenty points yet, Anthony?" he asked, drawing everyone's attention and not giving a damn.
The guy's eyes widened.
"I...I don't know what you're talking about," he stuttered out, lying.
"That must suck having a short term memory, especially in college. Should I refresh your memory?" Sam asked, barely aware that someone had shut off the music and not really caring.
"I...I...I..." the man stammered nervously. He dropped Mercedes' hand and stepped away from her.
"Anthony?" Mercedes asked, glancing between the two of them.
"I...I...I..." he continued to stammer.
"Good answer, Anthony," Sam drawled, wondering where she found these losers. The last one made this one look like Einstein, but he hadn't been this much fun to screw over.
Mercedes sighed long and heavy as she gestured for Sam to get on with it.
There was no drama or theatrics with this woman. She knew the game as well as he did and wasn't going to freak out over the impending blow.
They'd screwed each other over enough times that they were pretty much immune to public humiliation by now.
But that didn't mean that she was going to take this lying down.
He fully expected some sort of retaliation.
"Seems your little boyfriend here is trying to pop your cherry so that he can earn some points with his frat brothers," Sam said, trying to hide how surprised he'd been to find out that she was still a virgin.
Then again, he did mess up her life on a daily basis so maybe he shouldn't be that surprised.
He'd lost track of how many losers he'd run off in the last five years.
She was quiet for a moment before she frowned at the man.
"Is that true, Anthony?"
Sam snorted at that. As if he'd lie. She really should know better by now.
"I...I...it was..." Anthony noticeably swallowed as he backed away from her with his hands up in a pacifying manner. "It was just for fun, honestly. It's no big deal."
"I see," Mercedes mumbled, but didn't move to run away or cry like most women would do. She simply stood there glaring at the man.
"You're not going to hit me, are you?" Anthony asked, sounding like a pansy ass.
Mercedes simply shrugged.
"I don't have to."
The guy frowned, dropping his hands.
"Why not?"
"Because they will," Sam answered for her, grinning when five huge men broke through the crowd and started to circle Anthony, looking ready to tear him apart.
Which they probably would.
"But, it was just a..." Whatever Anthony was going to say was cut off by one of Mercedes' brother's fist.
"Thanks for the head's up," she said as she passed Sam.
"No problem," he replied, following after her. He was more than ready to go to bed and get some sleep now. He was exhausted, which was probably the reason he didn't see it...or rather her...coming.
As soon as he stepped outside he realized that she was nowhere to be seen.
He really should've known better, he thought as she dumped what had to be a gallon of piss warm beer over his head.
"Thanks again," she said pleasantly as she handed him the empty jug and headed towards her car.
"No problem," he answered following after her, only pausing long enough to snatch a large bag of ice out of someone's hand.
Stay safe!