I hope this isn't too confusing for those who have never watched the show. Longer chapter this time. Thanks for the feedback on the last chapter. It is nice to know that you think this is well-written and interesting.
Shout out to JackkilisFaMo, who reviewed both of the previous chapter.s Thanks for taking the time ;)
To the guest reviewer, May, I answered your question at the bottom of chapter two :) and LOL at your comment about Finn! Hahaha!
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or the characters. I don't own Big Brother either, otherwise I'd be rich enough to make this a movie, instead of making it a lowly fic.
This was it. The competition that would set the tone for the rest of the summer...
It wasn't nearly as intimidating as many of the houseguests had thought it would be - two separate large rotating wooden boards, which peaked at the top of steel podiums, and were populated with red balloons that were adorned with the faces of the twelve houseguests.
Quinn gently nudged the warm body beside her; Rachel coincidentally. "Check out Puck's face," the hazel-eyed blonde sniggered, pointing out the picture's cheesy tooth-addled grin.
Rachel merely nodded, but gave nothing else. She was much too busy following the curve of the woman's pale arm, which ended at the bicep, where the short sleeve of the blonde's white t-shirt began.
The white t-shirt that had, Likes Girls, printed across it in bold black letters.
Quite different from Rachel's plain green t-shirt, with its silhouette of a kangaroo near the armpit.
"You know, you stare at me a lot," Quinn suddenly murmured, whilst the other houseguests were deciding who was going to read out the instruction card for the competition.
Rachel scoffed and trained her eyes on the apparatus that would determine the first Head Of Household. "We've been in this house for all of two minutes, so I hardly see how you've managed to calculate that I stare at you a lot."
"Look," Quinn sighed, her voice so much harder than it had been moments before, "I'm not sure where your 'tude is coming from. But it's pretty unnecessary. What's your problem?"
She could have easily slipped into teenage Quinn, the one that had ruled the hallways of McKinley High with a stony ice gaze and an iron fist. But she knew that that was only going to get her thrown out of the house too soon...
Rachel folded her arms. "I don't have an attitude, or a problem. I was merely highlighting that -"
"What?" Quinn cut in, for the sake of being argumentative.
"We'll... talk once the competition is done."
Quinn bobbed her head in a small nod, curious and a little confused. "You mean you wanna talk game? Or am I in some sort of trouble with you?"
Knowing that it was in her best interest to have as many friends as possible in the house, Rachel steered against her better judgement and hummed. "Now who has the attitude? Maybe I just wanted to discuss that t-shirt."
Quinn couldn't be sure that she hadn't just imagined the short brunette's subtle but playful smirk.
The woman was giving her whiplash.
"Listen up guys!" Sam suddenly shouted over the dwindling chit-chat.
With his chiseled pecs and serious six-pack out on display, he was stood, alone, before the eleven other houseguests, with the instructional card in hand. "This competition is called, 'Anger Management,'" he recited. "The aim is to throw a dart at, and pop the balloon with the face of the houseguest that you're competing against in any given round."
"You should enjoy this then," Quinn whispered Rachel's way.
"I'll have you know that I am not an angry person," the brunette shot back.
Quinn chuckled. "I hope I get to throw darts at your face."
"Shhh!" Emma hushed them, from behind.
Both Quinn and Rachel glanced back at the woman. And both Quinn and Rachel felt adequately chastised under the slightly creepy woman's big owlish brown eyes.
Sam had hesitated, and seemed to be waiting for their murmurs to cease.
"Continue," Will prompted.
"You will take throws in pairs. Out of the two competing houseguests, in any given round, the first to successfully pop the balloon with the other's face on it, will advance to the next round. The losing houseguest will be eliminated..." Sam paused at that point, to give his fellow houseguests a comical glare. "However, on the two rotating boards, amongst the red balloons, are green balloons, which contain prizes. If your dart pierces a green balloon, you will collect the prize, but you will have eliminated yourself, meaning that your opponent - by default - will advance to the next round." Sam nodded to himself as the rules of the competition captured a fixed position in his mind. "The first six houseguests to be eliminated will endure a diet of slop for the week, whilst the last six remaining houseguests will enjoy luxury food. And of course, the last remaining houseguest will be crowned the new Head Of Household. The first round of pairs are on the rounds board to your left, which will change as houseguests are eliminated."
"Wow, did you guys catch all of that?" Artie awed, pushing his glasses further up his nose.
"All of it," Jacob boasted. He'd seen similar competitions on previous seasons of the show. "Who's up first?" he chirped, craning his neck to look at the rounds board.
Santana rolled her eyes; the nerdy little graphic designer was annoying her already. She hadn't forgotten how he'd gazed at her wife, Brittany, earlier either...
Being an integral part of this year's first twist meant that she, along with Brittany, would have to throw this competition. But Santana hoped that she'd at least get a chance to eliminate the overly-confident little dweeb. Or that idiot, Puck.
"First up is Will and Tina," Sam declared with an excited grin. "Good luck guys," he told them, as they took their respective lanes, grabbed their darts, and aimed.
Tina was the first to toss her dart. It ricocheted at break-neck speed, wedging itself into the slowly turning wooden board, just inches from the balloon that had Will's face on it. She heard her fellow houseguests, behind her, gasp for how close she'd been, and took herself back to when she was a kid, playing darts out in the garage with her dad.
"Focus," she told herself, as she took another dart from the tray at hand, and brought back her wrist.
Just beside her, Will was taking much more care with his throw. He'd positioned the dart between thumb and index finger, loose but firm in his grip. His board slowly span, edging around until Tina's balloon was within shot.
At the perfect moment, seemingly, he wound his wrist back, and threw the dart. It soared through the air, ending its journey in the loud bang that popped the balloon with Tina's face on it.
Will smiled, wanting to break out and bust a move. But he wasn't an insensitive asshole, and when he glanced over and saw how crestfallen Tina looked, he was grateful for his self-restraint.
There was suddenly a clicking sound that drew all eyes towards the rounds board.
Tina had been eliminated, and Will had advanced.
She made her way over to the bench at the side of the garden, and sat down. She was the first of six houseguests who would be enduring a week of nothing to eat but slop. Great.
"Nice effort, Tina! You were so close!" Artie called through his palms, which he'd cupped around his mouth.
"Yeah, good job," Will offered, accompanying it with a small smile.
"You'll kick ass in the next comp," Puck put in, rubbing the back of his neck.
Quinn glanced at the man; maybe there was a nice considerate person in there after all.
"Next up's me and you bro," Sam said, nudging Finn, who looked like he had absolutely no idea what was going on.
"Here we go," Santana muttered disdainfully. If she had a nail file right about now, she would have been using it.
Finn quickly raced to the lane that Will had stood in, and Sam headed to Tina's. Both men hurried to grab their darts, the garden eerily quiet…
Sam tossed his dart with moderate force, but it bounced off of the edge of the spinning board, and rolled off in the grass.
Finn looked upon his opponent's failure, and grinned.
Then an idea struck him.
Nowhere in the instructions had it said that houseguests couldn't walk straight up to the balloons and pop them. The tall pale man's crafty grin grew larger as he simply walked the distance to the board, waited for Sam's balloon to spin towards him, and stuck the sharp end of the dart into it.
"Dude, what the fuck are you doing? That's cheating!" Puck piped up, pacing back and forth and shaking his head in disgust. "I hate cheaters, dude."
"Me too," Jacob added, not because he was outraged by Finn's infraction. But because he was smart enough to know that people held their morals and values dear, and that people liked you more if you agreed with them.
"It's not a big deal," Rachel chimed in, already bored of Puck's ridiculously high levels of testosterone. "Finn will be disqualified, and that'll be the end of it."
"Seconded," Brittany agreed, from where she was crouched down on the ground, limber and flexible.
Finn merely shrugged at Sam and looked at the rounds board.
Everybody followed his gaze, waiting for that confirming click…
Click!
"Hell yeah! That's what you get for cheating!" Puck gloated, once the rounds board had rearranged the names so that Finn had been eliminated and Sam had advanced to the next round.
Finn balled his fists and trudged over to the bench that Tina was sat on. He was a big guy. He needed his meat. He needed his food. As far as he was concerned he hadn't cheated. There was no line that had indicated where he should stand…
Actually, now that he looked…
"I can't believe I have to eat slop for a week," he mumbled, eyes narrowed at the blades of grass beneath his feet.
Though Tina didn't think that she would ever be fond of the man, she felt for him. He was such a big guy.
Sam pumped his fist in the air. He joined a clapping Will on the winner's bench, celebrating his arrival with a loud hi-five.
Puck smirked when he saw that the next round consisted of him versus Quinn. He looked at her. "Looks like we're – whoa, how did I not see that t-shirt before? You just got, like, a million times hotter, and you were already really fucking hot!"
"It was the first shirt I grabbed from my bag," Quinn stoically answered, heading towards one of the lanes.
"But it's still your shirt," Puck said, grinning lewdly as he walked towards the other lane. "So, still really fucking hot!"
"Language!" Emma scolded with an irritated click of the tongue.
Not that Puck was even listening.
Quinn pulled the scrunchie that held her ponytail even tighter, and glared the tan man down. She had to create an air of determination. She had to make it look like she actually wanted to win this competition, when the truth was that… she didn't.
The blonde knew enough about Big Brother to know that the first Head Of Household always became the house's target after making their nominations and having someone sent home the first week. She didn't want that kind of attention. She didn't want the houseguests to know that she was a fierce physical competitor – that she had been Head Cheerleader for years. She didn't want to get any blood on her hands… just yet, and she didn't want anybody coming after her next week because she'd evicted their companion in the house this week.
So she was going to throw the competition, in the hopes that she wouldn't be nominated by whoever it was that was fated to win. If she was, she'd just have to win the Golden Power Of Veto competition, and take herself off of the chopping block.
Somebody else could be the first HOH.
In all truth, she was going to be aiming her dart at one of the green balloons. The one that contained the luxurious prize of twenty-five-thousand dollars…
Selecting her dart, she poised herself to throw it, waiting as the board twirled.
Puck did the same. But he threw his dart before her.
It ended up missing its target, much in the same way as Sam's dart had.
"Fuck," Puck cursed under his breath. "Why'd I have to be the one to pop the hottest chick's face?" he grumbled, selecting another dart from the tray.
Just beside him, Quinn's heart was thrumming beneath the cool calm exterior of her t-shirt. She knew that she couldn't be obvious about throwing the competition. If she failed to be discreet, her fellow houseguests would deem her to be underhand and untrustworthy. They'd think that she was playing the game too hard, deem her a threat, and the target on her back would inevitably grow.
She couldn't have that. So she waited until Puck's balloon came around, pretended to lose her balance, and flung her dart – with all of her might.
By some act of God it struck the green balloon that she had intended it to strike, and a loud bang, followed by a puff of confetti, erupted.
"Fuck!" she grunted, planting her hands on her hips in feigned defeat.
"You just won twenty-five-thousand dollars though! Not too shabby!" Artie tried to placate her, and not just because she was hot. But because the blonde seemed genuinely disappointed.
"He's right. Take the loss like a champ," Brittany added.
"I know, but it's gonna suck, being on slop," Quinn answered, trudging over to the slop bench to sit beside Tina and a sulky Finn. She could handle a week of slop. She'd always thought that she could stand to slim her hips down anyway. Now was her chance to do it. Plus, who'd choose to be on slop? The houseguests wouldn't suspect that she'd thrown the competition in a million years…
However, Rachel was not convinced by the blonde's performance, and neither was Jacob.
But neither said a thing.
The rounds board clicked, showing that Puck had advanced and that Quinn had been eliminated.
"That twenty-five big boys sounds supreme. But at least Puckzilla is still in the game!" Puck hyped himself up, approaching the winner's bench.
"Brittany and Rachel - you're up!" Will declared.
Brittany winked at the brunette that was her competition, knowing that she was about to throw the round in the short woman's favor. "I hope you're ready," she told her as she stood and approached the lane that was closest.
Rachel chuckled, her entire face accentuated by mirth's touch.
"So you can smile!" Quinn pointed out. "Who would've thought it?"
"Be quiet, you," Rachel quipped, walking towards her lane to collect her dart. "I need to focus, because some of us actually want to win."
"Burn!" Santana sniggered.
Quinn's eyelids flickered with incredulous. But she kept her mouth closed.
"That was definitely a burn," Emma said, gazing at the blonde in pity.
Rachel shrugged a shoulder, and aimed for the balloon with Brittany's face on it. "I was kidding, Quinn. You needn't be offended," she said, hurling the dart.
Before Brittany could even contemplate throwing hers, Rachel's zipped through the air, and made a loud bang of the blonde's defeat.
"Are you kidding me?" Brittany groaned, before shrugging and heading to the slop bench. "What's up with you and the little person?" she asked Quinn, once seated.
It took Quinn a moment to make sense of what she was being asked. "I... don't think she's a little person, Brittany. But, to answer your question, nothing's up. She's..."
"I like your t-shirt," Brittany interrupted, having already received the answer to her previous question...
Santana versus Jacob Ben Israel was a peculiar affair. Neither of them wanted to be on slop. But neither of them wanted to be the Head Of Household either. Jacob, for reasons much too similar to Quinn's. Santana, because she was supposed to throw the competition for the sake of the twist.
In the end it came down to Santana's love for food. She eliminated the stuffy-voiced little dweeb, banished him to the slop bench, and joined the others on the winner's bench.
She'd make certain that she lost in the next round though.
Artie and Emma were the next two houseguests to step up. After Emma's miss, Artie's dart struck the balloon which contained an all-expenses paid holiday in Hawaii, seeing the quiet redhead advance to round two. And seeing him secure the final spot on the slop bench.
Round two kicked into swing moments later.
Will and Sam were the first pair. The houseguests on both benches remained silent, knowing that the two men would really need to focus, because Big Brother had sped up the rotation of the spinning boards, requiring even more skill from the competitors than before.
There were several near misses, with gasps to go along with them. But it was Sam who prevailed in the end.
With a sportsman-like chuckle, Will shook the surfer's hand and went to stand over by the slop bench, which was full by this point.
Puck and Rachel were to compete next.
Now that she was not at risk of being on slop all week, Rachel was prepared to throw the competition. There was another green balloon that contained twenty-five-thousand dollars.
Twenty-five-thousand dollars that she could put towards the medical bills that her fathers were drowning in.
There were darts flying at all angles. They were lucky that the lanes were separated by a column of transparent plastic.
Puck was on his fourth throw when his dart accidentally popped the very balloon that Rachel had been hoping to hit on her own board.
"Hell yeah! Twenty-five big ones!" Puck hollered in celebration, seemingly forgetting that he'd simultaneously eliminated himself from the competition.
Either that or he didn't care.
Rachel's jaw set tight as she internally huffed at her advancement to round three. She didn't want to be the Head Of Household. Not this week - the first week. Not when there was a twist - that could do her game more harm than good - looming around the corner.
Julie had said that all was not as it seemed. Wanting to win HOH with that looming over the house was, quite frankly, insane.
Even so, Rachel took out her show smile, dusted it off, and put it on for the houseguests that were singing her congratulations.
The last bout of the second round consisted of Emma versus Santana.
The increased speed of the spinning boards was problematic for both women, though they both had contrasting agendas.
This round wasn't Santana's last opportunity to throw the competition. But she just wanted it over and out of the way, so she poised herself, and threw her dart, hoping that it would pierce the green balloon which contained the trip to Barbados, for two.
It didn't.
Instead, the dart sliced through the balloon which contained a slop pass, for the entire summer.
"Yay!" Emma squealed. "I win!"
"This is bullshit!" Santana complained, though she cunningly smirked inside.
"At least you won't ever have to be on slop for the entire time you're here," Finn grumbled. "I wanna win a slop pass."
"Quit your belly achin', Goliath," Santana quipped, bored.
Quinn muffled her nasal snort with her palm. But with the way that her mirth shook her shoulders, she might as well have laughed out loud.
"Quit laughing," Finn spat, petulant.
Of course, that had just caused Quinn's laughter to carry her even further into her fit...
The third and final round saw Sam take on Rachel. Not that she was much competition. The pale muscular young man didn't even give the brunette a chance to throw, before he had popped her balloon.
But she wasn't complaining.
As Sam handstand-walked around the garden in celebration, the other houseguests took note. They took note the blonde's rippling muscular stature, and they took note of the fact that he was one throw away from becoming Head Of Household. They took note, and they all - individually - came to the conclusion that Sam was one to watch out for...
Soon after, he returned to his lane, waited for the spinning boards to reset the balloons, and wished Emma - his final opponent - good luck.
The quiet woman merely smiled at him, which he thought was some kind of intimidation tactic, or something.
When the balloons had reset, the boards that they were attached to began to spin faster than ever, slowing down in intervals in order to confuse both Sam and Emma's aim.
It worked for two whole minutes, darts flying everywhere and missing. Until the wind blew something into Sam's eye, and Emma timed her throw right.
Silver and gold confetti rained down on the entire garden, eliciting giggles and congratulations from the other houseguests.
Emma eyed the people around her as they gathered up piles of the gleaming confetti, and tossed it over one another, like kids out in the snow. She wasn't smiling. In fact, she was wondering who deserved to go up on the chopping block, and leave come Friday...
"Congrats Emma," Sam said, still rubbing the eye that was giving him trouble.
"Thank you Sam."
Would all houseguests promptly gather on the sofas, a masculine voice suddenly boomed.
Big Brother's monotone mechanical voice.
Once the houseguests had returned to the house, shrugged out of their competition attire, and gathered on the sofas, the TV screen above the fireplace flickered on for the second time that evening.
Julie appeared on screen again, instantly hushing all conversations in the house.
"Shit, what now?" Puck muttered, receiving a silencing nudge from Emma.
"Hello again, houseguests," Julie began, her face much more serious than it had been the last time that she'd spoken to the house. "First off, congratulations Emma for winning the first HOH competition. You may move your things up to the luxurious HOH room shortly."
"Thank you Julie," Emma said, blushing as she peered up at the screen.
"You're welcome. Now, earlier I told you all to expect the unexpected. I also told you that all is not as it seems..."
"Yeah," a few of the houseguests uttered, urging the beautiful Asian host to continue.
"Well, what if I was to tell you all that there are two people, sitting amongst you at this very moment, who knew each other before they entered the house?"
So casually had Julie dropped the bomb. But none of the houseguests were taking the news lightly. Numerous pairs of eyes darted back and forth, filled with unbridled suspicion.
Rachel sat there, bleeding her memory dry for anything that would reveal the identity of the two people who would undoubtedly be working as a team, against the rest of the houseguests.
Against her.
She immediately thought about Quinn. Though she wasn't, at all, sure why.
"Well houseguests, there are two people sitting amongst you, who already know each other. In fact, they're married," Julie revealed, smirking.
In that moment, there were gasps - and not just for the obvious reason. Certain houseguests had had a romantic eye on other houseguests. But now that the M word had been dropped...
"M-Married?" Tina stuttered, surveying everybody.
"Nobody's wearing a wedding ring," Quinn added, frowning to herself.
Both Santana and Brittany very stealthily scanned the faces, and ring fingers, of their fellow houseguests, as if curious to know who the impostures were, like everybody else.
"Yes, Tina. Married," Julie replied. "Emma, as you are the Head Of Household, you will nominate two of your fellow houseguests in two days, as normal."
Emma nodded, awaiting the oh so obvious, 'but,' that was sure to follow.
"But the two houseguests that you select to face eviction must be the two who you think are the married couple. If you nominate both of them successfully, then those two houseguests will go up on the block, and one of them will be evicted on Friday, as there will be no Power Of Veto competition. However, if you fail to nominate them both, you and a houseguest of the secret couple's joint choosing will go up on the block, subsequently facing eviction on Friday."
Emma's nod was an absent one. She felt, well... screwed, because she had no idea who the secret couple were.
Right then and there, she decided that she would individually call each houseguest up to her HOH room, and interrogate them, just as she always interrogated the children at her nursery when they'd done something wrong, and lied about it.
Quinn ran her hand over her face, putting her brain under immense pressure to figure out who the secret couple were. She, like everyone else, wanted to know so that she could befriend them, and potentially escape their one nomination if Emma failed to successfully nominate them. Or maybe she could figure out who the couple were, make a deal with them, and throw Emma off of the scent, so that the couple would owe her a favor and keep her around in the following weeks.
There were so many options. So many holes to get one's foot caught in...
It was the first night, and the game was already stressing Quinn out. She just hoped that they wouldn't have to cart her out in a straitjacket.
"Come on, married couple. Reveal yourselves," Puck joked, swishing his arms about like he was a wizard casting a spell.
That broke some of the tension in the room - even scored a few laughs. But other than that, the houseguests, bar Brittany and Santana, were riddled with suspicion and paranoia... which was just how Big Brother wanted it.
"Until next time houseguests, enjoy the rest of your night."
With that, the TV screen flickered off...
I really hope you liked it.