Joe's Note: This one is actually drawn from my own - relatively limited - cosplay closet. Mostly because the idea of a permanently silenced Cordelia just tickles my fancy. If you're stumbling across this without a greater knowledge of my works, this story is derived from my greater Red, White, and Blue universe in that Brittany and Santana attend Sunnydale High School. Basically I populated the entire cheerleading squad with cheerleaders drawn from other popular franchises, mostly because I needed them for specific plot-centric crowd scenes and didn't want to do something weird like having Cordelia go to school with the varsity cheerleading squad from my old high school or anything.
Dedications & Thanks: To Howard, Nicholas, Alonsis2, Cyle, Marika, Tibor, Adrien, Arkantos59, bloodylord, Charles, Crygon20, DireSquirrel, Edward, enygma, Fablesrogue, George, Gerald, Glenn, Joseph, Kentucky Fried Dragon, Koby, MJ, Morgan, mpotato, PbookR, Roofcrawler, Wil, William, Ziryo, Beeknees, Darrell, David, erlking, Haematite, HaunzGruber, TheTenthAncestor, UncreativeName01, Zordmon, Abby, Lookshy, Roman, Warren, and Wesley for sponsoring me on Patre0n, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

Scowling, Cordelia Chase leaned against her locker and shot a baleful look at the redhead next to her. Bringing her hands up, her motions were slightly jerky with agitation as she signed to her companion. 'You're supposed to be translating for me. That's like, literally your entire job.'

Brittany Pierce rolled her eyes as she waved dismissively, sending the scared-looking girl who had bumped into Cordelia scurrying away down the hall. "I translated some of what you said. Just not all of it. There was no reason to make her cry by insulting her appearance. She felt bad enough about bumping into you."

'She deserves to cry. There's a scuff. On my brand new black boot.' Cordelia gestured emphatically at her foot before cuffing Brittany's shoulder lightly. 'Shouldn't being put through a blender with Medusa be making you more deferential? I'm your king, after all.'

Scoffing, Brittany reached up to flick the tuning fork in the center of the tiara that Cordelia had decided to accessorize her outfit with today. "I didn't vote for you. And if you think for one second that the real Blackagar Boltagon would make someone cry for scuffing his boot, you have another think coming. If you expect me to treat you like a king, then you need to act like a king."

Cordelia rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. What was wrong with acting like one of those kings who tortured their peasants and put people to death for random reasons? Brittany stared at her intently and after a few seconds, Cordelia rolled her eyes a second time and unfolded her arms so that she could sign to her companion. 'Fine. But if Harris or Rosenberg say a single damn thing about any of this, all bets are off.'

That earned her a laugh from Brittany. "I'm not going to get between you and torturing the dweeb patrol. I can't expect you to give up all your fun. I'll even translate most of it for you. Question. Have you considered getting a small Bluetooth speaker and slaving it to your phone? Use a text to speech program to talk for yourself?"

Ugh. Hard pass. Cordelia's new powers made her functionally mute, not deaf, which meant that she was perfectly capable of hearing the mangled pronunciation of an app trying to sound out a word it didn't quite know. Not to mention that the voice was flat and emotionless even at the best of times. Far too dry a way to deliver jokes or comments that ruined someone's self-esteem. If Brittany would even let her do the former anymore. Maybe she'd let her insult people just a little? When they really deserved it? 'Maybe for class, since we only share two periods together. Definitely not for casual conversation. That's what I have you for... right?'

"I mean, I have to go home eventually. And I like to sleep in. But you can have me from like, five minutes before the first bell until whenever I get sleepy? Or tired of you." Brittany grinned impishly, turning to plant her hands on either side of Cordelia's shoulders as a tendril of her red hair rose to caress the brunette's cheek. "So you'd better keep my interest."

Oh, so things between them were going to be like that, then? Good to know. Good thing she'd been single before Halloween or else things might have gotten awkward. Cordelia smirked as she brought her hands up between their bodies, signing awkwardly in the limited space. 'I'm sure we can come up with some way to keep you from being too terribly bored.' Leaning in, Cordelia gave Brittany a quick peck on the lips before winking at her. 'I still have all the memories of what Medusa could use all that hair for when she wanted to. You do too, right?'

Eyes twinkling, Brittany shook her head from side to side. "Guess you'll have to find out for yourself." Leaning back, she kept the tendrils of hair penning Cordelia in against the locker as she gave her more room to 'speak'. "I've got to ask, though... I dressed up as Medusa because you asked me to. But why the heck did you dress up as Black Bolt for Halloween?"

'Ugh, bet gone wrong.' Cordelia nodded her head in the direction of Xander Harris, who was standing a short distance down the hallway whispering to Willow Rosenberg as the pair eyed her and Brittany. 'I deliberately tanked a bet with Harris because I couldn't think of anything to dress up as for Halloween and I figured hey, he probably beats off to me regularly, he'd do a good job of picking out a sexy Halloween costume for me. Nope. Fucking nerd decided to play to my ego. Evidently there was an ABC series with the Inhumans that didn't really do too well. He told me that if I put my mind to it, I could probably do a better version of Black Bolt than the series did.'

Nodding agreeably, Brittany peered over her shoulder at Xander long enough to make the nerd squirm and move on with Willow, before returning her attention to Cordelia. "Tana and I saw the pilot to the show in theaters. It wasn't really that impressive. So yeah, you definitely did the character better. Especially since I'm a boob girl and, well, you know."

Cordelia smirked at the reference to her previous night's costume. It had taken a fair amount of double-sided tape to make sure that she didn't fall out of her black catsuit, which had been sewn with a wide and plunging neckline that revealed skin everywhere between the two white lightning bolts on the front of Black Bolt's traditional comic costume. 'Was your costume something that I didn't find when googling the two of them or something you made up on your own?'

Brittany grinned as she turned sideways in front of Cordelia, a tendril of hair reaching down to brush against her ass. "Nine times out of ten, she's drawn in a simple purple catsuit with black gloves and boots. I found this old scan from the Seventies or Eighties on google of her in the leotard and decided to go in that direction. Emphasis my... ass-ets."

'I didn't even know I was an ass girl before last night, but I definitely appreciated it.' Cordelia reached out to grab a hold of Brittany's ass, giving it a squeeze before releasing it so that she could resume signing. Gah. This whole being mute thing was going to get in the way of a lot of idle chatter, wasn't it? Couldn't grab a butt and talk. Couldn't use her phone and talk. Couldn't carry anything and talk. What a pain. 'I'm surprised that you've yet to ask 'why me' in terms of Medusa. I mean, we weren't exactly the closest before Halloween. Sure, we were on the squad together, but we didn't exactly run in the same circles outside of that.'

Offering a faint shrug in response, Brittany tossed her head, sending some of the hair not being used to pin Cordelia to the lockers spilling down over her chest. "Isn't it obvious? I'm the best girl you know when it comes to working with hair. Nobody else would have been able to handle a sixty-five inch wig, much less tease it into something presentable to wear as Medusa."

Which was especially impressive given that there was only sixty-eight inches of Brittany to work with. Cordelia nodded, the corner of her mouth quirking upward. 'Fair enough. I could have paid you to make a wig for me and then put it on, like, Harmony or someone.'

"No you couldn't. I'm not on the market." Brittany trailed off as someone tapped impatiently on her shoulder, the slightly taller girl turning to reveal Santana Lopez standing behind her with her hands on the hips. "Oh. Shit. Speaking of being off the market..."

Scowling at the pair of them, Santana arched an eyebrow imperiously. "What the fresh hell is this shit?"

Brittany let out a nervous chuckle. "I'm in danger. Cordelia, help."

That just made Cordelia arch an eyebrow of her own as she stared at the blonde-turned-redhead with an unimpressed look on her face. 'You had a secret girlfriend and you didn't think this was an important thing to tell me before I kissed you or anything?'

Opening and closing her mouth repeatedly, Brittany settled on flashing both girls a strained and awkward smile. "Well congrats, you're both poly now. See you at lunch!" And with that, she turned and rushed off down the hallway, her hair weaving itself into a much more manageable plait that extended down her back to her ankles as she went.

"So she's still got the hair and you've probably got the..." Bringing her hand up to her mouth, Santana pantomimed something emerging from between her lips and then exploding. Cordelia nodded, and the Latina cringed. "Right. We can hash this out at lunch, then. Because I don't know sign language and if it's all the same to you, I'd rather you not try to talk back to me."

Fair enough. Cordelia nodded and gave Santana a dismissive wave before finally turning back to her locker and opening it to retrieve her books. It was too bad that she was single before Halloween, she mused, because dumping someone for two someone elses was the kind of gossip that would have made waves around the school for days...