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ellydashTitle: Let Nothing You Dismay (3/5)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellydash
Characters: Sue Sylvester, Terri Schuester, Kurt Hummel, Rachel Berry, Finn Hudson, Will Schuester, Jean Sylvester, Brittany Pierce, Artie Abrams, Tina Cohen-Chang, Noah Puckerman
Rating: PG-13
Warnings for this chapter: None
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 3,191
Note: Third of five chapters.
Summary: Three spirits take Sue Sylvester to visit Christmases past, present and future. A Glee-flavored retelling of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol."
Chapter One: Wherein Kurt Hummel Extends an Invitation and Immediately Regrets It; Rachel Berry and Finn Hudson are Good – if Ineffective and Misguided – Samaritans; Sue Sylvester Receives an Unexpected Visitor
Chapter Two: Wherein a Spirit that Bears A Striking Resemblance to Kurt Hummel Escorts Sue Sylvester through Previous Christmases, and Sue Sylvester is Not Happy, but Then Again, When is She, Honestly
Chapter Three: Wherein the Brittany Pierce of Christmas Present Redecorates Sue’s Spare Bedroom; Rachel Berry Convenes a Meeting with Puck, Artie and Tina; Finn Hudson Invites a Reluctant Will Schuester to Christmas Dinner at the Hummel-Hudson’s.
Sue Sylvester has a motto: be prepared. Someday she plans to get it stitched on a sampler. This sampler will also feature an embroidered rendering of her face.
Recently, Becky Jackson’s informed her that there’s a Disney villain, some kind of tiger or gerbil or something, who shares her philosophy. Sue’s considering adding this film to her Netflix queue, once she gets around to grilling Becky for more details, but Predator takes priority. She needs inspiration to spice up her bear trap blueprint.
Under normal circumstances, when dead people aren’t showing up in her living room, this motto works for Sue. It currently seems to be collapsing around her, joining Will Schuester’s dreams of being relevant in the trash heap of nice-try-no-cigar.
This time, when she wakes up, it’s to Nat King Cole’s voice.
Sue grabs her phone, looking for the time. 1:23am. She has the odd sense that she’s overslept.
Everybody knows, a turkey and some mistletoe, Nat croons, somewhere nearby, will help to make the season bright. Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow, will find it hard to sleep tonight.
“Yeah,” Sue mutters, “because the little snot-rags waterlogged themselves with turkey. Probably ate the mistletoe, too.” She swings herself out of bed, rubbing her eyes, and follows Nat’s voice down the short hallway. The door to her spare bedroom is closed, but light borders its edges, and she can hear Nat coming from inside. She closes her hand around the knob, and doesn't hesitate: she turns it, and pushes in.
It’s still her spare bedroom. But just barely.
First of all, there’s flocked snow everywhere, and it’s Pepto-Bismol pink. The mattress on the spare bed’s been wrapped in wrapping paper – featuring repeated images of cats wearing Santa hats – and the pillows are gone, replaced with giant gold ribbons. There’s a tree in the corner next to the dresser, and it’s also flocked pink, groaning with the weight of what looks like Sears’ ornament discount bin. Purple paper snowflakes dangle from the ceiling. And Nat is still singing. Somewhere.
The last thing Sue notices, once she’s processed the system shock of finding her spare bedroom transformed into what looks like the set of Barbie Does Santa, is that there’s a ladder propped up against the wall by the window – and Brittany Pierce is on it. She’s wearing her Cheerios uniform, and the bright red of it is like a visual assault on the pink flocking she’s managed to get stuck in her hair.
Brittany smiles at her, slowly, with what looks like real pleasure. “Hi, Sue,” she says, swinging slightly on her ladder. “I got here a little early and then I thought I’d let you sleep in while I made your house Christmassy. I haven’t finished yet. I still have glitter. And I figure maybe I’ll add some baby dogs to go with the cats on the wrapping paper, except the baby dogs would be alive.”
“You’re not Brittany.” Even discounting what she’d gathered from the bizarro Kurt Hummel experience, she knows something’s just a little off about this girl: the real Brittany’s never used Sue’s first name. Sure, she’d spent several months calling Sue “Coach DeGeneres,” after a sick day watching Ellen’s show had left her convinced that the two were the same person – and there was that one weird, nauseating moment last year when Brittany, possibly concussed after a collapsed pyramid, had looked up at Sue’s looming face and said, “I’m sorry I dropped the spoon, Mom” – but never her first name.
“No,” the facsimile agrees, pleasantly. “I’m not. I’ve been practicing, though. I did a headstand for seventeen minutes when I first got here, and when I stood upright again it was like I was underwater. I’m pretty sure the door talked.” She reaches into a little pouch dangling off her hip, and grabs a handful of gold glitter; tosses it into the air. “Ooh,” she murmurs, watching it cascade to the ground.
“Glitter,” Sue proclaims, pointing at the little glinty bits now decorating her carpet, “offends me on a cosmetic, aesthetic and moral level. What you’ve done to this room as a whole is decorative assault. Which, if I had anything to say about it, would be punishable by continued exposure to Paula Deen and her deep-fried abominations from caloric hell.”
Imitation Brittany looks at her, still smiling slightly, unperturbed. Whomever – whatever’s behind that smile isn’t nearly as good at inhabiting Brittany Pierce as Not Kurt Hummel was at his role. There’s a sharpness behind Imitation Brittany’s eyes that’s perennially missing from the real girl. Maybe a little understanding, too.
Sue fidgets, just a little, under that smile.
“Don’t you have somewhere to take me?” she barks. “Let’s get this over with.”
Imitation Brittany hops to the floor, with a smooth jump that betrays her athleticism. “I thought you’d never ask,” she says, crossing the room, and she holds out her hand to Sue, just like Not Kurt had the night before. “Let’s go say hi to a few people.”
This time, she’s pretty sure she takes the offered hand, because she can feel the girl’s cold fingers wrap tightly around her own, but she can’t be positive. Her vision’s darkening. She thinks she sees her room peeling, strips of pink-flocked wall curling down like fruit.
__
Sue hears Rachel Berry first, before the room blushes to life in front of her eyes. (She finds it utterly remarkable that a girl with such prodigious singing talent has what Sue believes may be the most annoying speaking voice on the planet, after Kelly Ripa.)
Rachel’s sitting – no, not sitting, holding court – at the head of an unremarkable dining room table. To her left, Noah Puckerman slouches in his chair, a lazy half-smile tweaking the corner of his mouth. On her right: two kids Sue knows instinctively belong to Schuester, even if she doesn’t remember their names. They’re wearing his perennial hangdog expression like it’s been bred into their incestuous glee club gene pool.
“Artie and Tina,” Imitation Brittany reminds her, pointing. “And that’s Puck.”
“I know Puckerman,” Sue informs her. “Intimately.”
Brittany crinkles her forehead in confusion.
“He got assigned to my gym for clean-up detention a couple months ago. I was bored. And don’t you dare judge me – I’m pretty sure he’s at least twenty-six.” She moons at Puck, briefly, then refocuses. “What the hell are we doing here? Where are we?”
“Rachel Berry’s house.”
“God, it’s like Pottery Barn threw up its discounted 2005 collection in here. Isn’t Berry the unholy spawn of gay men? Did Bravo and Kurt Hummel's tumblr lie to me about the correlation between gayness and fabulous taste? Gary Busey’s coke salon had better décor.”
“I would like,” Berry’s saying, primly, “to thank you all for coming today. Especially you, Noah, as I understand you had to make an extra effort by clearing this visit with your parole officer.”
“Ain’t no thing,” Puck drawls.“All in the name of Jew solidarity.” He pounds his chest with his fist, twice, and raises it.
“That’s the Black Power salute,” Artie clarifies.
Puck glares at him. “Dude, just ‘cause we’re trying out this James Dean/McLovin friend mashup thing doesn’t mean you get to correct me in front of chicks.”
Artie looks at Tina, mouths McLovin? Really? Tina smiles a little and rolls her eyes, although it’s not really clear who she’s exasperated by, Puck or Artie. Maybe both.
“Um, Rachel?” she asks, hesitantly. “I’ve got to get back home in like, an hour, so maybe you could tell us why it’s so important that we’re here. On Christmas day.”
Rachel straightens in her chair, her posture so perfect even Sue, watching with narrowed eyes, can’t find much fault with it. “Tina, that’s precisely why I’ve asked the three of you here. This time of year, when we’re being bombarded with Santas and church pamphlets and Christmas carols – carols especially –it’s so important to surround ourselves with our community. Therefore, I propose we form, even for just this one day, an offshoot of glee club dedicated to expressing Jewish faith, customs and traditions through song.” She gestures towards the hefty stack of sheet music in front of her. “I’ve collected what I believe are some of the most significant works produced by the Jewish people, everything from songs of prayer to modern Israeli groups to Simon and Garfunkel.”
“You know who’s a Jew?” Puck says, brightly, and waits for someone to guess. When no one does, he declares, “Dee Snider. Dee Snider from Twisted Sister is a Jew. Got any Twisted Sister in there? I would totally be down to sing some Twisted Sister.”
Rachel glares at him.
“Um.” Artie chews on his lower lip. “Are you saying you asked us here to sing Jewish stuff ‘cause you think we’re Jews?”
Sue’s rolling her eyes so hard they’ve nearly rotated to the back of her head.
“Aren’t you?” Rachel asks him, and looks at Tina. “I mean, Tina, part of your last name is Cohen, and Artie, your last name is Abrams, so I just assumed –”
“Not Jewish,” Artie says. “I mean, I’m down with the Jews and all. I’ve got some Matisyahu on my iPod. But my folks are twice-a-year Protestants.”
“And my dad’s Jewish, I guess,” Tina adds, “but I don’t think he’s ever practiced. My mom’s pretty into Christianity, so that’s the way I was raised.”
“DONE,” Sue yells, throwing her hands up, and turns to Imitation Brittany. “I’m done. It's like watching the Nuremberg Trials, only with more references to Jews and less appealing people. Did I die and it turns out hell is actually Rachel Berry’s dining room?”
“No,” Brittany says, seriously. “Just a few more minutes. Watch.”
Tina’s standing up. “Look, Rachel, I appreciate that you invited me over, but – I really need to get home.”
“You said you had an hour,” Rachel insists. She’s pushing the sheet music away, just a bit. “We don’t really need to sing Jewish songs. I’m sorry I made those assumptions. We could – hang out. Do something you like to do.”
“Honestly,” Tina tells her, quietly, “what I’d like to do right now is be home.”
“Read between the lines, Rachel,” Puck stage-whispers. “She’s trying to tell you she doesn’t want to hang out with you ‘cause you’re pushy and loud and your favorite person is yourself and no one really likes you, except for Finn, and I’m pretty sure even he’s getting kinda tired of you.”
Rachel’s face falls. Sue’s not going to waste any energy feeling emotions on behalf of Rachel Berry, of all people. She’s just not. Especially when Puckerman’s right about the pushy and loud and unlikable thing. Even when Berry’s got a look on her like someone told her Barbra Streisand ruptured her vocal chords. Even then.
“They came over ‘cause I asked them,” Puck continues.
“I didn’t say that, any of that,” Tina cuts in. “Rachel, I just –”
“Don’t.” Rachel glares at Puck, and it’s not chastisement like earlier, it’s anger, real anger. “Don’t bother. You know, all of you are terribly quick to rush to Kurt’s aid when he’s getting kicked around by the neanderthals on the football team. You make a lot of pretty speeches about bullying on his behalf. What did I hear you say last week, Artie? ‘They hate us for being who we are.’ Wasn’t that it?”
“Yeah,” Artie mutters.
There are tears in Rachel’s eyes, and she’s blinking them back furiously. “Go home. All of three of you. Artie and Tina, you go celebrate Christmas with your families, and Puck, you eat Chinese food and watch reruns of Cagney and Lacey with your mother like you do every year. And you think about this: with the exception of Finn Hudson – and I don’t care what you say, Noah Puckerman, Finn loves me – all of you bully me. Just as much as the rest of the school does. You hate me for being who I am.”
“Hey,” Puck tries, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Rachel –”
“Get out,” she spits, and twists away from him.
They do, Puck pushing Artie through the archway, Tina looking back at Rachel like she wants to apologize but isn’t sure it’s the right thing to do.
And then it’s just Rachel Berry and her sheet music: Rachel and Sue and Imitation Brittany. Rachel’s going to cry, now; Sue’s sure. It’s going to be awkward and noisy and make Sue even more uncomfortable than she already is.
Rachel doesn’t cry. She puts her hands over her face, just for a moment, and breathes in, deeply.
“Focus on the goal, Rachel,” she says, to the empty room, and when she drops her hands her eyes are hard. “Focus on the goal.”
The thought blooms before Sue can check it, or the emotion that accompanies it: a little flood of approval. Good girl, Berry.
“DONE,” sings Brittany, in a perfect replication of Sue’s earlier announcement, and she grabs Sue’s arm, her cold fingers tugging.
Rachel and her dining room crinkle, break, contract, evaporate.
__
Will Schuester’s couch is missing.
Sue’s never seen the inside of her nemesis’s apartment, but she’s got an olfactory system on her that rivals Helen Keller’s, and she knows, before her eye catches Schuester curled up in an overstuffed recliner, that this sad little home belongs to Will. It smells just like him, like desperation and earnestness and collapse and the sharp, sweet scent of pomade. Her nose wrinkles in revulsion.
She knows the couch is missing because it’s left behind a dark impression on the carpet, a rectangular ghost of what used to be there. Of course the couch is missing. Even if Will might’ve salvaged the cushions, it’d take a certain special kind of masochist to keep the piece of furniture on which your wife killed herself. Even Will, who – if we’re completely being honest –has taken up with religious enthusiasm the doctrine of Poor Me; even Will wouldn’t do that to himself.
The doorbell rings, and Will, looking somewhat apprehensive, closes his book (a biography of Fanny Brice), leaving it on the arm of the chair. When he crosses the living room, he refrains, very noticeably, from looking at the vacant real estate in the middle of the floor.
Imitation Brittany’s humming, under her breath. It takes Sue a second to recognize the tune: God rest ye merry, gentlemen; let nothing you dismay.
She hears, but can’t quite see, Finn Hudson at the door. “Hey, Mr. Schue. Merry Christmas. Mind if I come in for a minute?”
“Not at all, Finn,” Will says. He sounds exhausted. “Merry Christmas to you too. Come on in. Can I get you anything hot to drink? Tea, hot chocolate? It’s pretty darn freezing out there.”
“Nah, thanks.” Finn walks into the living room, twisting his bomber hat between his hands, his face red from the cold. Will closes the door, his hand resting on it briefly – for support? Sue doesn’t know how to interpret that gesture. Not that she cares, really.
Finn looks at the vacant spot where the couch was, opens his mouth to ask a question, and then shuts it, quickly. Not completely stupid and tactless, then, Sue thinks, conveniently ignoring the very real possibility that, had she been in Finn Hudson’s place, she would’ve made some sharp comment, just for the cheap pleasure of seeing that look of hurt flush Will’s face. (She’s never been picky about the difficulty of her conquests. She doesn’t relish a challenge, just a victory.)
“How can I help you, Finn?” Will asks, smiling faintly at him.
“So is this really what you’re doing for Christmas, Mr. Schue?” Finn blurts, gesturing towards the recliner and book. “You’re sitting by yourself reading when you could be with people who, you know, care about you?”
“I like reading. It’s not the worst way to spend a day off. And frankly, Finn, with the exception of yourself I’m not sure that dinner with your mom and you and Kurt and his dad would be surrounding myself with people who ‘care about me.’ But I really do appreciate that you invited me over, I do, honestly.”
Sue’s jaw drops in horror. Would you like to join us for dinner on Christmas Day? My dad and me? And Finn and his mom? We’re having tofurkey. God, if she’d said yes to Kurt’s invitation, and if Will had said yes to Finn’s, she very well might have had to eat a meal at the same table with Will Schuester. Maybe sitting next to him. Smelling his hair and his cheap off-brand cologne. She feels a little faint.
“It’s not a pity invite, Mr. Schue,” says Finn, with surprising insight.
Will laughs, a dry, mocking sound that makes Sue look at him, sharply.
“It isn’t. Okay, so I care about Burt and all. He’s been really great. But if we’re talking father figures – ” He pauses, blushing. “You were there for me through the whole Quinn thing. You’re the one who taught me I was worth something beyond what I could do on the football field. Christmas is supposed to be about spending time with your family, right? Mr. Schue, you’re family.”
Sue grits her teeth; Finn’s saccharine is making them ache. She can’t help it: she tries to imagine Kurt Hummel, or Quinn, or any of her Cheerios, saying anything like this to her, and the thought of it is so ludicrous she almost laughs.
“That’s really nice of you to say, Finn.” God, Will’s eyes are watering. Sue shifts in place, fidgeting, uncomfortable. “You know I feel the same. About all of you kids,” he adds, quickly.
Right. At least, Sue thinks, disdainfully, she admits to having favorites. (She makes a yearly competition out of it, in fact, where her Cheerios engage in a wrestling match complete with high kicks and pyrotechnics in order to secure the title.) Will’s favoritism is just as obvious, but his refusal to admit it maddens her.
When Will, sounding almost reluctant, accepts Finn’s inflexible invitation, Sue isn’t surprised. She even understands, a little. Spending Christmas here, in this misery crucible, isn’t anyone’s idea of a good night off. Even the denim-clad Hummel-Hudson clan presents a better option.
“You could still go too, you know,” Imitation Brittany pipes up. She’s got a finger in her ponytail, twirling the curled strands. “It’s not too late to change your mind. Maybe they’ll have yams. Did you know yams are potatoes with the sun inside them?”
Sue disregards this dadaist bòn mót.“I don’t belong,” she snaps. “I’m not family.”
“Sleep on it,” Brittany tells her, smiling, and just like that Will and Finn and Brittany are gone; Sue’s tumbling into her bed, legs tangled in the loose comforter, the wind knocked out of her with the exertion of quick transit.
This time, she dreams: Rachel Berry, looking up at her. What’s the goal, Sue? she asks, plaintively, and Sue tries to answer but can’t.
Chapter Four
Author:
ellydash Characters: Sue Sylvester, Terri Schuester, Kurt Hummel, Rachel Berry, Finn Hudson, Will Schuester, Jean Sylvester, Brittany Pierce, Artie Abrams, Tina Cohen-Chang, Noah Puckerman
Rating: PG-13
Warnings for this chapter: None
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 3,191
Note: Third of five chapters.
Summary: Three spirits take Sue Sylvester to visit Christmases past, present and future. A Glee-flavored retelling of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol."
Chapter One: Wherein Kurt Hummel Extends an Invitation and Immediately Regrets It; Rachel Berry and Finn Hudson are Good – if Ineffective and Misguided – Samaritans; Sue Sylvester Receives an Unexpected Visitor
Chapter Two: Wherein a Spirit that Bears A Striking Resemblance to Kurt Hummel Escorts Sue Sylvester through Previous Christmases, and Sue Sylvester is Not Happy, but Then Again, When is She, Honestly
Chapter Three: Wherein the Brittany Pierce of Christmas Present Redecorates Sue’s Spare Bedroom; Rachel Berry Convenes a Meeting with Puck, Artie and Tina; Finn Hudson Invites a Reluctant Will Schuester to Christmas Dinner at the Hummel-Hudson’s.
Sue Sylvester has a motto: be prepared. Someday she plans to get it stitched on a sampler. This sampler will also feature an embroidered rendering of her face.
Recently, Becky Jackson’s informed her that there’s a Disney villain, some kind of tiger or gerbil or something, who shares her philosophy. Sue’s considering adding this film to her Netflix queue, once she gets around to grilling Becky for more details, but Predator takes priority. She needs inspiration to spice up her bear trap blueprint.
Under normal circumstances, when dead people aren’t showing up in her living room, this motto works for Sue. It currently seems to be collapsing around her, joining Will Schuester’s dreams of being relevant in the trash heap of nice-try-no-cigar.
This time, when she wakes up, it’s to Nat King Cole’s voice.
Sue grabs her phone, looking for the time. 1:23am. She has the odd sense that she’s overslept.
Everybody knows, a turkey and some mistletoe, Nat croons, somewhere nearby, will help to make the season bright. Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow, will find it hard to sleep tonight.
“Yeah,” Sue mutters, “because the little snot-rags waterlogged themselves with turkey. Probably ate the mistletoe, too.” She swings herself out of bed, rubbing her eyes, and follows Nat’s voice down the short hallway. The door to her spare bedroom is closed, but light borders its edges, and she can hear Nat coming from inside. She closes her hand around the knob, and doesn't hesitate: she turns it, and pushes in.
It’s still her spare bedroom. But just barely.
First of all, there’s flocked snow everywhere, and it’s Pepto-Bismol pink. The mattress on the spare bed’s been wrapped in wrapping paper – featuring repeated images of cats wearing Santa hats – and the pillows are gone, replaced with giant gold ribbons. There’s a tree in the corner next to the dresser, and it’s also flocked pink, groaning with the weight of what looks like Sears’ ornament discount bin. Purple paper snowflakes dangle from the ceiling. And Nat is still singing. Somewhere.
The last thing Sue notices, once she’s processed the system shock of finding her spare bedroom transformed into what looks like the set of Barbie Does Santa, is that there’s a ladder propped up against the wall by the window – and Brittany Pierce is on it. She’s wearing her Cheerios uniform, and the bright red of it is like a visual assault on the pink flocking she’s managed to get stuck in her hair.
Brittany smiles at her, slowly, with what looks like real pleasure. “Hi, Sue,” she says, swinging slightly on her ladder. “I got here a little early and then I thought I’d let you sleep in while I made your house Christmassy. I haven’t finished yet. I still have glitter. And I figure maybe I’ll add some baby dogs to go with the cats on the wrapping paper, except the baby dogs would be alive.”
“You’re not Brittany.” Even discounting what she’d gathered from the bizarro Kurt Hummel experience, she knows something’s just a little off about this girl: the real Brittany’s never used Sue’s first name. Sure, she’d spent several months calling Sue “Coach DeGeneres,” after a sick day watching Ellen’s show had left her convinced that the two were the same person – and there was that one weird, nauseating moment last year when Brittany, possibly concussed after a collapsed pyramid, had looked up at Sue’s looming face and said, “I’m sorry I dropped the spoon, Mom” – but never her first name.
“No,” the facsimile agrees, pleasantly. “I’m not. I’ve been practicing, though. I did a headstand for seventeen minutes when I first got here, and when I stood upright again it was like I was underwater. I’m pretty sure the door talked.” She reaches into a little pouch dangling off her hip, and grabs a handful of gold glitter; tosses it into the air. “Ooh,” she murmurs, watching it cascade to the ground.
“Glitter,” Sue proclaims, pointing at the little glinty bits now decorating her carpet, “offends me on a cosmetic, aesthetic and moral level. What you’ve done to this room as a whole is decorative assault. Which, if I had anything to say about it, would be punishable by continued exposure to Paula Deen and her deep-fried abominations from caloric hell.”
Imitation Brittany looks at her, still smiling slightly, unperturbed. Whomever – whatever’s behind that smile isn’t nearly as good at inhabiting Brittany Pierce as Not Kurt Hummel was at his role. There’s a sharpness behind Imitation Brittany’s eyes that’s perennially missing from the real girl. Maybe a little understanding, too.
Sue fidgets, just a little, under that smile.
“Don’t you have somewhere to take me?” she barks. “Let’s get this over with.”
Imitation Brittany hops to the floor, with a smooth jump that betrays her athleticism. “I thought you’d never ask,” she says, crossing the room, and she holds out her hand to Sue, just like Not Kurt had the night before. “Let’s go say hi to a few people.”
This time, she’s pretty sure she takes the offered hand, because she can feel the girl’s cold fingers wrap tightly around her own, but she can’t be positive. Her vision’s darkening. She thinks she sees her room peeling, strips of pink-flocked wall curling down like fruit.
__
Sue hears Rachel Berry first, before the room blushes to life in front of her eyes. (She finds it utterly remarkable that a girl with such prodigious singing talent has what Sue believes may be the most annoying speaking voice on the planet, after Kelly Ripa.)
Rachel’s sitting – no, not sitting, holding court – at the head of an unremarkable dining room table. To her left, Noah Puckerman slouches in his chair, a lazy half-smile tweaking the corner of his mouth. On her right: two kids Sue knows instinctively belong to Schuester, even if she doesn’t remember their names. They’re wearing his perennial hangdog expression like it’s been bred into their incestuous glee club gene pool.
“Artie and Tina,” Imitation Brittany reminds her, pointing. “And that’s Puck.”
“I know Puckerman,” Sue informs her. “Intimately.”
Brittany crinkles her forehead in confusion.
“He got assigned to my gym for clean-up detention a couple months ago. I was bored. And don’t you dare judge me – I’m pretty sure he’s at least twenty-six.” She moons at Puck, briefly, then refocuses. “What the hell are we doing here? Where are we?”
“Rachel Berry’s house.”
“God, it’s like Pottery Barn threw up its discounted 2005 collection in here. Isn’t Berry the unholy spawn of gay men? Did Bravo and Kurt Hummel's tumblr lie to me about the correlation between gayness and fabulous taste? Gary Busey’s coke salon had better décor.”
“I would like,” Berry’s saying, primly, “to thank you all for coming today. Especially you, Noah, as I understand you had to make an extra effort by clearing this visit with your parole officer.”
“Ain’t no thing,” Puck drawls.“All in the name of Jew solidarity.” He pounds his chest with his fist, twice, and raises it.
“That’s the Black Power salute,” Artie clarifies.
Puck glares at him. “Dude, just ‘cause we’re trying out this James Dean/McLovin friend mashup thing doesn’t mean you get to correct me in front of chicks.”
Artie looks at Tina, mouths McLovin? Really? Tina smiles a little and rolls her eyes, although it’s not really clear who she’s exasperated by, Puck or Artie. Maybe both.
“Um, Rachel?” she asks, hesitantly. “I’ve got to get back home in like, an hour, so maybe you could tell us why it’s so important that we’re here. On Christmas day.”
Rachel straightens in her chair, her posture so perfect even Sue, watching with narrowed eyes, can’t find much fault with it. “Tina, that’s precisely why I’ve asked the three of you here. This time of year, when we’re being bombarded with Santas and church pamphlets and Christmas carols – carols especially –it’s so important to surround ourselves with our community. Therefore, I propose we form, even for just this one day, an offshoot of glee club dedicated to expressing Jewish faith, customs and traditions through song.” She gestures towards the hefty stack of sheet music in front of her. “I’ve collected what I believe are some of the most significant works produced by the Jewish people, everything from songs of prayer to modern Israeli groups to Simon and Garfunkel.”
“You know who’s a Jew?” Puck says, brightly, and waits for someone to guess. When no one does, he declares, “Dee Snider. Dee Snider from Twisted Sister is a Jew. Got any Twisted Sister in there? I would totally be down to sing some Twisted Sister.”
Rachel glares at him.
“Um.” Artie chews on his lower lip. “Are you saying you asked us here to sing Jewish stuff ‘cause you think we’re Jews?”
Sue’s rolling her eyes so hard they’ve nearly rotated to the back of her head.
“Aren’t you?” Rachel asks him, and looks at Tina. “I mean, Tina, part of your last name is Cohen, and Artie, your last name is Abrams, so I just assumed –”
“Not Jewish,” Artie says. “I mean, I’m down with the Jews and all. I’ve got some Matisyahu on my iPod. But my folks are twice-a-year Protestants.”
“And my dad’s Jewish, I guess,” Tina adds, “but I don’t think he’s ever practiced. My mom’s pretty into Christianity, so that’s the way I was raised.”
“DONE,” Sue yells, throwing her hands up, and turns to Imitation Brittany. “I’m done. It's like watching the Nuremberg Trials, only with more references to Jews and less appealing people. Did I die and it turns out hell is actually Rachel Berry’s dining room?”
“No,” Brittany says, seriously. “Just a few more minutes. Watch.”
Tina’s standing up. “Look, Rachel, I appreciate that you invited me over, but – I really need to get home.”
“You said you had an hour,” Rachel insists. She’s pushing the sheet music away, just a bit. “We don’t really need to sing Jewish songs. I’m sorry I made those assumptions. We could – hang out. Do something you like to do.”
“Honestly,” Tina tells her, quietly, “what I’d like to do right now is be home.”
“Read between the lines, Rachel,” Puck stage-whispers. “She’s trying to tell you she doesn’t want to hang out with you ‘cause you’re pushy and loud and your favorite person is yourself and no one really likes you, except for Finn, and I’m pretty sure even he’s getting kinda tired of you.”
Rachel’s face falls. Sue’s not going to waste any energy feeling emotions on behalf of Rachel Berry, of all people. She’s just not. Especially when Puckerman’s right about the pushy and loud and unlikable thing. Even when Berry’s got a look on her like someone told her Barbra Streisand ruptured her vocal chords. Even then.
“They came over ‘cause I asked them,” Puck continues.
“I didn’t say that, any of that,” Tina cuts in. “Rachel, I just –”
“Don’t.” Rachel glares at Puck, and it’s not chastisement like earlier, it’s anger, real anger. “Don’t bother. You know, all of you are terribly quick to rush to Kurt’s aid when he’s getting kicked around by the neanderthals on the football team. You make a lot of pretty speeches about bullying on his behalf. What did I hear you say last week, Artie? ‘They hate us for being who we are.’ Wasn’t that it?”
“Yeah,” Artie mutters.
There are tears in Rachel’s eyes, and she’s blinking them back furiously. “Go home. All of three of you. Artie and Tina, you go celebrate Christmas with your families, and Puck, you eat Chinese food and watch reruns of Cagney and Lacey with your mother like you do every year. And you think about this: with the exception of Finn Hudson – and I don’t care what you say, Noah Puckerman, Finn loves me – all of you bully me. Just as much as the rest of the school does. You hate me for being who I am.”
“Hey,” Puck tries, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Rachel –”
“Get out,” she spits, and twists away from him.
They do, Puck pushing Artie through the archway, Tina looking back at Rachel like she wants to apologize but isn’t sure it’s the right thing to do.
And then it’s just Rachel Berry and her sheet music: Rachel and Sue and Imitation Brittany. Rachel’s going to cry, now; Sue’s sure. It’s going to be awkward and noisy and make Sue even more uncomfortable than she already is.
Rachel doesn’t cry. She puts her hands over her face, just for a moment, and breathes in, deeply.
“Focus on the goal, Rachel,” she says, to the empty room, and when she drops her hands her eyes are hard. “Focus on the goal.”
The thought blooms before Sue can check it, or the emotion that accompanies it: a little flood of approval. Good girl, Berry.
“DONE,” sings Brittany, in a perfect replication of Sue’s earlier announcement, and she grabs Sue’s arm, her cold fingers tugging.
Rachel and her dining room crinkle, break, contract, evaporate.
__
Will Schuester’s couch is missing.
Sue’s never seen the inside of her nemesis’s apartment, but she’s got an olfactory system on her that rivals Helen Keller’s, and she knows, before her eye catches Schuester curled up in an overstuffed recliner, that this sad little home belongs to Will. It smells just like him, like desperation and earnestness and collapse and the sharp, sweet scent of pomade. Her nose wrinkles in revulsion.
She knows the couch is missing because it’s left behind a dark impression on the carpet, a rectangular ghost of what used to be there. Of course the couch is missing. Even if Will might’ve salvaged the cushions, it’d take a certain special kind of masochist to keep the piece of furniture on which your wife killed herself. Even Will, who – if we’re completely being honest –has taken up with religious enthusiasm the doctrine of Poor Me; even Will wouldn’t do that to himself.
The doorbell rings, and Will, looking somewhat apprehensive, closes his book (a biography of Fanny Brice), leaving it on the arm of the chair. When he crosses the living room, he refrains, very noticeably, from looking at the vacant real estate in the middle of the floor.
Imitation Brittany’s humming, under her breath. It takes Sue a second to recognize the tune: God rest ye merry, gentlemen; let nothing you dismay.
She hears, but can’t quite see, Finn Hudson at the door. “Hey, Mr. Schue. Merry Christmas. Mind if I come in for a minute?”
“Not at all, Finn,” Will says. He sounds exhausted. “Merry Christmas to you too. Come on in. Can I get you anything hot to drink? Tea, hot chocolate? It’s pretty darn freezing out there.”
“Nah, thanks.” Finn walks into the living room, twisting his bomber hat between his hands, his face red from the cold. Will closes the door, his hand resting on it briefly – for support? Sue doesn’t know how to interpret that gesture. Not that she cares, really.
Finn looks at the vacant spot where the couch was, opens his mouth to ask a question, and then shuts it, quickly. Not completely stupid and tactless, then, Sue thinks, conveniently ignoring the very real possibility that, had she been in Finn Hudson’s place, she would’ve made some sharp comment, just for the cheap pleasure of seeing that look of hurt flush Will’s face. (She’s never been picky about the difficulty of her conquests. She doesn’t relish a challenge, just a victory.)
“How can I help you, Finn?” Will asks, smiling faintly at him.
“So is this really what you’re doing for Christmas, Mr. Schue?” Finn blurts, gesturing towards the recliner and book. “You’re sitting by yourself reading when you could be with people who, you know, care about you?”
“I like reading. It’s not the worst way to spend a day off. And frankly, Finn, with the exception of yourself I’m not sure that dinner with your mom and you and Kurt and his dad would be surrounding myself with people who ‘care about me.’ But I really do appreciate that you invited me over, I do, honestly.”
Sue’s jaw drops in horror. Would you like to join us for dinner on Christmas Day? My dad and me? And Finn and his mom? We’re having tofurkey. God, if she’d said yes to Kurt’s invitation, and if Will had said yes to Finn’s, she very well might have had to eat a meal at the same table with Will Schuester. Maybe sitting next to him. Smelling his hair and his cheap off-brand cologne. She feels a little faint.
“It’s not a pity invite, Mr. Schue,” says Finn, with surprising insight.
Will laughs, a dry, mocking sound that makes Sue look at him, sharply.
“It isn’t. Okay, so I care about Burt and all. He’s been really great. But if we’re talking father figures – ” He pauses, blushing. “You were there for me through the whole Quinn thing. You’re the one who taught me I was worth something beyond what I could do on the football field. Christmas is supposed to be about spending time with your family, right? Mr. Schue, you’re family.”
Sue grits her teeth; Finn’s saccharine is making them ache. She can’t help it: she tries to imagine Kurt Hummel, or Quinn, or any of her Cheerios, saying anything like this to her, and the thought of it is so ludicrous she almost laughs.
“That’s really nice of you to say, Finn.” God, Will’s eyes are watering. Sue shifts in place, fidgeting, uncomfortable. “You know I feel the same. About all of you kids,” he adds, quickly.
Right. At least, Sue thinks, disdainfully, she admits to having favorites. (She makes a yearly competition out of it, in fact, where her Cheerios engage in a wrestling match complete with high kicks and pyrotechnics in order to secure the title.) Will’s favoritism is just as obvious, but his refusal to admit it maddens her.
When Will, sounding almost reluctant, accepts Finn’s inflexible invitation, Sue isn’t surprised. She even understands, a little. Spending Christmas here, in this misery crucible, isn’t anyone’s idea of a good night off. Even the denim-clad Hummel-Hudson clan presents a better option.
“You could still go too, you know,” Imitation Brittany pipes up. She’s got a finger in her ponytail, twirling the curled strands. “It’s not too late to change your mind. Maybe they’ll have yams. Did you know yams are potatoes with the sun inside them?”
Sue disregards this dadaist bòn mót.“I don’t belong,” she snaps. “I’m not family.”
“Sleep on it,” Brittany tells her, smiling, and just like that Will and Finn and Brittany are gone; Sue’s tumbling into her bed, legs tangled in the loose comforter, the wind knocked out of her with the exertion of quick transit.
This time, she dreams: Rachel Berry, looking up at her. What’s the goal, Sue? she asks, plaintively, and Sue tries to answer but can’t.
Chapter Four
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