CHAPTER 20
A few weeks passed. Quinn and Marcus tried to remain close. They really did. But they quickly came to a realization that they just didn't know how to be around each other anymore. They certainly couldn't be alone together in the same room, as they had no clue to say. So their only option really was to revert back to spending their time with their respective cliques: Quinn going back to hang out with the Cheerios, and Marcus with the other football players. But despite that, that loose end, that unfinished business between them meant that there was no shortage of longing looks when they stared at each other when the other wasn't looking. Both were still seriously into each other, but whenever they thought about one another, they forced themselves to remember what they had thought that night. "They were better off apart than together." They remembered that fact, and they remember the pain both of them felt that night, even though they hadn't even been officially together when it happened.
The rest of the Glee club could tell something had gone down from the moment Marcus and Quinn walked into Glee rehearsal the next day. They hadn't even said a word, but as soon as the two of them opted for seats on complete opposite ends of the choir room, everyone knew things hadn't gone well between them. There wasn't any drama, there wasn't any lingering animosity or toxicity, but it was still evidently clear that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the pair.
But despite all of that, time mercilessly marched on. The mashup competition had come to a victory from the boys, one they were absolutely ecstatic about, as it meant they had a number reserved for them at Regionals. With the school year in full force, everyone was swept up by the tide and the time sped by at supersonic speed. They had schoolwork, athletics, Glee rehearsal, and on top of all of that, the inevitable discussion about college was beginning to start. Everyone was sending out their applications, applying to some of the premier schools in the country. Julliard, NYADA, Yale, Stanford were just some of the schools the members of the Glee club were aspiring to go to.
Unfortunately, Marcus wasn't able to apply to schools like everyone else. He had met with Ms. Pillsbury, the guidance counsellor, a couple of times and she had told him exactly what he had expected. Him and his father didn't have the money to send him to college, any college, from their own pocket. His only options would be a scholarship and financial aid. He applied to a few schools on financial aid but unfortunately, there were only so many aid programs he'd be eligible for. His family was supposedly too rich for many of the full tuition financial aid programs, and yet too poor to pay for even a semester of college at full tuition… how did that make any sense? Scholarships being his only other option, Marcus again wasn't too optimistic about this one either. He wasn't a dumb student - his father accepted no less from him than straight A's - but he also knew that there would always be students smarter than him applying for these scholarships, with many more academic extracurriculars to back up their school grades, unlike him. Music scholarships were also off the table, as he had only just started Glee club, and so could only sing and play very basic guitar, definitely not enough to grant him a scholarship. Athlete scholarships were really his only option, and even with them the probability was pretty much 0. If a school was looking to give a student an athlete scholarship in the US, it was normally for football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and in some rare cases soccer. Not Rugby. Never Rugby. And unfortunately, Rugby was all Marcus knew.
On top of that fact, Marcus' prospects for a scholarship were even worse due to the fact that he was not even an American citizen. He was a Canadian, there in America because his father had gotten a green card. He was a foreign citizen, so that automatically put him at a disadvantage when applying to scholarships. When he asked Ms. Pillsbury about that, she didn't agree, but at the same time she didn't outwardly deny it. She had said "don't think about any of that, because if you put your mind to something and work hard enough, you can achieve anything." Yeah, right. Marcus knew what that meant. He wasn't sure what he even wanted to study yet, IF he even wanted to continue into further education, so what chance in hell did he have of getting a scholarship or the financial aid to do so.
But despite all of this, all of his troubles and uncertainty with both Quinn and with his future, Marcus' spirits remained relatively high. How couldn't they? He had spent the past month and a half training his ass off at football, to the point where he was the best defensive player on the team, and given his stocky yet agile build, Coach Beiste had also made him the running back on the team. He was one of 4 guys on the team who was a starting player both offensively and defensively… not bad for someone who had just started training a little over 6 weeks. Defense wasn't too hard, as his job as a Defensive End was all about finding gaps in the offensive line, and then making it through to the Quarterback and hitting him with a crunching tackle. He had speed, he had strength, and he wasn't afraid to put his body on the line in a tackle, so after he gained the knowledge and awareness of the game, playing defence became by far his favourite part. Being a Running back, he also was able to rely on strength, speed and finding gaps, but he didn't have to really worry about long throws or catches like the other receivers and Quarterback would. He was merely handed the ball by Finn whenever it was a running play, and then it was up to him to find space for him to burst into. Football had helped him gain notoriety in the school. Not that he really cared about that, but he couldn't help but feel chuffed as random strangers in school he had never met high fived him and patted his back in congratulation for touchdowns or crucial tackling he made the night before.
Glee was going equally great for him too. Marcus was a competitive guy - he always strived to be the best at whatever he did - so he actively sought out help from Mr. Schue to improve his singing and dancing when he joined the club, and his hard work was clearly paying off. Mr. Schue was trusting him with more and more solos, to the point where it was almost completely an equal split between Finn and him as to who got more solos. Marcus was actually loving being in Glee club. He had always loved listening to music, and the fact that now he had the opportunity to perform it, side by side with some of his closest friends at the school, was amazing. Him and Blaine were the only new additions to the club that year, and given that Blaine was literally the leader of another show choir in previous years, he was practically a veteran Glee club performer already. That just left Marcus the only one without experience, and he was determined to not be the weak link that brings the team down, and that meant hours and hours of practice to improve his singing technique.
Before he knew it, it was the beginning of November, and the snow had begun to fall, and his 18th birthday arrived and passed. Him and his father didn't do anything as his father was too busy with work, but his friends in Glee had held a party for him, and even the football team all wished him a happy birthday. His never-say-die, competitive but fun attitude had gained him many friends, and that was truly shown that day on Saturday November 1st, when his father didn't celebrate with him but his friends could. Marcus was slightly upset about it, but he didn't blame his father. He knew their family's money struggles better than anyone, and his father missing a day would only put him one step closer to being laid off if recessions hit. And if that happened, they'd both be absolutely screwed for money.
The week after Marcus' birthday, the long awaited prep for Sectionals finally began. Sectionals took place at the end of November, so they had just under a month to get ready. More than enough time. The first stage of all of that was deciding on the setlist, and more importantly, deciding on who sang them.
"Morning everybody!" Mr. Schue announced as he walked into the choir room on Monday morning, sheet music piled high in his arms as he placed it down on the piano. "I hope you guys had a coffee this morning, because I need you all awake for this. Today, the road to Sectionals officially begins. I've been doing a lot of thinking and I think I've come up with a killer setlist for us to do."
Surprisingly, this didn't receive the cheer he had expected. He raised an eyebrow.
"Wow, guys. What's got you guys down?" He asked.
"Nothing, Mr. Schue. It's just… we know what this is going to be." Tina told him. "Rachel and Finn are going to start with a power ballad, to which Mercedes sings the final note. We're then going to go into a classic Rock group performance, where once again it's Finn and Rachel on leads, and Mercedes belting. Same genre, same people. Every competition."
Mr. Schue nodded.
"Look, I know I've been guilty of being too repetitive with our setlists in the past. And for that… I apologize. This is your senior year, I want us to be more creative. So I decided to go a completely different direction with this year's Sectional. We will be starting with a duet, then the boys' performance, and then we'll go onto a group performance, as that strategy has proven successful for us pretty consistently in the past. However, the genre of the songs will be different, and who sings them will be mostly different."
"Ooh, what are we going to be doing?" Mercedes asked. The interest in the room had definitely peaked up. Mr. Schue began handing out sheet music to everyone in the room, starting with the group performance they'd be doing, and everyone gasped as they saw the name of the song on the sheet.
"Without You by Usher! I love this song!" Artie exclaimed as he read the title.
"Mr. Schue? This doesn't make sense. I don't have the lead." Rachel stammered, absolutely flabbergasted.
"I don't either." Mercedes responded, also in shock.
"Me neither." Santana remarked.
"Not me." Blaine and Kurt both added.
"Who's singing lead then?" Mike asked, already knowing it wasn't going to be him.
"None of you." Mr. Schue replied. "Or all of you, depending on how you look at it. I reworked and rewrote the song so all of you have an almost exactly equal part in the song. Nobody is taking all of the solos. You're all working it together."
"You know what? I can work with that." Mercedes responded, nodding encouragingly at Mr. Schue. "What else do we have?"
"Well, there's also the boys' duets, so I'm sorry Mercedes but I don't think you're going to be able to solo in that one either." Mr. Schue told her. "Not unless you want to pretend to be a boy and join them on stage."
"She's already got the body for it." Santana remarked coyly under her breath, to which Mercedes turned around and glared at her. Mr. Schue handed out the sheet music for the boys' number, to equal fanfare as the first song.
"Best. Coldplay. Song. Period." Sam remarked as he saw what the boys would be singing.
"Yeah, I normally don't rock with Coldplay, but this song is actually a banger." Puck remarked. Again, nobody was taking a lead in that song, and all of the boys were bouncing off each other and harmonizing on choruses and they were each singing parts of the verses.
"Mr. Schue, you're 2 for 2 so far. One more song… what are we doing for it?" Sam asked. Mr. Schue smiled and nodded.
"Glad you liked these ones. We have one more song: the duet." Mr. Schue declared. "I'll admit, there will be some repetition on this one. Rachel will be singing the duet this Sectionals and I'll tell you why in a second."
As Rachel beamed widely, the rest of the group let out an audible groan.
"Mr. Schue, you were so close to a perfect setlist." Tina muttered.
"What song are they singing at least?" Kurt, one of the more reasonable members of the Glee club, though he was still upset, asked.
"Well, we've been pretty varied in our genre of duets in previous years. We had rock with Faithfully. Soft pop with Lucky. Pop ballad with Pretending. This year, I want to go with something completely different. We're going with a movie musical song. Any of you seen the Greatest Showman?"
Rachel immediately let out a squeal of delight, as she knew exactly what they were going to be singing. The whole room immediately knew what song they'd be singing. And sure enough, Mr. Schue handed Rachel her set of sheet music, which contained the three word name at the top, as well as her female part to the duet.
"Ooh, I love this song!" Rachel exclaimed.
"Yeah, same. This is going to be so much fun to sing!" Finn exclaimed. Mr. Schue nodded.
"I'm sure it will be, Finn. But unfortunately, I'm sorry but the solo isn't going to you. I was thinking that we'd have our new boy, Marcus, singing the male lead for this song."
Marcus, whose head was sort of in the clouds and wasn't paying much attention, definitely snapped to attention when he heard that.
"Um… what?"
"Mr. Schue, are you sure about this? I mean, this is his first competition. I'd be more than happy to do the solo instead." Finn told him. Marcus pointed at him, before looking at Mr. Schue.
"He does have a point. It is my first time properly performing in front of anyone other than you guys, let alone competing about it."
"Don't worry about that, Marcus. I'm sure you'll be great." Mr. Schue reassured him.
"Yeah, you will be, Marcus. I mean, you're basically one of the male leads already." Tina said, kindly, to him. Behind her, Finn's face started darkening and contorting slightly in a peculiar expression, but luckily because he was sitting in the back, nobody noticed.
"She's right. Not only that, but I paired you with Rachel for a reason." Mr. Schue told him. "Putting aside the fact that I think your voices would sound amazing together, the whole reason I decided to give her this duet rather than giving someone else the shot, is that I know she can help you improve when rehearsing if I'm not there. She's been taking vocal lessons pretty much since birth, so she knows what she's talking about, and can definitely help you practice."
"She'll also bully the crap out of you and turn into a psycho diva if you're anything less than perfect, so good luck." Kurt murmured to Marcus.
"Well Marcus, let's go to the auditorium to begin practising right now. It's never too early to start rehearsing for the performance." Rachel instructed him. Mr. Schue raised a hand to stop them though.
"Woah, woah, woah, guys, stop. I'm going to need you both here so we can run through the group number unfortunately. Maybe another time."
"That's fine, Mr. Schue. Don't worry." Rachel said, before turning to Marcus. "Marcus, what are you doing this evening?"
"Nothing. Why?" He asked. Santana winced.
"Ooh, wrong answer, buddy." Santana laughed. And sure enough, Rachel had already rattled off about Marcus coming over to her place to rehearse, and exactly which parts of the song they needed to rehearse more than others, and how he could improve those parts. Marcus was overwhelmed by the amount of thought she was putting into the song that had literally been placed in her hands about a minute ago, so there was little he could do but accept the offer to rehearse at her house that evening.
Group rehearsal then officially began, with the New Directions starting to run through their group number without choreography or any accompaniment other than the piano. And as they were doing so, Marcus didn't notice it, but a jealous set of eyes were watching him from across the room. The pair of eyes belonged to someone without whom the Glee club probably wouldn't have made it off the ground. Who was indirectly responsible for the football players and Cheerios joining, and was considered to many of them the leader of the club. However, that spot as a lead of the club looked seriously in doubt with this new boy's arrival, and the jealousy grew in the pit of his stomach, like molten lava bubbling deep within the surface, getting closer and closer to eruption…