18. Mercedes

"So, tell us, Mercedes, what is it like to share stage with the real big divas?" Artie asked once Blaine finished his solo.

"I'm glad you asked me that," Mercedes answered after a head twirl. "Well… we haven't been on stage yet, just studio work…"

"Oh, please, that joke was funny the first time, but do you think we're really buying this?" Rachel, really, really drunk, interrupted her. "If you'd even met them, you'd have put ten thousand pics on Twitter, and the last thing you tweeted was "Breakfast time" and a photo of a muesli bar. So, please cut the crap."

"Is everything okay?" Blaine asked while sitting next to his date again. "Do you know that two aunts of Quinn's almost rape me on my way here? No? Well, now you know." He frowned. "Oh, Santana, are you crying?"

"Over nothing related to you! Don't even think for a moment that you can move me with your velvet voice and your balladed pop songs. Because you can't!" she answered.

"And your girlfriend still can't cope with Mercedes' success. Nothing that we didn't know, but still rude," Artie informed.

Blaine's "she's not my girlfriend" overlapped Rachel's "I'm not his girlfriend." The both of them looked at each other and quickly moved their eyes away.

Awkward moment.

"That's the difference between you and me, Rachel," Mercedes said. "I'm making my way up to stardom in Los Angeles surrounded by the most influential artists worldwide and you're stuck in Lima trying to turn a gay boy. And that's what's tearing the Diva Alliance apart."

"You tore it apart the day you were too awesome to share Maria with me." Rachel hit the table with her fist in anger, making her drink spill on her dress. "Look at what you made me do! Happy?!"

"Has anybody ever told you that you're so much more annoying when you're drunk?" Tina intervened.

Rachel stood up and went to the bathroom. "Anyway, tell me about you guys," Mercedes changed the topic. "How are you doing?" Mercedes rested her elbows on the table, put her head on her hands and stared at Mike and Tina.

"We are doing so fine," the girl answered. "I thought the distance would be harder, but we managed it." Tina kissed Mike's cheek. "He hadn't needed to fail in his own life to save our relationship."

"You really should go to the head doctor because that concussion you had last year really affected you. You're manically obsessed with Berry, even when she's not here," Santana said.

"Who says I was talking about her?"

The Lima Heights muse's face turned into a Tina-Blowing-Wang-just-dissed-me face. Brittany held her hand while she finished blinking like a woman whose purse had just been robbed by a man disguised as an ostrich, not knowing either to scream or stand there shocked for a few minutes more.

"I'm so happy for you two." Mercedes smiled widely. "And what about you, Artie? Any lucky girl you carry out and about?"

The boy with the glasses blushed. "Actually… yeah, there's someone."

Sugar stood up and threw him her bread bun. "You bastard! Are you cheating on me?!"

"It took a while for me to get how it works too, but it turns out that you don't sexually own every man/woman/living thing with whom you've established sentimental/sexual communication, unrequited or not," Brittany told the angry girl.

Everybody at the table looked at one another, confused by Mrs. Pierce's knowledge.

"When did you get that… intelligent?" Puck asked.

"I'm not intelligent; it's just the use of the word 'slash'. It's kinda magical. That's why I usually call it 'unicorn horn'."

Puck took a sip of his drink. "And everything back to normal again."

"Anyway, tell us about your girl, Artie!" Mercedes insisted.

Artie tried to avoid answering the question by putting half steak into his mouth. The "don't speak with your mouth full" rule wasn't actually a useful resort. Once he swallowed, blushing again, he answered. "It's a secret, I can't tell you. She asked me not to tell anyone. It's kind of complicated."

"Five dollars on Fabray. I'm sure last year there were lots and lots of wheelchair passion," Sugar said resentful.

Santana followed the topic, "and you? Have you been able to find another man that can fill the emptiness Trouty left on you?"

"That's why you turned gay?" Sam joked playfully. "I know, I drive them crazy."

"Damn you do, Sammy Boy, look at Quinn marrying Moby Dick," Santana followed the prank. "Or you gay them or you turn them into zoophiles."

"Technically fishophiles," Artie added.

Rory frowned. "Moby Dick was a fish?"

"It swam? Fish," Puck sentenced.

"You're like Berry but quite the contrary!" Santana carried on. "What would happen if you two did each other? Would you… collapse into a huge black hole originated by the dimension of your mouths or just eat each other?"

"Thank you, Santana, we didn't want to eat anymore," Sam laughed.

Tina stood and raised her drink. Seeing that nobody was paying attention to her, she hit the glass a few times with her spoon. But still nothing. Harder. Harder. She hit it harder. She broke it and nobody looked at her. "Hello, everyone!" she shouted. "My name is Tina Cohen-Chang, and I am one of Finn and Quinn's closest fr…"

"Wazzup, babies!" Rachel interrupted Tina in the middle of her speech. The insane amount of alcohol had already gone to her head. That was the only reason that could explain why she crawled her way up to the stage and showed her underwear to every single attendant at the wedding when she tried to stand up by leaning on the microphone stand. "Rachel Berry is in da haus!"

"Excuse me, Berry, I was trying to…" Tina said.

"Oh, shut up, nobody was even listening to you. And don't put that surprised face because no one here gives a shirt for you."

"You mean a shit?" the other girl answered, totally embarrassed.

"Shit is what you think you are. A fart is what you really are." All the guests burst into laughter. "Berry out!" she said while throwing the microphone onto the stage. "Wait, no!" She got on her knees to pick it up again. "I wanted to…" she started while getting up, another pink panties full display, "…throw a toast to this lovely couple."

"This is going to be epic," Sam said while taking his phone out and hitting the record button.

Rachel resumed her speech. "Some of my dearest friends say that I am a needy drunk. Some of them hate me because they admire me so much that they even get to hate me. Those two men next to the bride… wait, no, it's just one, fuck, I'm really drunk. Sorry, mom!" Rachel pointed out to Shelby. "That one with the little girl on her lap is my mother. I met her three years ago and she ended up adopting Quinn and Puck's daughter." She covered her mouth with the hand that wasn't holding onto the microphone (actually, preventing her from falling). "Oops. Anyway, love you, mommy! In fact, I haven't ever said that before. My first time! Like the one we had, do you remember, Finny? What a wonderful night…"

The reactions were pretty disparate. Shelby's mouth was fully open, Quinn's face was shining in a bright bright red shade, Brittany and Sugar were drawing a banner on one of the tablecloths that said "Drunken Berry #1 Fans" and Finn was trying to cut the microphone wire with a knife, but Kurt stopped him. "I really want to see how this ends," he told his brother.

"Hey, Blainey, hand me my drink, please, honey," she said while holding her hand out. "You see this cutie piece of meat over here? The last time I got this drunk we fell in love. Well… it was just my first gay crush and a couple days later he told me, literally quoting, '100% gay'. But he was actually my best gay friend's first gay love. And gay gay giggity gay… What?! Nah, I don't know what I'm saying. Anyway, he loves me. Not my ex BFF, who's sitting over there laughing his ass off. Love you too, Kurt, though you hate me because I've stolen Blainey."

Rachel knelt again, but now leaning down in order to ruffle Blaine's hair, this time just showing the depths of her cleavage. "Honey, you have to stop putting so much gel in that little head of yours."

Once she got on her feet, she carried on. "And today I had a revelation. It turns out that I'm not only a needy drunk, I am an incredibly honest drunk. So I want to share the feeling of having free realizations with you, my beloved fans. Pucky Puck, get up here, please, honey, darling, my Jew man."

He waved his hand. "Nah, Berry, it's your moment of glory, I don't want to steal it from you."

"Steal it from me the way Quinn stole Finn from me?! Boom!" she shouted, even producing feedback. "Revelation number one: that beautiful bitch, oh, sorry, I meant bride. That beautiful bride spent the last year flying over the Finchel's heads like a griffon vulture so she could wolf my leftovers down!"

"Why the hell isn't somebody taking her down?" Quinn asked, not even bothering to burst out in anger.

"Revelation number two: I sang Woman in love. Barbra's frigging Woman in love! In case you're not familiar with the whole I'm-a-star thing that's the biggest love declaration ever. It's practically like musical proposing! And you'd ask, then why would you propose to an already proposed man? Because I owed Finny one! Yes, I was supposed to be the bride today. I might have starred a pitiful scene this morning with my wedding dress while getting ready for this charade a.k.a. Finn and Quinn's wedding, but… whatever, Finny, I still love you."

Quinn stood up and headed to the stage. "Okay, I've had enough." She started pulling out of the wire.

"No! Censorship was abolished many years ago! Santana! Do something! Fuck Finn again to distract her!" Rachel shouted.

Everybody felt silent. The bride stood still with bloodshot eyes. Then she turned to her husband. "What is this lunatic saying?"

"No, no, no, no. I am not the lunatic here, Lucy Fabray. I am not the one who tried to ruin my mother's life by making her look like a bad mother just because she was banging an underage boy, who was the father of her adopted child. The same child she made with you!" She pointed accusingly at Quinn after a very echoing "you".

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" the blonde answered.

"And now, after the revelation hour and feeling extremely appropriate to my situation, I'm gonna sing one of the many solos that Mr. Shue, the man who lost his throne as king of the hair gel addicts last year, denied me. Hit it!" she said to the band. "Oh, sorry, the name of the song. Valerie. Amy Winehouse."

"Berry, sing a note of that song and I'll strangle you with the mic wire!" Santana threatened.

Quinn turned to Santana. "Maybe you're the one who will end the night strangled. What did the drunk just say?" she asked slowly.

"Are you menacing me, Fabray?" Santana stood up and faced the bride. "Because I'd have no problem going all Lima Heights on you."

Quinn slapped Santana as hard as she could. "You are my bridesmaid! You don't sleep with the man of the bride you're bridesmaiding for, you bitch!" She slapped her again, so strong that she made her fall to the ground.

Nobody moved, not even Rachel, who was having serious trouble standing on her feet. Nobody said a thing. They just watched Santana Lopez rolling on the grass, with her hand on her jaw.

Brittany was the one who got to break the silence, with tears filling her eyes. "Is it true?" She didn't give Santana the chance to deny Rachel's bomb, she ran away as fast as she could, crying loudly.

"Go." Quinn pointed at the same direction Brittany was fled to.

Santana, as proud as usual, stood up and walked away, not before winking an eye at Rachel. But when she was far enough from Quinn, she shouted, "and he's still being as lame in bed as he was when I deflowered him!"

Once Santana was gone, Quinn climbed on the stage, elbowed Rachel when she took the microphone out of her hands and talked to her guests. "Who wants dessert?!" Her big wide smile distracted everyone from the tension that was thickening the air. "You can keep embarrassing yourself," she said before throwing the microphone back at Rachel.

"With the followers I earned with your Disco Inferno thing, this is going to be so viral," Sam told Mercedes while turning off his phone.

"They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no, no, no!" Rachel sang acapella right before falling from the stage.

"Damn! You haven't recorded the best!" Mercedes said while punching Sam.