Please, don't call me crazy when you read this one, just call me creative.


24. Lord Tubbington

"Heya, girl!" the cat said while walking into Brittany's room. He climbed upon his owner's bed, rubbing his back against the sheets. "Oh, home sweet home."

Brittany sat on the bed and scratched her cat's belly. "How's been your trip? You smell…" The girl sniffed her pet until she found a patch of burned fur. "No! Don't tell me you've started with your arson thing again! I can't let you go on vacation! You always go wild when I'm not watching you!"

Lord Tubbington put his paws behind his head and closed his eyes. "I didn't start the fire, those kids in the playground did. I just gave them the lighter. But what about you?" he said after a brief pause. "I know I should've called you, but some old ladies stole my phone and I can't reach payphones."

"Those fossils with their canes and their 'want-a-candy-little-girl?' are the worst." Brittany pulled the cat into her lap, stroking his back. "I… I broke up with Santana, Tubbing."

The cat turned his head to look up at Brittany's face. "You finally dumped La Reina Zorra? Thank God, girl. What was it? She and her band scammed you a bag of sand?"

"She didn't steal your sand!"

"So now bags of sand can speak and grow their own legs to walk away?"

Brittany blushed. "I might have… tried your way of living…"

"Gross, Brittany. Gross." The cat jumped off the girl's lap. "Putting aside the fact that you pooped in my box, tell me what that bitch did."

"Stop calling her that," Brittany replied. "She lied to me. And… she might have found a new best friend."

Lord Tubbington stopped licking his intimate parts in order that he could answer the blonde properly. "Honey, I've never liked that girl. She's too slutty for you. You deserve someone who takes care of you 24/7. Actually, you don't deserve that kind of person, you need it. Why don't you come back with the wheelchair boy? He always let me ride his machine while you two made love."

"I love her, Tubbing." Brittany looked down at her feet, trying not to break down. "She's my Tana."

"But you're telling me she's another one's Tana too, so unless you want a condominium with that other person, why don't you try someone else?" The cat frowned. "Oh my God, I feel like I'm one of those online dating sites for ugly people and sexual predators."

"I just told you I love her."

Lord Tubbington rolled his eyes. "I won't sing. I won't dance. I won't give her a contemporary poetry recital. So tell me what the hell you want me to say to the mamasita that keeps refusing to make me churros."

"I'm not talking to her. I'm still mad." Brittany arched her eyebrows, trying to reassure herself of her own feelings.

"Oh, please, you don't need a Spears revelation to realize that you're just playing the victim card on her. As your cat/conscience/manager, I command you to stick a love letter under my collar and open the front door. British food is shit and I can't fit through the cathole."

"Manager?"

"Yes, I got you that solo for Sectionals. Negotiation was hard, so you better not talk about penis wounds in front of Mr. Shue."


That Thursday Santana Lopez woke up screaming at midday. The last thing she expected to happen was to have a paw stepping on her right nipple. "What the fuck?!" That morning she learnt two things. The first one: stop sleeping in the nude. The second one: if a cat of the size of Lord Tubbington could sneak into her house, any 10-year-old burglar could.

She read the letter that the cat was carrying, and once she dried the tears off her face and fulfilled all the daily hygiene duties, she put the cat into her trunk and drove to the school.

Santana Lopez was used to turning heads when she walked down the hallways of William McKinley High School, but not because she had an overweight cat attached to a leash. And the fact that she was pulling on the leash and Lord Tubbington was dragging his back on the floor didn't help give the scene a little bit of dignity.

"What's up, Lopez? You finally decided to do something useful with your lame life and you started trading jaguars across the border with Mexico?" Becky Jackson said when she ran into the girl and the animal.

"Hey," Santana said when she arrived at Brittany's locker.

The blonde closed the locker and knelt down to release the cat. She hugged Lord Tubbington and stood, looking into Santana's eyes. "Why did you make him wear a dog leash?!" she asked with a chuckle.

"It's not a dog leash actually. It's a… let's just cut straight to the chase, okay?" Santana decided to skip the part of her using a sex toy to transport the pet of the most important person in her life. She took the letter out of her pocket and unfolded the sheet of notebook paper. "You, bitch," she started reading, "you know that you've hurt Brittany, right? Because in case you don't know, A) you'd be a total dick B) I'll teach you the lesson my way. I've convinced her to forgive you, so she's determined to give you another chance. But you have to make me churros or you'll find out that I wipe my furry ass with your Lima Heights threats. Signed: Lord Edward Tubbington." Santana looked up with a smile on her face. "Paw print."

Brittany blushed as she scratched her cat behind his ear. "I didn't know he would get so violent, but… you know, he just wants to protect me."

Santana didn't say anything about the unicorns drawn on the margins of the letter. "He's doing a great progression with his spelling. He doesn't mix 'will' and 'would' anymore."

"He kinda forgot to say that I loved you."

And the brunette saw the cutest face ever seen on a public high school. The face of a girl in love. A girl trying not to look desperate. A girl dying to kiss the only person who truly understood her. A girl in love with her best friend. The most beautiful face Santana Lopez had ever seen.

They kissed, squeezing the cat between them until Lord Tubbington jumped to the floor.

Sebastian was standing leaning on his locker, watching the romantic moment from afar. "You fancy them too, right?" Jacob Ben Israel whispered into the former Warbler's ear. "You know, we could go to the bathroom and help each other. Give each other a hand, if you know what I mean."

"There's a line that divides disgust from perversion. You live far away from all that stuff in a place called pathological sexual disorder," Sebastian answered while pushing him away.

"I should have joined New Directions a long time ago," the reporter said to himself.

"Get a room, lovebirds," Sebastian told the girls when he walked next to them, offering Santana a big smile and a wink. "Aw!" he yelled when Lord Tubbington bit his ankle.

Brittany picked the cat up. "Sorry, he's trying to quit eating human flesh."


Artie and Tina went together to Glee Club. Once they made things up, everything came back to normal between them both. "Do you think it's true?" Artie asked while his friend pushed him.

"Blaine told Sam, Sam told Rory, Rory told Sugar, Sugar told Brittany and Brittany thought she was sending Santana a make-up sext but she sent it to me. He's back," Tina answered.

When they stepped into the full classroom, their eyes shot wide open. "Come on, boys, take a seat, we've got a lot to rehearse," Will invited them in. "You might be having a déjà vu, but no, these are real," the teacher said while pointing at a pile of mattresses in one of the corners of the choir room. "Tomorrow we'll be having a pre-match preparation, like pro sportsmen."

"A sleepover in here?" Sam asked.

"We'll be rehearsing until late night and we'll wake up early and…" Mr. Shue answered.

"Sing till my vocal chords get on fire," Rachel rolled her eyes.

Tina leaned in, looking at Rachel, who was on the other side of the room. "Hey, Berry, is it true that you have a new old boyfriend?"

"Is it true that Mr. Anderson can't make it work in bed?" Artie added.

"Nothing happened between Jesse and me. And Blaine and I are just friends. Good friends," she smiled as she held the boy's hand. "And, Tina, Brittany's cat is the best twelfth member you could get?"

Will intervened, "girls, don't start again, please. I pulled some strings and I got us the vocalist we needed."

"Please, don't say it is the Jewfro." Sebastian sighed.

Santana raised her hand. "Yes?" Will let her talk.

"A thousand bucks on Finn. Could you be more obvious, Mr. Shue?" She laughed loudly. "I'm a trend setter."

"You owe me one grand, lips," Jesse St. James said while walking into the choir room.

The boys muted. They just blinked and muted. Even Rachel. "Oh my God."

"Mr. Shue, didn't we learn anything from the last time Mr. St. James joined us?" Artie asked really upset.

"I have a contract that prevents me from desertion, espionage and egg-aggression," Jesse answered the boy in the wheelchair.

"A contract?" Rachel asked. "Jesse, what's all this about? Why didn't you tell me yesterday?" In her mind, the only things she could think of were baby birds dying on her head and unexpected kisses messing up her relationship with Finn. Just when she had made up her mind about the Blaine issue.

"When I told Mrs. Corcoran about our problem," Will started talking again, "she pulled her own strings as well and…"

"She promised me the lead on her musical if I joined you while you find your last loser." Jesse brought the contract out of his leather jacket and showed it to the kids. "Signed by Shelby, your beloved Mr. Shue and myself. And there are just three clauses." Jesse started reading, "first: Mr. Jesse St. James commits himself to perform with the choir of William McKinley High School, the New Directions in every single competition in case they cannot reach the minimum number of performers stated in the show choir rulebook. Second: Mr. Jesse St. James bla bla bla, can't leak any info about your setlist or that stuff to Vocal Adrenaline bla bla. And third: I sing a solo, Rachel Barbra Berry sings another solo and we close the show with a duet of me and Rachel while you back us up. Translation to all of you deaf and mortal people: that's a win."

There were a few seconds of astonishment just before Santana threw Brittany's cat at Jesse's head. "Get the fuck out of here!"