Fic: Sacrilege, Will/Sue, NC-17
Dec. 13th, 2010 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellydashTitle: Sacrilege
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellydash
Pairing: Will Schuester/Sue Sylvester
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Hate sex. References to pegging.
Word Count: 8,474
Spoilers: Minor ones for 2x10 (A Very Glee Christmas) and 1x21 (Funk).
Note: No, really, these twodeserve one another belong together. Let me convince you.
Summary: Will shaves his head, gets drunk with Sue on a Friday night and makes an impulsive decision. It’s what happens next, though, that he really needs to worry about.
Featuring appearances by Will’s concerned BFF Shannon Beiste, a bottle of Johnnie Walker, fruitcake, verbal banter, Sue’s $1600 coffee maker and the Cleveland Browns (although not all at once).
1. aiming for the Vin Diesel look, you end up with Charlie Brown
Will shaves his head on Christmas Day with the electric razor Sue gave him, partly because he’s thinking it’s about time he made some spontaneous choices, but mostly because he wants to see the look on Sue’s face when she sees his smooth scalp. He imagines her speechless, impressed with his daring, incapable of insults. No more jibes about his curly hair.
When she sees him in the hallway on the first day back to school after vacation, Sue laughs so hard she stumbles into a locker. The few students nearby scatter, clearly terrified.
“Thanks, buddy,” she manages, when she’s regained her breath. “That’s the best chuckle I’ve had since Sophie’s Choice. You look like a skinhead Muppet.”
“I aim to please, Sue,” he says, sourly.
She straightens herself, still grinning, and hollers back to him as she walks to her office. “This opens up a whole new world of ways I can viciously insult you, and for that, Cue Ball, I’m eternally grateful.”
Will’s crestfallen. It doesn’t help that Shannon snorts when she sees him in the faculty lounge, either. “Will,” she asks him, with bemused affection, “what in God’s name were you thinking?”
If he tells her I thought it would get Sue off my back, it’ll sound just as dumb as he now realizes it is. “I wanted to keep cool in the winter?” he tries, with a lopsided smile.
Shannon just shakes her head. “You should just stay away from her as much as possible,” she advises. “It’s what I do, and it works out pretty well for me.”
“Kind of difficult when I’m her favorite puppy to kick around.”
“You know, Will,” Shannon says, thoughtfully, “you might want to think about how much of that is Sue actually doing the kicking, and how much of it is you always finding ways to get under her boot.”
He protests this vehemently, because that’s what you do when someone has a point that you don’t want to acknowledge. “She’s the one with the vendetta, not me.”
Shannon shrugs. “Okay, then. Have it your way.”
His glee kids, bless them, are kind enough to refrain from teasing him openly about the missing hair, although he notices Santana whispering to Quinn in the back row during rehearsal. Quinn giggles, catches Will’s eye, and looks away, quickly.
Brittany raises her hand. “Mr. Schue?” she asks, looking worried. “Are you dying?”
Will reassures her that he isn’t, and quickly changes the subject, reflexively touching his temples where his hair’s starting to grow back in weird shadow-patches. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare for Regionals, guys. Let’s start brainstorming.”
2. so sit back and watch the bed burn
The faculty holiday party is the first Friday evening back after break. No one’s really sure why this is, although Will has a sneaking suspicion that Figgins wanted to save money by purchasing half-priced Christmas-themed food and decorations after the New Year.
“This whole thing is really weird,” he tells Shannon, who’s eying the slice of fruitcake in her hand with suspicion. “I wouldn’t eat that, if I were you.”
“Yeah.” She balls up the fruitcake in her fist, surveying the nearly empty faculty lounge. “Will, this isn’t just weird. It’s sad.”
Shannon’s right: it is. Figgins’s idea of a holiday party apparently includes the random placement of miniature Christmas trees on the faculty lounge tables; some red and green paper streamers thumb-tacked to the walls; several pitchers of spiked eggnog; a bizarre assortment of fruitcake, red and green Hershey’s Kisses and vanilla ice cream; and a menorah, just in case Ruby Feinberg or Dan Weismann decide to show up.
Will looks across the room at Emma, deep in conversation with the new history teacher. She’s brought Carl with her, and he catches Will’s eye and smiles, folding his arm around Emma’s shoulders. I won, asshole, Will can almost hear him saying. He frowns. Shannon notices.
“Just don’t, okay, Will?” she suggests, kindly. “Have a little eggnog. We’ll talk about the Browns.”
This is probably the best idea Will’s heard so far this year. He has a little eggnog.
Actually, he has a lot of eggnog. By the time Shannon drives him home, Will’s slurring a little, saying things like “Colt McCoy was the best draft pick of the last six years,” and Shannon’s agreeing because she’s nice and wants to let him win something, for once.
When they’re in front of his place, she offers to park and come upstairs, make him some soup or something, but Will waves her off, saying the apartment’s filthy, and he’s pretty sure he’ll just make an early night of it. He feels a little guilty lying to Shannon, especially when she’s been so kind to him (and kindness isn’t something Will’s had a lot of, lately), but it’s easier than telling her the truth. Which, if he’s being honest, is that he wants to open up that bottle of Johnnie Walker on top of his refrigerator and get really wasted. Maybe put on some Billie Holiday and indulge in a little self-pity.
He turns his key in the lock and pushes open the door, stumbling in, humming “My Man,” and wouldn’t you know it, there’s Sue sitting on his couch, his bottle of Scotch in her hand, two glasses on the coffee table.
“Aw, Sue,” he groans. “The hell are you doing here? Who said you could drink that?”
“Well, hey, William.” She stands up, flashing him a disarming grin. “My anger yoga class got cancelled, so I figured I’d stop by, use my key, see if you had anything to drink. I’m completely out. Had me a little John Wayne marathon last Saturday night and I drank enough tequila to make my distilled sweat test above the legal limit.”
Anger yoga? Distilled sweat? He knows better than to ask. “You know, my liquor cabinet isn’t your personal Kroger.”
“What liquor cabinet? You’ve got a bottle of Cuervo, three boxes of Franzia and half a quart of cranberry juice. And this.” She waves the Scotch. “Best of the lot by far, but that’s not saying much. Gets better the more you drink, though.”
Will considers asking her to leave, but he knows it’s going to be a battle of wits he doesn’t have the energy or the sobriety for, so he sighs, tosses his keys on the dining room table, and joins her on the couch.
Sue slides over to make room for him, and hands Will the empty glass. “Figured you wouldn’t be able to stomach Figgy’s post-partum party for too long, so I left this out for you. Etta brought her drill sergeant with her, didn’t she?”
“He’s a dentist,” Will corrects, wearily, while Sue pours him a few generous fingers.
“That,” she says, “was the joke, you idiot. Dentists have drills. Jesus, if his sense of humor is even slightly more developed than yours, she’s traded way up.”
He takes a lengthy swallow, leans back against the couch. It’s going to be a long night.
“It never would’ve worked between you and Arla, anyway,” she observes. “I met your ex-wife. You’re better off with someone like her keeping you in line. Batshit crazy. Controlling. Dominating. A woman of conviction.”
“You’re describing yourself,” Will blurts, before he realizes what he’s saying, and immediately wants to take it back.
Sue looks at him, eyes narrowed. “That,” she says, sharply, “is the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, and let me remind you, I’ve heard you rap.”
“Sorry.” He shakes his glass at her, indicating that she should blame the booze. “You’re not batshit crazy. Not constantly.”
“As always, you’re irritatingly incapable of grasping my point. I’m referring to your presumptive insinuation that I’d be interested in taking over your ex-wife’s job.” She shudders. “That, William, is an affront on the level of Crystal Pepsi or Jimmy Carter.”
“You sure seemed into it when I danced for you last year.” Dear God, he thinks, horrified by his lack of filter, just shut up, Schuester.
“That was right before Nationals,” she snaps, and takes a substantial gulp from her glass. “I was vulnerable. Don’t flatter yourself. And that uncharacteristic moment of weakness had nothing to do with what you just suggested.”
Nationals, he knows, are just a few months away. Are you vulnerable yet? Will almost asks her, but mercifully manages to catch himself in time.
They sit in uncomfortable silence for a moment, drinking in tandem. Will blinks, slightly nauseous, wishing he could disappear or fall asleep or slide under the couch. “I’m trying to make better choices,” he says, finally. “Terri wasn’t good for me. I realize that now.”
“Well, bully for you, Will.” Sue helps herself to another healthy splash of Scotch. “You know, I’m bored,” she adds, loudly and looks at him. “I’d ask you to entertain me, but third-rate lounge singing ranks somewhere below scented hand lotion and Chihuahuas on the list of things I can tolerate. And I’m pretty sure lounge singing’s the extent of your ‘talent’ repertoire.” She crooks the first two fingers of her left hand in belated air quotes. “Just in case you didn’t catch the sarcasm, buddy: ta – lent.”
He snorts. “You’re drunk, Sue.”
“And you’re awful.”
For some reason, this strikes Will as hilarious, and he starts to laugh, resting his chin on the heel of his palm. Sue grins crookedly at him, clearly pleased with herself. She reaches over and flicks the top of his head.
“Hey,” he protests, looking up, but she does it again. “Stop that.”
“Make me,” she challenges, and tweaks his ear.
Will swats at her hand. “Seriously,” he tries, “don’t do that,” and Sue grins wider, taps his cheek just hard enough that it stings a little.
“Make me, Schuester,” she repeats. There’s an unfamiliar edge to her voice.
He sets his glass on the coffee table and stares at her, not sure what he’s hearing. She leans in again, her hand poised, and Will’s ready for her this time: he grabs her wrist, suspending the swing of her arm in mid-strike. Knowing full well there’s a possibility he might leave a mark, he tightens his grip, twisting just a little. He has a feeling she can take it. Sue hisses, but it doesn’t sound like pain to him, not exactly, so he doesn’t let go.
They stare at one another. He can feel the quick thrum of her heartbeat under his fingers.
Deliberately, Sue lowers her other hand to the top of his thigh, just to the left of his groin. Will’s mouth falls open.
“What the hell are you doing?” he blurts. “I thought you said you weren’t interested.”
“You need to learn how to listen when your superiors speak, Will,” she tells him, and curls her hand around his thigh. “What I said was that the idea of filling the position your ex showed such good sense in resigning offends my impressively well-developed sense of self-worth.”
Will is having a really hard time following this complicated train of logic, partly because he’s several blocks away from sober, and partly because Sue’s fingers are less than half an inch away from his dick. Which, to his horror, is starting to harden inside his jeans.
He’s never, ever thought about Sue like this. Well, other than that time last year when he’d sung to her in the music room, because he’d sort of had to think about it then, but that didn’t count, because he was exacting revenge. And then there was that weird moment one night a few months back when she’d flashed into Will’s mind while he was jerking off before bed, and the image freaked him out so much he’d smacked his skull against the headboard and given himself a bruise.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t fuck you,” she adds, and he drops her wrist in shock. He can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“Sue – ”
“Have you ever been fucked?” She sounds thoughtful. Her fingers drum a light staccato against his thigh. “I don’t suppose that wife of yours ever felt much like venturing outside the land of vanilla, did she? But I bet you’ve imagined it.”
Will closes his eyes. He’s reeling from her words, what they’re implying. Sue’s right: even when Terri’d been interested in sex, her idea of a good time in bed wouldn’t shock the most innocent nun at the convent. She’s wrong, too, though: he’s never thought about getting fucked. Until she’d said it. Suggested it.
“I bet you’re thinking about it now,” she continues, perceptive as always, her breath warm against his ear. Will’s right hand creeps towards his crotch, unbidden.
“Don’t.” He feels the sting of a slap on his moving hand; he draws it back, chastened. “Not yet,” Sue tells him, and, oh, God, if there’s a not yet, eventually there’ll be a now. “Keep your eyes closed, and listen to me, or I stop. We play by my rules or not at all. Got it?”
Will’s dick jerks at this, like her words are textbook Pavlovian conditioning. He nods his consent.
“I have a secret room,” she begins, her tone low, “above my office. I take people there when they show me they deserve it. And in that room, I keep a box that contains a number of extremely pleasurable toys.”
Her other hand grazes his stomach, just the faintest bit of pressure, and Will bucks forward at the touch. He feels her nails dig into his thigh: a warning not to ask for too much. There are rules here, Will realizes, and the only way he’s going to find them out is by testing what she’s willing to give.
“Please,” he begs, not knowing what he’s asking for. “Please, Sue, I need to –”
“Keep your hands down.” She bites the edge of his ear, and Will gasps, thrusting up against Sue’s hand, trying to get pressure where he needs it. “Oh, William,” she breathes. He can hear the arousal in her voice. “The things I could do to you with my toys. I’ve got this one eleven-incher, it’s nearly as thick as my wrist, and I bet with a little patience and help from some Astroglide I’d get you so open for me –”
“Yes,” he says, panting. “Whatever you want, anything, just touch me, just fuck me, please –”
He feels her draw down the zipper of his jeans. There’s a brief moment where both her hands disappear from his body, and he can hear her rustling nearby for what feels like hours. Then she’s back, pulling his pants down, his boxers too. Will lifts his hips off the couch to help her, eyes still closed tightly. And finally, finally, thank Christ and all the saints whose names he doesn’t know, she’s touching him, one hand wrapped firmly around the base of his penis, the other – is that what he thinks it is? Yes – the other rolling down a condom over the tip.
There’s no time to wonder why Sue’s brought protection with her, because before Will can wrap his brain around what’s happening, he feels her knees dig in around his hips, her bare legs folded on either side of his thighs, and just like that, she’s on top of him, lowering herself onto his cock. The ease of it astounds Will, how slick she is, how effortlessly he slides inside her. Sue groans, a guttural sound so unlike anything he’s ever heard from her, and it makes him want to come right there, like he’s sixteen again. He thrusts up into her, again and again, trying to match her rhythm. His hands frame her naked hips, slide up to cup her breasts over the jacket she hasn’t bothered to remove.
Will can’t wait for her permission anymore, and opens his eyes, finally takes Sue in, red-faced and head tilted back. He wonders, wildly, if it always feels this good when you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.
“Come,” he tells her, because he’s nearly there, himself, “I want to watch you do it, I need to see your face when you –” and Sue stares down at him, mouth opening, gasps, “Oh, my God, Will –” Just like that, she clenches around him and comes with a cry. He can’t last, not after that.
After he’s spent into her, still breathing hard, Sue collapses against him, her face touching his neck, her chest on his. Will’s arms are around her. It’s almost a hug. He strokes her back through the fabric of her jacket.
Then Sue’s lifting herself off him, rushing out of the living room towards the bathroom without a word. He catches a glimpse of her face, and can’t decipher the look he finds there.
Oh, shit, he thinks, coming back to earth, hearing the bathroom door slam. What did we just do? Oh, shit.
3. another flavor, something like a terminator
Will spends the weekend panicking.
On Saturday afternoon, he wakes up with a hangover headache so strong he can’t open his eyes all the way. While he’s stumbling towards the kitchen to see if he’s got any orange juice, the events of the night before hit him like a punch to the gut. He trips over a dining room chair that hasn’t moved in five years.
“Oh, no,” he says, out loud, because when you live alone you talk to yourself on occasion. Will tries to recall exactly what happened, but it’s a little fuzzy. Except he remembers pretty clearly the part where Sue told him she has a sex toy collection she keeps above her office at school, oh, my God, and that she wanted to use it on him and he is so, so fucked. On multiple levels.
By Saturday night, he’s convinced himself he needs to resign immediately. Except high school teaching jobs, even Spanish jobs, are few and far between, and then there’s the matter of his glee kids, whom he can’t, in good conscience, abandon. He tries to imagine telling them why. Well, guys, you see, Sue and I drank a lot of Johnnie Walker the other night and got a little too friendly, because when two teachers who hate each other very much – No. He probably can’t say that. He definitely can’t. The thought of any of his students finding out about this – anyone at McKinley finding out – makes his stomach turn over. Better to hope Sue’s just as horrified by what happened on Friday night as he is. Maybe the two of them can pretend like it never happened. Will’s good at that, when he needs to be.
This plan seems entirely doable. Until Sunday afternoon, when he’s rubbing one out because he’s already read the paper and there’s nothing on TV, and for some reason he’s having a hard time getting over the peak until he thinks about the way Sue choked out his name when he told her he wanted to watch her climax, and that’s what does it for him. He comes, hard, in short spasms, spilling over his fist.
Well and truly fucked. On multiple levels.
By Monday, he’s so nervous he spills his morning coffee all over his only clean pair of khakis and has to change into denim. Will’s late to school, which is something of a mercy, because it means he can dash past Sue’s office in a crowd of students, escaping notice. He figures she’ll corner him before long, though. Fix him with a look sharp enough to fillet the guts out of a bear. Make him wither. Humiliate him.
She’s not in the faculty lounge during lunch period. Will sits in a chair with a clear view of the door, watching it like he’s been commissioned for surveillance. To everything Shannon says, he replies “Uh, huh,” until, exasperated, she tells him, “I was thinking about auditioning for the Rockettes, Will, do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Uh, huh,” he says, not listening, and Shannon socks him in the arm.
“What is up with you, little buddy?” she asks. “I don’t cotton well to being ignored while I’m telling you about the killing I made at the racetrack. I’m guessing it’s more interesting than whatever you got up to this weekend.”
If he’d been drinking out of his can of pop, Will might’ve done an inelegant spit take. “I didn’t do anything this weekend,” he says, too quickly.
Shannon narrows her eyes at him. “Sure,” she drawls. “Well, whatever’s going on, I’ll get it out of you eventually.”
Will almost laughs out loud, but stops himself in time. “There’s nothing to get out,” he corrects, still watching the door.
Sue doesn’t show.
It’s not until glee club practice, after school’s let out, that he finally figures out why. Will faces his motley crew and realizes he’s down three students. Three Cheerios, to be exact.
“Where’s Quinn?” he asks Rachel, because Rachel’s watching him with trepidation, like she knows exactly what’s going on but doesn’t want to be the one to break the news. “And Santana? And Brittany?”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Schue,” Rachel says, her face a perfect tragedy mask.
“Santana said Coach Sylvester told them they had to choose,” Mike adds. “Between Cheerios and glee club. She said she needs cheerleaders who give everything they have, or they’ll be left off the supersonic jet to Nationals.”
“What’re we going to do?” Tina looks miserable. “We can’t just fill three positions this close to Regionals. I mean, where are we going to find someone who dances as well as Brittany?”
Will slams his fist against the top of the piano, hard, and Rachel shrieks. He bites down on his lip to prevent a rush of obscenities.
“Practice is canceled,” he manages. “Go home, guys. I’m going to get this all sorted out.”
Sue’s waiting for him in the hallway, like he knew she’d be: arms crossed, legs akimbo, a smirk twisting her mouth. She’s wearing the black and white tracksuit with the popped collar that reminds him of Snow White’s wicked stepmother.
“You,” he tells her, pointing a finger between her eyes, “are a vengeful, manipulative bitch.”
Sue slaps down his finger and takes a step towards him, grinning. “Is that the meanest insult you can think of, Kojak? I’ve been called worse by the kindergartners I scout for recruitment.”
He’s seeing red. “You can’t take away Santana and Brittany and Quinn. You can’t do that to me.”
“I can,” she tells him, calmly.
“Just because,” Will hisses, “you can’t deal with what happened – “
“That is not a conversation I’m going to have with you, William,” she snaps, suddenly livid, and stalks away, striding down the hallway.
“Sylvester!” he shouts, before she’s more than six or seven paces away.
She stops, her back still facing him. Several students at their lockers turn to watch the unfolding scene, whispering and pointing.
“We can talk about this out here, in public,” Will threatens, “or we can talk behind closed doors, but either way, you’re not getting away without a fight. Now, which one’s it gonna be?”
Sue squares her shoulders, executes a hard right turn, and marches off down another hallway in the direction of her office. A petrified freshman with brown hair in pigtails squeaks as Sue brushes past her, snarling, “What’re you looking at, Punky Brewster?”
“I don’t even know who that is,” the girl wails.
Will follows.
He slams the door of Sue’s office behind him as he enters, the blinds on the window rattling, and she whirls around, bracing her hands on the top of her chair. “How dare you?” she seethes.
“How dare I what, Sue?” He’s legitimately angry. “Stand up for myself? Tell you I’m not going to let you push around me or my kids anymore? You know just as well as I do that Brittany and Santana and Quinn don’t have to quit glee club in order to help you win Nationals. Just back off.”
She strides up to Will and actually pushes him, smirking, the tips of her fingers against his shoulder, knocking him slightly off balance. “Whatcha gonna do if I don’t, Mr. Clean? Appeal to Figgins? Cry? Sing a poorly arranged song?”
“Don’t push me,” Will snaps, and he plants his hand on her sternum, lightly shoving Sue backward, against the desk. She stumbles, looking astonished.
“Assaulting a defenseless woman in the workplace? Will, I swear to God I’ll take you to court for so much money you’ll still be paying off your debts in the Carrot Top Retirement Home for Failed Performers,” she promises, glaring. He takes a step towards her, and another step.
“You,” he says, “are anything but defenseless. Promise me right now you’ll back off the girls, let them make their own choices about where they want to be, and I’ll leave. This isn’t about them, anyway, and you know it. It’s about us. It’s about Friday night.”
“You’re delusional, William. Delusion’s a symptom of withdrawal, by the way. How long’s it been since you slathered some Paul Mitchell on your lumpy scalp?” Her cheeks are flushed, pink spots blooming in rosy circles. She stares at him.
Will’s aware, suddenly, of how close his body is to hers. They’ve always done this, moved around aggressively in one another’s personal space, but this is different. This is charged.
Arousal shudders through him, and Will can’t help it: he inhales, sharply. It’s quiet, but Sue clearly hears him. Her mouth parts, just a bit. The tip of her tongue darts out, licks her lower lip. Her pupils are dilated.
“Tell me what you want to do to me,” he says, roughly, looking right into her face, just inches from his own. “You –”
“I want you to take a long walk off a short pier into piranha-infested waters,” Sue snaps, averting her eyes. She’s breathing quickly, shallowly.
Oh, goddamn it, he thinks. Everything’s fucked anyway, just burn it all down. With a quick prayer that he’s not horribly misjudging the situation and setting himself up for a phone call from a celebrity lawyer, Will hooks his arm around Sue’s waist, abruptly jerking her to him, and slides his hand between her legs.
Sue stiffens immediately against him, gasping loudly at the contact. The sound she makes goes straight to his dick, and Will moans against her cheek. She’s already soaked damp under his palm, he can feel it through the fabric. The heat of her makes him dizzy. Sue doesn’t hesitate: she cups her hand over his, pushing it firmly against her, and begins rubbing herself frantically with the flats of his fingers.
“Sue – ” Will chokes, astounded by how much she wants this. Her mouth dips to the plane of skin where his neck meets his shoulder, sucking, biting hard, shutting him up. She’s already shaking under his hand, coming with little hoarse cries, pulsing warm into his fingers. It’s too much for him: the raw speed of it, how easy it is to get her there. Just as she’s relaxing out of her orgasm, his own overwhelms him, and Will ruts shamelessly against her thigh through his jeans, panting.
She backs away first, still breathing heavily with exertion. Will leans back against the edge of her desk, trying to direct his thigh away from the wet spot in his denim, without much success.
“Well,” she says, after a moment. Her voice is unsteady. “I don’t think I’ve been this embarrassed since George W. Bush turned down my application for Director of Homeland Security.”
“Is that – does that always happen, for you, do you always get so – ?” Will trips over his question, wanting to spare both of them the specifics. He’s fairly certain that asking is suicidal, but he needs to know. If it’s true he’ll need to reevaluate the last couple years of his professional life. “When we fight?”
“That woefully non-descriptive word implies an exchange of equals, William,” Sue counters, “which you and I are decidedly not. ‘We’ don’t ‘fight.’ I eviscerate you and you take it. And no,” she adds, firmly. “Your inability to sustain simple repartee beyond pathetic denials and weak insults isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac.”
“Then, what –”
“It isn’t, usually.” Sue’s cheeks are still pink, though he thinks it’s more from being caught out than anything else. She sits in her chair, folds one leg carefully over the other, and looks up at him. “I’d accuse you of slipping something into my afternoon protein shake, but Becky’s my taster and she didn’t report anything out of the ordinary to me.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Friday,” he admits, running a hand absentmindedly through his non-existent hair. “I haven’t been able to get it – you – out of my head. And believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Yeah, well.” She uncurls her legs, planting them on the floor. “Believe me, I’m not exactly thrilled that I gave the gift of myself to someone so obviously unworthy of it.”
“Unworthy? I didn’t hear you complaining the other night,” Will says, irritated with her. “Or three minutes ago, for that matter.”
Sue laughs, a short, sardonic bark. “Eat me, Schuester.”
“Open wide, Sylvester,” he leers, not missing a beat, and thrills a little as the color flushes back into her face. It’s not like her to toss him a pitch right down the middle of the plate; she must, he figures, really be rattled by this. Except his retort is backfiring on him, a little, because now all Will can think about is going down on her. And the astonishing thing is, his dick’s recovered enough to think that sounds like a really, really good idea.
Will shifts, uncomfortably, and notices that Sue’s fidgeting too. Maybe for the same reasons.
“This thing between us,” she declares, staring at the wet spot over his crotch, “this unholy abomination, whatever this is, is over. Never again. Done. Deader than the careers of Madonna’s enemies.”
“You got it,” he agrees, relieved she’s made the decision for him.
4. we broke our promise on a very sharp rock
When they’re fucking in the room above her office two nights later, he asks her who Madonna’s enemies are. Sue tells him he’s an idiot, and deliberately twists the three fingers she’s got inside him, making Will groan. “Get on all fours, Sinéad,” she commands, and with her free hand unfastens the clasp on the box at her side.
Eventually, Will forgets all about Madonna.
“We have a problem, William,” she informs him, nearly an hour later. They’re sprawled out on Sue’s king-sized futon: sweat-drenched, not touching. Will doesn’t think he’s ever been this sore in his entire life. He’s trying to figure out if he can avoid sitting down for the next several days without anyone noticing there’s something wrong.
“Do we?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb,” she snarls, propping herself up on an elbow. “I know you’re more obtuse than a pair of kindergarten scissors, but you know just as well as I do that this –“ She gestures wildly between their bodies. “ – is an untenable situation.”
“Why?” he asks her, genuinely curious as to what she’ll say.
“Why?” Sue gawks at him, disbelieving. “First of all, Will Schuester, I hate you. I hate everything you stand for. I hate that each morning, despite what the mirror so clearly tells you before you leave the house, you decide that you look fit for public viewing. I hate your teeth. I hate that you have no healthy respect for the amount of work that goes into preparing for serious competitions. I hate that I told you to shave your hair and you actually did it.” She glowers, sitting up, and wraps herself in the comforter at the edge of the futon. “Secondly, if anyone found out about this, I’d be humiliated. And I don’t do humiliation, unless I’m the one bringing it.”
Will flushes, remembering what she’d made him do just ten minutes earlier. What she’d made him say to her. How much he’d enjoyed it.
“It’s not like anyone has to know,” he says, finally, making a silent decision.
“William, you couldn’t stumble over my point if I put it right under your feet. You – ” She throws her left arm out wide, gesturing. “Are here. My point – ” He ducks as she swings her right arm to the side. “Is over here. You are missing it. God, you’re infuriating.”
“No,” he says, swinging his feet over the side of the futon, reaching for his boxers and jeans. “Hear me out. I’m not proposing we make this into an actual relationship or anything –”
At the word relationship, Sue makes a face like someone’s told her that Mary Lou Retton’s performing at the Lima Mall skating rink.
“ – but, really, what’s the harm in, you know, messing around once in a while? When the mood strikes us?”
“No,” she says, firmly. “Absolutely not. And don’t grin at me like that, Schuester. I know you think it makes you look adorable, but it doesn’t. It makes you look like a stoned golden retriever.”
“Come on, Sue.” He reaches over, touches her arm. Strokes it a little. “It’d be fun. We could do it in your LeCar.”
“No,” she repeats, but he can tell the idea appeals to her. “You’d mess up the upholstery.”
Will slides next to her, pulls back the comforter, and wraps it around the two of them, shivering a little. Sue’s secret room isn’t particularly well-insulated. “By the way, thanks for letting the girls rejoin glee. They were back at practice yesterday afternoon.”
“I don’t even want to know how your brain made the leap from our ill-advised sexual congress to my unholy trinity of blondes.” Sue grimaces. “And believe me, if they falter on even one toe touch jump I’ll have them out of that club of yours so fast Brittany’ll think she’s jumped to light speed.”
“Duly noted.”
Sue draws her knees up under her chin, hugging her calves. She’s still nude, Will realizes, even though he’s pulled on his pants. It’s one of the many things he’s learned about her over the past week: she’s remarkably comfortable with her body. After Terri and Emma, it’s something Will’s not used to seeing.
He’s never kissed her. Will’s just realized this. “I’ve never kissed you,” he blurts.
Sue stares at him. “What?”
“Kissing. You know, Sue, that thing normal people usually do before they have sex for the first time? Where –”
“I know,” she cuts in, “what it is, you ridiculous manchild. I just don’t make a habit of kissing everyone I fuck, and if you make that Pretty Woman reference I see nearly falling out of your mouth, Will Schuester, so help me God, I will cut off your balls and use them for hacky-sacks.”
“I mean,” Will says, because he wants to see how she’ll react, “it’s just a kiss. You had your tongue in my asshole not twenty minutes ago.”
It’s Sue’s turn to blush. “Whatever,” she mutters.
He starts to laugh. “Maybe I shouldn’t kiss you, then. Not until you get your hands on some Colgate and a toothbrush.”
Sue swats at his arm. “I really, really seriously hate you,” she tells him, but she’s smiling a little, and Will realizes, with a sense of lightness he hasn’t felt in at least a year, that he’s probably going to find himself in the backseat of Sue’s LeCar before too long. He nudges her under the blanket and makes the stoned golden retriever face he’s pretty sure she actually likes.
5. what we’re doing here has got no long term plan
Sue enters through his front door around eight-thirty the next evening while Will’s curled up in one of his easy chairs, reading an old copy of The Big Sleep. She tosses her key on his dining room table, next to his own, and removes her oversized Adidas parka, hanging it on a chair.
“I thought you said we were done?” he asks her, folding over the corner of his page, standing. “I thought you said you hated me.”
She stands next to the table, rubbing her palms together to warm them up. “If anyone,” Sue tells him, sternly, “finds out about this, anyone at all, we’re done. You got that? Done. And I still hate you. I just decided that I like getting laid more.”
Will doesn’t answer, just walks over and kisses her for the first time. Sue makes a surprised sound against his mouth, and then she’s leaning in, kissing him back, cupping either side of his head where his hair’s starting to grow in, tawny and fine.
“You realize,” she says, after she pulls away, “that this – us – it’ll never work.”
“I know.” He knows.
“And you realize that I’m still going to do everything in my power to destroy your glee club.”
“I know,” Will repeats, because he understands Sue needs to believe that’s true, and he kisses her again.
Sue spends the night, another first. Will adds “hogs the sheets” and “restless sleeper” to his rapidly growing mental list of Things He Didn’t Know About Sue Sylvester Before All This Started (he still can’t bring himself to be more specific than “all this”). She kicks in her sleep, too, and he wakes up several times during the night when her foot connects with the back of his calf. “Hey,” he mutters, after the third time, and reaches behind him to rub her arm. “Don’t kick.”
“No one’s gonna stop me,” she mumbles, still asleep.
“No,” he agrees. “But don’t kick.”
Sue sighs and nestles against him, curving around his back: warm and solid and there. She stops kicking.
6. red alert, red alert, it’s a catastrophe
It’s Shannon who figures it out first, just over a month later.
In retrospect, this isn’t at all surprising to Will, because by now, Shannon knows him pretty well. He’s been over to her house a few times to watch football games and have a beer, and now that Emma’s married and things are weird between them, Shannon’s the first person he goes to when he wants to share good news, or complain about a student, or ask a favor. What is surprising is how Shannon finds out: not by walking in on them (they’ve stopped fooling around at school anyway, save for the occasional quickie in Sue’s office after hours), or by overhearing a passing comment. No, it’s much simpler, and somehow more damning.
It’s lunchtime. Sue’s grabbing some coffee from the $1600 machine she’s had installed in the faculty lounge (with a sign posted on the cover that reads COFFEE = $10/CUP. PAY SUE OR FACE WRATH). Will starts to sit down next to Shannon at one of the lounge tables, when he realizes he’s left his bagged lunch on the counter, next to Sue’s coffee machine.
“Be right back,” he tells Shannon, and walks over to where Sue’s standing in front of his brown paper bag. Without thinking, Will moves behind Sue and rests his hands on her hips, pushing gently, indicating he needs her to shift to the side.
Sue freezes at Will’s touch, goes rigid, and drops the cup of coffee she’s just finished pouring. They both jump back to avoid the splash.
“I’m sorry – ” Will stammers, realizing too late what he’s done wrong, but Sue’s storming out of the lounge, leaving behind her broken cup, coffee running off the counter and onto the floor, and Will, unable to stop her.
“Will?” Shannon’s saying his name, and oh, God, he hears it in her voice: that dawning knowledge he’s been dreading. “Will?”
He turns to her. She looks shocked. Several other faculty members watch him, staring. Thank God, they seem more confused then anything else.
“Not here, please,” he says, wearily.
“Then outside,” she tells him, firmly. “Now.”
It’s all he can do not to let Shannon physically drag him out to the empty smoker’s patio adjacent to the lounge. She slings Will down into the decrepit lawn chair just outside the door, like he’s a suspect being prepped for interrogation on a cop show, and gapes at him. “What the hell was that?”
Will doesn’t say anything. Isn’t sure what, exactly, he’d say, because, really, what was that? How had he thought touching Sue like that, in public, would be appropriate or safe or anything close to okay? (The answer, he knows, even if he’s having a hard time admitting it to himself, is that he hadn’t thought about it, had simply done what felt natural to him.)
“Are you –” Shannon’s face is red. “Are you seeing her?”
“No?” he tries. It’s a feeble attempt that might as well be an affirmation.
“Oh, come on, Will. You had your hands on her. I’ve never seen anyone touch Sue Sylvester and get away without a body cast.”
“We’re not dating, exactly.” There’s really no way to explain their arrangement and make it look good, he realizes. Not when he knows Shannon’s convinced that Sue is just a couple steps away from morphing into Kevin Spacey’s character from Se7en. “It’s just – you know. An informal arrangement.”
“A sex thing?” She wrinkles her face in horror. “What is wrong with you, Will? How could you have so little self-respect? I know you’re hurting from Emma’s marriage, but you don’t need to do this. I mean, it’s Sue, for crying out loud. She’s probably the worst human being I’ve ever met in my life, and that’s saying a lot, because I sat next to Mel Gibson at a restaurant once.”
He wants to tell her it’s not that simple, not really. That yes, Sue is unstable and vindictive and bullying and probably the last person he should be spending his nights with, if he wants to learn to make healthy relationship choices. But also, Will’s realizing, she can be fiercely loyal to those who’ve demonstrated they’re worthy of her time and energy. Kurt, for one, and her Cheerios, as long as they’re producing on a regular basis. And then, there’s her sister. Sue hasn’t said much about her to Will, but he’d overheard Sue on her cell phone last week, talking to Jean, and the warmth in her voice was a revelation.
“She’s always there,” he says, instead, surprising himself. “Everyone leaves, Shannon. At the end of the day, everyone goes home to their lives. You. Emma. The kids. She’s there, pushing at me, needling me, whatever. She’s always there.”
“Don’t tell me,” Shannon snaps, “about being lonely. I know about being lonely, and it’s no excuse to get involved with someone like that. If she’s what you find comforting, Will, then I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
She walks through the door back into the faculty lounge, leaving Will alone on the patio, shivering in the crisp February afternoon.
7. until the fire starts falling and the fast bullets fly
Sue is true to her word. She doesn’t return Will’s calls, or his texts. She stops coming over to his place. Nearly a week later, he receives an envelope in the mail, with her copy of his key inside. No note.
He still has Sue’s favorite brand of orange juice in his refrigerator, the kind with extra, extra pulp, and each time he opens the door to grab some eggs or a beer or an apple, he scrupulously avoids looking at it.
For a while, he manages to convince himself he’s better off without her. Shannon’s right, in a way: as an educator, as someone who’s dedicated his life to helping his kids achieve their dreams, he can’t really, in good conscience, be with someone whose five year plan includes the acquisition of several tanks and the blueprints of the U.S. Capitol building.
Except, on one particularly sleepless night towards the end of February, he can’t stop thinking about something she’d told him once, off-hand. They’d been in bed, Sue talking up a storm in his ear before sleep. “At least,” she’d said, “I’m honest about the fact that I put my needs first. You’d be a lot easier to tolerate if you just admitted you do the same.”
Will stops by Cheerio practice the next day and stands in the background, watching her kids execute tumbles and tuck rolls. It takes several minutes for Sue to turn around and notice him, but when she does, she scowls, points her finger at him and bellows through her bullhorn: “OUT, SCHUESTER.”
“Please,” he says. “Just a minute.”
She glares at him, her bullhorn still raised. “NO. AND ALSO YOUR SCALP LOOKS LIKE A FIVE-O’CLOCK-SHADOW GOT STUCK UP THERE WHEN IT TRIED TO RUN AWAY FROM YOUR FACE.”
“Would you put that thing down, Sue? Look, I need to talk to you. And I think my hair’s growing back nicely, actually.” He touches the top of his head, where little curls are just starting to reform.
“MEDIOCRE EXECUTION, TODDLERS,” she barks, turning back to her Cheerios. “HIT THE SHOWERS.”
They file out, obediently, and then it’s just the two of them in that huge auditorium. Sue lowers her bullhorn, looking at him through narrowed eyes.
“What do you want?” she demands, suspiciously.
“To apologize, for starters,” he tells her. “It’s my fault, what happened.”
Will expects her to assault him with a sarcastic comment, or roll her eyes, or relay to him one of her patently inaccurate histories about famous American traitors and how they got punished, but instead she says, quietly, “I told you what the result would be if anyone found out. There are consequences to your actions. You need to understand and accept that.”
“I know, but – ” He bites down on something he knows is better left unsaid, and shuffles his foot against the gym floor. “Don’t you miss it? At all?”
“What I miss or don’t miss isn’t what matters here. Beiste knows about us now, and so we’re through. Simple.”
“I'm that much of an embarrassment to you?” he asks, bluntly. “Is it really such a terrible blow to this persona you’ve built up, to have someone find out that you and I are – whatever you and I are? Jesus, Sue, is it that hard for you to admit to yourself that there might be something worth continuing here, even if it’s just a good – no, a great fuck, with the added bonus of someone who doesn't mind listening while you complain about everyone else’s utter incompetence?”
She opens her mouth, and closes it again, pivoting on her heel, striding away from him.
“You know,” Will yells after her, “for someone who’s made a career – a life – out of confrontation, you’re doing a piss-poor job of fighting back.”
Sue fires a middle finger up in the air, waving it behind her, in Will’s direction. She continues her march out, slamming through the double doors to the gymnasium.
Well, Will figures, that’s it, I guess.
He feels awful.
8. the bed is kind of narrow, but my arms are open wide
Two nights later, his doorbell buzzes. Repeatedly.
“All right, all right,” Will yells, stumbling out of bed, throwing on his robe. “I’m coming, hold your horses.” It’s two a.m., and he tries not to have any expectations at all as he lurches to the door, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
She doesn’t say hello or ask him how he’s doing, or waste time on any pleasantries (and that’s how he realizes it’s been so long since they’ve really talked, because he’d nearly forgotten her complete and total distaste for niceties), just ducks under his arm and rushes inside, where it’s warm. Her oversized parka makes her look paradoxically smaller, like an overgrown child.
Will closes the door and turns to Sue, waiting for her to speak.
“I,” Sue says, “do not have a persona.” It comes out in a rush, like she’s been itching to deny it. “What I am, William, is an experience.”
“You sure are,” Will agrees, and smiles at her: the stoned golden retriever grin. She sighs, annoyed with him, and shakes her head.
“It’s like talking to a follically-challenged brick wall,” she mutters. “Look, Will. The Sue Sylvester Experience is predicated on a number of inflexible truths.” She ticks off points on her fingers. “Number one: no weaknesses. Number two: only excellence. Number three: don’t tell anyone about fight club.”
“Shouldn’t that be number one?” he asks, unable to stop himself.
“Don’t interrupt me. Number four: Kelly Ripa should be imprisoned for crimes against humanity. Number five: Mason jar grenades are surprisingly effective. And number six: don’t get involved with annoyingly earnest men who wear plaid and unironically enjoy ABBA.”
“Hey,” Will protests, stung. “ABBA’s one of the best pop groups of all time.”
Sue throws up her hands in exasperation. “Do you need a flowchart and an instructional assistant, William, in order to better follow my point? Because I can get Becky down here to help out in about five minutes flat. She wears a pager at all times.”
“Don’t get involved with Will Schuester. I got it,” he says, wryly.
“You see my dilemma, then.” She paces the hallway, taking five steps toward the dining room, swiveling, taking five steps back.
Hope blooms in Will’s chest, and he’s startled by how much it’s affecting him. How much he hopes she’s come here to tell him she’s reconsidered. “There’s a dilemma?”
Sue stops pacing, suddenly, and looks at him. “You,” she admits, grudgingly, “are a better than average fuck. Certainly more pliable than most.”
“Not better than average,” he corrects, remembering how she’d clutched at him, how he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. “Great.”
“No, Jeff Bridges is great in the sack. You, buddy, are no Jeff Bridges.”
He’s never quite sure if he believes Sue’s stories of hookups with slightly sketchy Hollywood actors (although bagging the Dude, if true, would be an impressive notch on Sue’s belt), but it’s not what Will’s really interested in, at the moment. “Are you reconsidering truth number six?”
“If I did, it would also mean reconsidering truth number one,” she says, slowly. “And I’m not sure I’m willing to do that.”
Will crosses over to her, and touches her parka-clad arm, gently. “You don’t,” he tells her, “have to make any final decisions here. We take this thing one day at a time. No labels. No guarantees. Just you and me. Okay?”
Sue stares into his face, searching for something there, and seems to come to a decision.
“If you ever,” she warns, “try to make me watch Mamma Mia – ”
“I won’t,” Will promises, and kisses her.
Author:
ellydash Pairing: Will Schuester/Sue Sylvester
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Hate sex. References to pegging.
Word Count: 8,474
Spoilers: Minor ones for 2x10 (A Very Glee Christmas) and 1x21 (Funk).
Note: No, really, these two
Summary: Will shaves his head, gets drunk with Sue on a Friday night and makes an impulsive decision. It’s what happens next, though, that he really needs to worry about.
Featuring appearances by Will’s concerned BFF Shannon Beiste, a bottle of Johnnie Walker, fruitcake, verbal banter, Sue’s $1600 coffee maker and the Cleveland Browns (although not all at once).
1. aiming for the Vin Diesel look, you end up with Charlie Brown
Will shaves his head on Christmas Day with the electric razor Sue gave him, partly because he’s thinking it’s about time he made some spontaneous choices, but mostly because he wants to see the look on Sue’s face when she sees his smooth scalp. He imagines her speechless, impressed with his daring, incapable of insults. No more jibes about his curly hair.
When she sees him in the hallway on the first day back to school after vacation, Sue laughs so hard she stumbles into a locker. The few students nearby scatter, clearly terrified.
“Thanks, buddy,” she manages, when she’s regained her breath. “That’s the best chuckle I’ve had since Sophie’s Choice. You look like a skinhead Muppet.”
“I aim to please, Sue,” he says, sourly.
She straightens herself, still grinning, and hollers back to him as she walks to her office. “This opens up a whole new world of ways I can viciously insult you, and for that, Cue Ball, I’m eternally grateful.”
Will’s crestfallen. It doesn’t help that Shannon snorts when she sees him in the faculty lounge, either. “Will,” she asks him, with bemused affection, “what in God’s name were you thinking?”
If he tells her I thought it would get Sue off my back, it’ll sound just as dumb as he now realizes it is. “I wanted to keep cool in the winter?” he tries, with a lopsided smile.
Shannon just shakes her head. “You should just stay away from her as much as possible,” she advises. “It’s what I do, and it works out pretty well for me.”
“Kind of difficult when I’m her favorite puppy to kick around.”
“You know, Will,” Shannon says, thoughtfully, “you might want to think about how much of that is Sue actually doing the kicking, and how much of it is you always finding ways to get under her boot.”
He protests this vehemently, because that’s what you do when someone has a point that you don’t want to acknowledge. “She’s the one with the vendetta, not me.”
Shannon shrugs. “Okay, then. Have it your way.”
His glee kids, bless them, are kind enough to refrain from teasing him openly about the missing hair, although he notices Santana whispering to Quinn in the back row during rehearsal. Quinn giggles, catches Will’s eye, and looks away, quickly.
Brittany raises her hand. “Mr. Schue?” she asks, looking worried. “Are you dying?”
Will reassures her that he isn’t, and quickly changes the subject, reflexively touching his temples where his hair’s starting to grow back in weird shadow-patches. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare for Regionals, guys. Let’s start brainstorming.”
2. so sit back and watch the bed burn
The faculty holiday party is the first Friday evening back after break. No one’s really sure why this is, although Will has a sneaking suspicion that Figgins wanted to save money by purchasing half-priced Christmas-themed food and decorations after the New Year.
“This whole thing is really weird,” he tells Shannon, who’s eying the slice of fruitcake in her hand with suspicion. “I wouldn’t eat that, if I were you.”
“Yeah.” She balls up the fruitcake in her fist, surveying the nearly empty faculty lounge. “Will, this isn’t just weird. It’s sad.”
Shannon’s right: it is. Figgins’s idea of a holiday party apparently includes the random placement of miniature Christmas trees on the faculty lounge tables; some red and green paper streamers thumb-tacked to the walls; several pitchers of spiked eggnog; a bizarre assortment of fruitcake, red and green Hershey’s Kisses and vanilla ice cream; and a menorah, just in case Ruby Feinberg or Dan Weismann decide to show up.
Will looks across the room at Emma, deep in conversation with the new history teacher. She’s brought Carl with her, and he catches Will’s eye and smiles, folding his arm around Emma’s shoulders. I won, asshole, Will can almost hear him saying. He frowns. Shannon notices.
“Just don’t, okay, Will?” she suggests, kindly. “Have a little eggnog. We’ll talk about the Browns.”
This is probably the best idea Will’s heard so far this year. He has a little eggnog.
Actually, he has a lot of eggnog. By the time Shannon drives him home, Will’s slurring a little, saying things like “Colt McCoy was the best draft pick of the last six years,” and Shannon’s agreeing because she’s nice and wants to let him win something, for once.
When they’re in front of his place, she offers to park and come upstairs, make him some soup or something, but Will waves her off, saying the apartment’s filthy, and he’s pretty sure he’ll just make an early night of it. He feels a little guilty lying to Shannon, especially when she’s been so kind to him (and kindness isn’t something Will’s had a lot of, lately), but it’s easier than telling her the truth. Which, if he’s being honest, is that he wants to open up that bottle of Johnnie Walker on top of his refrigerator and get really wasted. Maybe put on some Billie Holiday and indulge in a little self-pity.
He turns his key in the lock and pushes open the door, stumbling in, humming “My Man,” and wouldn’t you know it, there’s Sue sitting on his couch, his bottle of Scotch in her hand, two glasses on the coffee table.
“Aw, Sue,” he groans. “The hell are you doing here? Who said you could drink that?”
“Well, hey, William.” She stands up, flashing him a disarming grin. “My anger yoga class got cancelled, so I figured I’d stop by, use my key, see if you had anything to drink. I’m completely out. Had me a little John Wayne marathon last Saturday night and I drank enough tequila to make my distilled sweat test above the legal limit.”
Anger yoga? Distilled sweat? He knows better than to ask. “You know, my liquor cabinet isn’t your personal Kroger.”
“What liquor cabinet? You’ve got a bottle of Cuervo, three boxes of Franzia and half a quart of cranberry juice. And this.” She waves the Scotch. “Best of the lot by far, but that’s not saying much. Gets better the more you drink, though.”
Will considers asking her to leave, but he knows it’s going to be a battle of wits he doesn’t have the energy or the sobriety for, so he sighs, tosses his keys on the dining room table, and joins her on the couch.
Sue slides over to make room for him, and hands Will the empty glass. “Figured you wouldn’t be able to stomach Figgy’s post-partum party for too long, so I left this out for you. Etta brought her drill sergeant with her, didn’t she?”
“He’s a dentist,” Will corrects, wearily, while Sue pours him a few generous fingers.
“That,” she says, “was the joke, you idiot. Dentists have drills. Jesus, if his sense of humor is even slightly more developed than yours, she’s traded way up.”
He takes a lengthy swallow, leans back against the couch. It’s going to be a long night.
“It never would’ve worked between you and Arla, anyway,” she observes. “I met your ex-wife. You’re better off with someone like her keeping you in line. Batshit crazy. Controlling. Dominating. A woman of conviction.”
“You’re describing yourself,” Will blurts, before he realizes what he’s saying, and immediately wants to take it back.
Sue looks at him, eyes narrowed. “That,” she says, sharply, “is the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, and let me remind you, I’ve heard you rap.”
“Sorry.” He shakes his glass at her, indicating that she should blame the booze. “You’re not batshit crazy. Not constantly.”
“As always, you’re irritatingly incapable of grasping my point. I’m referring to your presumptive insinuation that I’d be interested in taking over your ex-wife’s job.” She shudders. “That, William, is an affront on the level of Crystal Pepsi or Jimmy Carter.”
“You sure seemed into it when I danced for you last year.” Dear God, he thinks, horrified by his lack of filter, just shut up, Schuester.
“That was right before Nationals,” she snaps, and takes a substantial gulp from her glass. “I was vulnerable. Don’t flatter yourself. And that uncharacteristic moment of weakness had nothing to do with what you just suggested.”
Nationals, he knows, are just a few months away. Are you vulnerable yet? Will almost asks her, but mercifully manages to catch himself in time.
They sit in uncomfortable silence for a moment, drinking in tandem. Will blinks, slightly nauseous, wishing he could disappear or fall asleep or slide under the couch. “I’m trying to make better choices,” he says, finally. “Terri wasn’t good for me. I realize that now.”
“Well, bully for you, Will.” Sue helps herself to another healthy splash of Scotch. “You know, I’m bored,” she adds, loudly and looks at him. “I’d ask you to entertain me, but third-rate lounge singing ranks somewhere below scented hand lotion and Chihuahuas on the list of things I can tolerate. And I’m pretty sure lounge singing’s the extent of your ‘talent’ repertoire.” She crooks the first two fingers of her left hand in belated air quotes. “Just in case you didn’t catch the sarcasm, buddy: ta – lent.”
He snorts. “You’re drunk, Sue.”
“And you’re awful.”
For some reason, this strikes Will as hilarious, and he starts to laugh, resting his chin on the heel of his palm. Sue grins crookedly at him, clearly pleased with herself. She reaches over and flicks the top of his head.
“Hey,” he protests, looking up, but she does it again. “Stop that.”
“Make me,” she challenges, and tweaks his ear.
Will swats at her hand. “Seriously,” he tries, “don’t do that,” and Sue grins wider, taps his cheek just hard enough that it stings a little.
“Make me, Schuester,” she repeats. There’s an unfamiliar edge to her voice.
He sets his glass on the coffee table and stares at her, not sure what he’s hearing. She leans in again, her hand poised, and Will’s ready for her this time: he grabs her wrist, suspending the swing of her arm in mid-strike. Knowing full well there’s a possibility he might leave a mark, he tightens his grip, twisting just a little. He has a feeling she can take it. Sue hisses, but it doesn’t sound like pain to him, not exactly, so he doesn’t let go.
They stare at one another. He can feel the quick thrum of her heartbeat under his fingers.
Deliberately, Sue lowers her other hand to the top of his thigh, just to the left of his groin. Will’s mouth falls open.
“What the hell are you doing?” he blurts. “I thought you said you weren’t interested.”
“You need to learn how to listen when your superiors speak, Will,” she tells him, and curls her hand around his thigh. “What I said was that the idea of filling the position your ex showed such good sense in resigning offends my impressively well-developed sense of self-worth.”
Will is having a really hard time following this complicated train of logic, partly because he’s several blocks away from sober, and partly because Sue’s fingers are less than half an inch away from his dick. Which, to his horror, is starting to harden inside his jeans.
He’s never, ever thought about Sue like this. Well, other than that time last year when he’d sung to her in the music room, because he’d sort of had to think about it then, but that didn’t count, because he was exacting revenge. And then there was that weird moment one night a few months back when she’d flashed into Will’s mind while he was jerking off before bed, and the image freaked him out so much he’d smacked his skull against the headboard and given himself a bruise.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t fuck you,” she adds, and he drops her wrist in shock. He can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“Sue – ”
“Have you ever been fucked?” She sounds thoughtful. Her fingers drum a light staccato against his thigh. “I don’t suppose that wife of yours ever felt much like venturing outside the land of vanilla, did she? But I bet you’ve imagined it.”
Will closes his eyes. He’s reeling from her words, what they’re implying. Sue’s right: even when Terri’d been interested in sex, her idea of a good time in bed wouldn’t shock the most innocent nun at the convent. She’s wrong, too, though: he’s never thought about getting fucked. Until she’d said it. Suggested it.
“I bet you’re thinking about it now,” she continues, perceptive as always, her breath warm against his ear. Will’s right hand creeps towards his crotch, unbidden.
“Don’t.” He feels the sting of a slap on his moving hand; he draws it back, chastened. “Not yet,” Sue tells him, and, oh, God, if there’s a not yet, eventually there’ll be a now. “Keep your eyes closed, and listen to me, or I stop. We play by my rules or not at all. Got it?”
Will’s dick jerks at this, like her words are textbook Pavlovian conditioning. He nods his consent.
“I have a secret room,” she begins, her tone low, “above my office. I take people there when they show me they deserve it. And in that room, I keep a box that contains a number of extremely pleasurable toys.”
Her other hand grazes his stomach, just the faintest bit of pressure, and Will bucks forward at the touch. He feels her nails dig into his thigh: a warning not to ask for too much. There are rules here, Will realizes, and the only way he’s going to find them out is by testing what she’s willing to give.
“Please,” he begs, not knowing what he’s asking for. “Please, Sue, I need to –”
“Keep your hands down.” She bites the edge of his ear, and Will gasps, thrusting up against Sue’s hand, trying to get pressure where he needs it. “Oh, William,” she breathes. He can hear the arousal in her voice. “The things I could do to you with my toys. I’ve got this one eleven-incher, it’s nearly as thick as my wrist, and I bet with a little patience and help from some Astroglide I’d get you so open for me –”
“Yes,” he says, panting. “Whatever you want, anything, just touch me, just fuck me, please –”
He feels her draw down the zipper of his jeans. There’s a brief moment where both her hands disappear from his body, and he can hear her rustling nearby for what feels like hours. Then she’s back, pulling his pants down, his boxers too. Will lifts his hips off the couch to help her, eyes still closed tightly. And finally, finally, thank Christ and all the saints whose names he doesn’t know, she’s touching him, one hand wrapped firmly around the base of his penis, the other – is that what he thinks it is? Yes – the other rolling down a condom over the tip.
There’s no time to wonder why Sue’s brought protection with her, because before Will can wrap his brain around what’s happening, he feels her knees dig in around his hips, her bare legs folded on either side of his thighs, and just like that, she’s on top of him, lowering herself onto his cock. The ease of it astounds Will, how slick she is, how effortlessly he slides inside her. Sue groans, a guttural sound so unlike anything he’s ever heard from her, and it makes him want to come right there, like he’s sixteen again. He thrusts up into her, again and again, trying to match her rhythm. His hands frame her naked hips, slide up to cup her breasts over the jacket she hasn’t bothered to remove.
Will can’t wait for her permission anymore, and opens his eyes, finally takes Sue in, red-faced and head tilted back. He wonders, wildly, if it always feels this good when you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.
“Come,” he tells her, because he’s nearly there, himself, “I want to watch you do it, I need to see your face when you –” and Sue stares down at him, mouth opening, gasps, “Oh, my God, Will –” Just like that, she clenches around him and comes with a cry. He can’t last, not after that.
After he’s spent into her, still breathing hard, Sue collapses against him, her face touching his neck, her chest on his. Will’s arms are around her. It’s almost a hug. He strokes her back through the fabric of her jacket.
Then Sue’s lifting herself off him, rushing out of the living room towards the bathroom without a word. He catches a glimpse of her face, and can’t decipher the look he finds there.
Oh, shit, he thinks, coming back to earth, hearing the bathroom door slam. What did we just do? Oh, shit.
3. another flavor, something like a terminator
Will spends the weekend panicking.
On Saturday afternoon, he wakes up with a hangover headache so strong he can’t open his eyes all the way. While he’s stumbling towards the kitchen to see if he’s got any orange juice, the events of the night before hit him like a punch to the gut. He trips over a dining room chair that hasn’t moved in five years.
“Oh, no,” he says, out loud, because when you live alone you talk to yourself on occasion. Will tries to recall exactly what happened, but it’s a little fuzzy. Except he remembers pretty clearly the part where Sue told him she has a sex toy collection she keeps above her office at school, oh, my God, and that she wanted to use it on him and he is so, so fucked. On multiple levels.
By Saturday night, he’s convinced himself he needs to resign immediately. Except high school teaching jobs, even Spanish jobs, are few and far between, and then there’s the matter of his glee kids, whom he can’t, in good conscience, abandon. He tries to imagine telling them why. Well, guys, you see, Sue and I drank a lot of Johnnie Walker the other night and got a little too friendly, because when two teachers who hate each other very much – No. He probably can’t say that. He definitely can’t. The thought of any of his students finding out about this – anyone at McKinley finding out – makes his stomach turn over. Better to hope Sue’s just as horrified by what happened on Friday night as he is. Maybe the two of them can pretend like it never happened. Will’s good at that, when he needs to be.
This plan seems entirely doable. Until Sunday afternoon, when he’s rubbing one out because he’s already read the paper and there’s nothing on TV, and for some reason he’s having a hard time getting over the peak until he thinks about the way Sue choked out his name when he told her he wanted to watch her climax, and that’s what does it for him. He comes, hard, in short spasms, spilling over his fist.
Well and truly fucked. On multiple levels.
By Monday, he’s so nervous he spills his morning coffee all over his only clean pair of khakis and has to change into denim. Will’s late to school, which is something of a mercy, because it means he can dash past Sue’s office in a crowd of students, escaping notice. He figures she’ll corner him before long, though. Fix him with a look sharp enough to fillet the guts out of a bear. Make him wither. Humiliate him.
She’s not in the faculty lounge during lunch period. Will sits in a chair with a clear view of the door, watching it like he’s been commissioned for surveillance. To everything Shannon says, he replies “Uh, huh,” until, exasperated, she tells him, “I was thinking about auditioning for the Rockettes, Will, do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Uh, huh,” he says, not listening, and Shannon socks him in the arm.
“What is up with you, little buddy?” she asks. “I don’t cotton well to being ignored while I’m telling you about the killing I made at the racetrack. I’m guessing it’s more interesting than whatever you got up to this weekend.”
If he’d been drinking out of his can of pop, Will might’ve done an inelegant spit take. “I didn’t do anything this weekend,” he says, too quickly.
Shannon narrows her eyes at him. “Sure,” she drawls. “Well, whatever’s going on, I’ll get it out of you eventually.”
Will almost laughs out loud, but stops himself in time. “There’s nothing to get out,” he corrects, still watching the door.
Sue doesn’t show.
It’s not until glee club practice, after school’s let out, that he finally figures out why. Will faces his motley crew and realizes he’s down three students. Three Cheerios, to be exact.
“Where’s Quinn?” he asks Rachel, because Rachel’s watching him with trepidation, like she knows exactly what’s going on but doesn’t want to be the one to break the news. “And Santana? And Brittany?”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Schue,” Rachel says, her face a perfect tragedy mask.
“Santana said Coach Sylvester told them they had to choose,” Mike adds. “Between Cheerios and glee club. She said she needs cheerleaders who give everything they have, or they’ll be left off the supersonic jet to Nationals.”
“What’re we going to do?” Tina looks miserable. “We can’t just fill three positions this close to Regionals. I mean, where are we going to find someone who dances as well as Brittany?”
Will slams his fist against the top of the piano, hard, and Rachel shrieks. He bites down on his lip to prevent a rush of obscenities.
“Practice is canceled,” he manages. “Go home, guys. I’m going to get this all sorted out.”
Sue’s waiting for him in the hallway, like he knew she’d be: arms crossed, legs akimbo, a smirk twisting her mouth. She’s wearing the black and white tracksuit with the popped collar that reminds him of Snow White’s wicked stepmother.
“You,” he tells her, pointing a finger between her eyes, “are a vengeful, manipulative bitch.”
Sue slaps down his finger and takes a step towards him, grinning. “Is that the meanest insult you can think of, Kojak? I’ve been called worse by the kindergartners I scout for recruitment.”
He’s seeing red. “You can’t take away Santana and Brittany and Quinn. You can’t do that to me.”
“I can,” she tells him, calmly.
“Just because,” Will hisses, “you can’t deal with what happened – “
“That is not a conversation I’m going to have with you, William,” she snaps, suddenly livid, and stalks away, striding down the hallway.
“Sylvester!” he shouts, before she’s more than six or seven paces away.
She stops, her back still facing him. Several students at their lockers turn to watch the unfolding scene, whispering and pointing.
“We can talk about this out here, in public,” Will threatens, “or we can talk behind closed doors, but either way, you’re not getting away without a fight. Now, which one’s it gonna be?”
Sue squares her shoulders, executes a hard right turn, and marches off down another hallway in the direction of her office. A petrified freshman with brown hair in pigtails squeaks as Sue brushes past her, snarling, “What’re you looking at, Punky Brewster?”
“I don’t even know who that is,” the girl wails.
Will follows.
He slams the door of Sue’s office behind him as he enters, the blinds on the window rattling, and she whirls around, bracing her hands on the top of her chair. “How dare you?” she seethes.
“How dare I what, Sue?” He’s legitimately angry. “Stand up for myself? Tell you I’m not going to let you push around me or my kids anymore? You know just as well as I do that Brittany and Santana and Quinn don’t have to quit glee club in order to help you win Nationals. Just back off.”
She strides up to Will and actually pushes him, smirking, the tips of her fingers against his shoulder, knocking him slightly off balance. “Whatcha gonna do if I don’t, Mr. Clean? Appeal to Figgins? Cry? Sing a poorly arranged song?”
“Don’t push me,” Will snaps, and he plants his hand on her sternum, lightly shoving Sue backward, against the desk. She stumbles, looking astonished.
“Assaulting a defenseless woman in the workplace? Will, I swear to God I’ll take you to court for so much money you’ll still be paying off your debts in the Carrot Top Retirement Home for Failed Performers,” she promises, glaring. He takes a step towards her, and another step.
“You,” he says, “are anything but defenseless. Promise me right now you’ll back off the girls, let them make their own choices about where they want to be, and I’ll leave. This isn’t about them, anyway, and you know it. It’s about us. It’s about Friday night.”
“You’re delusional, William. Delusion’s a symptom of withdrawal, by the way. How long’s it been since you slathered some Paul Mitchell on your lumpy scalp?” Her cheeks are flushed, pink spots blooming in rosy circles. She stares at him.
Will’s aware, suddenly, of how close his body is to hers. They’ve always done this, moved around aggressively in one another’s personal space, but this is different. This is charged.
Arousal shudders through him, and Will can’t help it: he inhales, sharply. It’s quiet, but Sue clearly hears him. Her mouth parts, just a bit. The tip of her tongue darts out, licks her lower lip. Her pupils are dilated.
“Tell me what you want to do to me,” he says, roughly, looking right into her face, just inches from his own. “You –”
“I want you to take a long walk off a short pier into piranha-infested waters,” Sue snaps, averting her eyes. She’s breathing quickly, shallowly.
Oh, goddamn it, he thinks. Everything’s fucked anyway, just burn it all down. With a quick prayer that he’s not horribly misjudging the situation and setting himself up for a phone call from a celebrity lawyer, Will hooks his arm around Sue’s waist, abruptly jerking her to him, and slides his hand between her legs.
Sue stiffens immediately against him, gasping loudly at the contact. The sound she makes goes straight to his dick, and Will moans against her cheek. She’s already soaked damp under his palm, he can feel it through the fabric. The heat of her makes him dizzy. Sue doesn’t hesitate: she cups her hand over his, pushing it firmly against her, and begins rubbing herself frantically with the flats of his fingers.
“Sue – ” Will chokes, astounded by how much she wants this. Her mouth dips to the plane of skin where his neck meets his shoulder, sucking, biting hard, shutting him up. She’s already shaking under his hand, coming with little hoarse cries, pulsing warm into his fingers. It’s too much for him: the raw speed of it, how easy it is to get her there. Just as she’s relaxing out of her orgasm, his own overwhelms him, and Will ruts shamelessly against her thigh through his jeans, panting.
She backs away first, still breathing heavily with exertion. Will leans back against the edge of her desk, trying to direct his thigh away from the wet spot in his denim, without much success.
“Well,” she says, after a moment. Her voice is unsteady. “I don’t think I’ve been this embarrassed since George W. Bush turned down my application for Director of Homeland Security.”
“Is that – does that always happen, for you, do you always get so – ?” Will trips over his question, wanting to spare both of them the specifics. He’s fairly certain that asking is suicidal, but he needs to know. If it’s true he’ll need to reevaluate the last couple years of his professional life. “When we fight?”
“That woefully non-descriptive word implies an exchange of equals, William,” Sue counters, “which you and I are decidedly not. ‘We’ don’t ‘fight.’ I eviscerate you and you take it. And no,” she adds, firmly. “Your inability to sustain simple repartee beyond pathetic denials and weak insults isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac.”
“Then, what –”
“It isn’t, usually.” Sue’s cheeks are still pink, though he thinks it’s more from being caught out than anything else. She sits in her chair, folds one leg carefully over the other, and looks up at him. “I’d accuse you of slipping something into my afternoon protein shake, but Becky’s my taster and she didn’t report anything out of the ordinary to me.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Friday,” he admits, running a hand absentmindedly through his non-existent hair. “I haven’t been able to get it – you – out of my head. And believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Yeah, well.” She uncurls her legs, planting them on the floor. “Believe me, I’m not exactly thrilled that I gave the gift of myself to someone so obviously unworthy of it.”
“Unworthy? I didn’t hear you complaining the other night,” Will says, irritated with her. “Or three minutes ago, for that matter.”
Sue laughs, a short, sardonic bark. “Eat me, Schuester.”
“Open wide, Sylvester,” he leers, not missing a beat, and thrills a little as the color flushes back into her face. It’s not like her to toss him a pitch right down the middle of the plate; she must, he figures, really be rattled by this. Except his retort is backfiring on him, a little, because now all Will can think about is going down on her. And the astonishing thing is, his dick’s recovered enough to think that sounds like a really, really good idea.
Will shifts, uncomfortably, and notices that Sue’s fidgeting too. Maybe for the same reasons.
“This thing between us,” she declares, staring at the wet spot over his crotch, “this unholy abomination, whatever this is, is over. Never again. Done. Deader than the careers of Madonna’s enemies.”
“You got it,” he agrees, relieved she’s made the decision for him.
4. we broke our promise on a very sharp rock
When they’re fucking in the room above her office two nights later, he asks her who Madonna’s enemies are. Sue tells him he’s an idiot, and deliberately twists the three fingers she’s got inside him, making Will groan. “Get on all fours, Sinéad,” she commands, and with her free hand unfastens the clasp on the box at her side.
Eventually, Will forgets all about Madonna.
“We have a problem, William,” she informs him, nearly an hour later. They’re sprawled out on Sue’s king-sized futon: sweat-drenched, not touching. Will doesn’t think he’s ever been this sore in his entire life. He’s trying to figure out if he can avoid sitting down for the next several days without anyone noticing there’s something wrong.
“Do we?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb,” she snarls, propping herself up on an elbow. “I know you’re more obtuse than a pair of kindergarten scissors, but you know just as well as I do that this –“ She gestures wildly between their bodies. “ – is an untenable situation.”
“Why?” he asks her, genuinely curious as to what she’ll say.
“Why?” Sue gawks at him, disbelieving. “First of all, Will Schuester, I hate you. I hate everything you stand for. I hate that each morning, despite what the mirror so clearly tells you before you leave the house, you decide that you look fit for public viewing. I hate your teeth. I hate that you have no healthy respect for the amount of work that goes into preparing for serious competitions. I hate that I told you to shave your hair and you actually did it.” She glowers, sitting up, and wraps herself in the comforter at the edge of the futon. “Secondly, if anyone found out about this, I’d be humiliated. And I don’t do humiliation, unless I’m the one bringing it.”
Will flushes, remembering what she’d made him do just ten minutes earlier. What she’d made him say to her. How much he’d enjoyed it.
“It’s not like anyone has to know,” he says, finally, making a silent decision.
“William, you couldn’t stumble over my point if I put it right under your feet. You – ” She throws her left arm out wide, gesturing. “Are here. My point – ” He ducks as she swings her right arm to the side. “Is over here. You are missing it. God, you’re infuriating.”
“No,” he says, swinging his feet over the side of the futon, reaching for his boxers and jeans. “Hear me out. I’m not proposing we make this into an actual relationship or anything –”
At the word relationship, Sue makes a face like someone’s told her that Mary Lou Retton’s performing at the Lima Mall skating rink.
“ – but, really, what’s the harm in, you know, messing around once in a while? When the mood strikes us?”
“No,” she says, firmly. “Absolutely not. And don’t grin at me like that, Schuester. I know you think it makes you look adorable, but it doesn’t. It makes you look like a stoned golden retriever.”
“Come on, Sue.” He reaches over, touches her arm. Strokes it a little. “It’d be fun. We could do it in your LeCar.”
“No,” she repeats, but he can tell the idea appeals to her. “You’d mess up the upholstery.”
Will slides next to her, pulls back the comforter, and wraps it around the two of them, shivering a little. Sue’s secret room isn’t particularly well-insulated. “By the way, thanks for letting the girls rejoin glee. They were back at practice yesterday afternoon.”
“I don’t even want to know how your brain made the leap from our ill-advised sexual congress to my unholy trinity of blondes.” Sue grimaces. “And believe me, if they falter on even one toe touch jump I’ll have them out of that club of yours so fast Brittany’ll think she’s jumped to light speed.”
“Duly noted.”
Sue draws her knees up under her chin, hugging her calves. She’s still nude, Will realizes, even though he’s pulled on his pants. It’s one of the many things he’s learned about her over the past week: she’s remarkably comfortable with her body. After Terri and Emma, it’s something Will’s not used to seeing.
He’s never kissed her. Will’s just realized this. “I’ve never kissed you,” he blurts.
Sue stares at him. “What?”
“Kissing. You know, Sue, that thing normal people usually do before they have sex for the first time? Where –”
“I know,” she cuts in, “what it is, you ridiculous manchild. I just don’t make a habit of kissing everyone I fuck, and if you make that Pretty Woman reference I see nearly falling out of your mouth, Will Schuester, so help me God, I will cut off your balls and use them for hacky-sacks.”
“I mean,” Will says, because he wants to see how she’ll react, “it’s just a kiss. You had your tongue in my asshole not twenty minutes ago.”
It’s Sue’s turn to blush. “Whatever,” she mutters.
He starts to laugh. “Maybe I shouldn’t kiss you, then. Not until you get your hands on some Colgate and a toothbrush.”
Sue swats at his arm. “I really, really seriously hate you,” she tells him, but she’s smiling a little, and Will realizes, with a sense of lightness he hasn’t felt in at least a year, that he’s probably going to find himself in the backseat of Sue’s LeCar before too long. He nudges her under the blanket and makes the stoned golden retriever face he’s pretty sure she actually likes.
5. what we’re doing here has got no long term plan
Sue enters through his front door around eight-thirty the next evening while Will’s curled up in one of his easy chairs, reading an old copy of The Big Sleep. She tosses her key on his dining room table, next to his own, and removes her oversized Adidas parka, hanging it on a chair.
“I thought you said we were done?” he asks her, folding over the corner of his page, standing. “I thought you said you hated me.”
She stands next to the table, rubbing her palms together to warm them up. “If anyone,” Sue tells him, sternly, “finds out about this, anyone at all, we’re done. You got that? Done. And I still hate you. I just decided that I like getting laid more.”
Will doesn’t answer, just walks over and kisses her for the first time. Sue makes a surprised sound against his mouth, and then she’s leaning in, kissing him back, cupping either side of his head where his hair’s starting to grow in, tawny and fine.
“You realize,” she says, after she pulls away, “that this – us – it’ll never work.”
“I know.” He knows.
“And you realize that I’m still going to do everything in my power to destroy your glee club.”
“I know,” Will repeats, because he understands Sue needs to believe that’s true, and he kisses her again.
Sue spends the night, another first. Will adds “hogs the sheets” and “restless sleeper” to his rapidly growing mental list of Things He Didn’t Know About Sue Sylvester Before All This Started (he still can’t bring himself to be more specific than “all this”). She kicks in her sleep, too, and he wakes up several times during the night when her foot connects with the back of his calf. “Hey,” he mutters, after the third time, and reaches behind him to rub her arm. “Don’t kick.”
“No one’s gonna stop me,” she mumbles, still asleep.
“No,” he agrees. “But don’t kick.”
Sue sighs and nestles against him, curving around his back: warm and solid and there. She stops kicking.
6. red alert, red alert, it’s a catastrophe
It’s Shannon who figures it out first, just over a month later.
In retrospect, this isn’t at all surprising to Will, because by now, Shannon knows him pretty well. He’s been over to her house a few times to watch football games and have a beer, and now that Emma’s married and things are weird between them, Shannon’s the first person he goes to when he wants to share good news, or complain about a student, or ask a favor. What is surprising is how Shannon finds out: not by walking in on them (they’ve stopped fooling around at school anyway, save for the occasional quickie in Sue’s office after hours), or by overhearing a passing comment. No, it’s much simpler, and somehow more damning.
It’s lunchtime. Sue’s grabbing some coffee from the $1600 machine she’s had installed in the faculty lounge (with a sign posted on the cover that reads COFFEE = $10/CUP. PAY SUE OR FACE WRATH). Will starts to sit down next to Shannon at one of the lounge tables, when he realizes he’s left his bagged lunch on the counter, next to Sue’s coffee machine.
“Be right back,” he tells Shannon, and walks over to where Sue’s standing in front of his brown paper bag. Without thinking, Will moves behind Sue and rests his hands on her hips, pushing gently, indicating he needs her to shift to the side.
Sue freezes at Will’s touch, goes rigid, and drops the cup of coffee she’s just finished pouring. They both jump back to avoid the splash.
“I’m sorry – ” Will stammers, realizing too late what he’s done wrong, but Sue’s storming out of the lounge, leaving behind her broken cup, coffee running off the counter and onto the floor, and Will, unable to stop her.
“Will?” Shannon’s saying his name, and oh, God, he hears it in her voice: that dawning knowledge he’s been dreading. “Will?”
He turns to her. She looks shocked. Several other faculty members watch him, staring. Thank God, they seem more confused then anything else.
“Not here, please,” he says, wearily.
“Then outside,” she tells him, firmly. “Now.”
It’s all he can do not to let Shannon physically drag him out to the empty smoker’s patio adjacent to the lounge. She slings Will down into the decrepit lawn chair just outside the door, like he’s a suspect being prepped for interrogation on a cop show, and gapes at him. “What the hell was that?”
Will doesn’t say anything. Isn’t sure what, exactly, he’d say, because, really, what was that? How had he thought touching Sue like that, in public, would be appropriate or safe or anything close to okay? (The answer, he knows, even if he’s having a hard time admitting it to himself, is that he hadn’t thought about it, had simply done what felt natural to him.)
“Are you –” Shannon’s face is red. “Are you seeing her?”
“No?” he tries. It’s a feeble attempt that might as well be an affirmation.
“Oh, come on, Will. You had your hands on her. I’ve never seen anyone touch Sue Sylvester and get away without a body cast.”
“We’re not dating, exactly.” There’s really no way to explain their arrangement and make it look good, he realizes. Not when he knows Shannon’s convinced that Sue is just a couple steps away from morphing into Kevin Spacey’s character from Se7en. “It’s just – you know. An informal arrangement.”
“A sex thing?” She wrinkles her face in horror. “What is wrong with you, Will? How could you have so little self-respect? I know you’re hurting from Emma’s marriage, but you don’t need to do this. I mean, it’s Sue, for crying out loud. She’s probably the worst human being I’ve ever met in my life, and that’s saying a lot, because I sat next to Mel Gibson at a restaurant once.”
He wants to tell her it’s not that simple, not really. That yes, Sue is unstable and vindictive and bullying and probably the last person he should be spending his nights with, if he wants to learn to make healthy relationship choices. But also, Will’s realizing, she can be fiercely loyal to those who’ve demonstrated they’re worthy of her time and energy. Kurt, for one, and her Cheerios, as long as they’re producing on a regular basis. And then, there’s her sister. Sue hasn’t said much about her to Will, but he’d overheard Sue on her cell phone last week, talking to Jean, and the warmth in her voice was a revelation.
“She’s always there,” he says, instead, surprising himself. “Everyone leaves, Shannon. At the end of the day, everyone goes home to their lives. You. Emma. The kids. She’s there, pushing at me, needling me, whatever. She’s always there.”
“Don’t tell me,” Shannon snaps, “about being lonely. I know about being lonely, and it’s no excuse to get involved with someone like that. If she’s what you find comforting, Will, then I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
She walks through the door back into the faculty lounge, leaving Will alone on the patio, shivering in the crisp February afternoon.
7. until the fire starts falling and the fast bullets fly
Sue is true to her word. She doesn’t return Will’s calls, or his texts. She stops coming over to his place. Nearly a week later, he receives an envelope in the mail, with her copy of his key inside. No note.
He still has Sue’s favorite brand of orange juice in his refrigerator, the kind with extra, extra pulp, and each time he opens the door to grab some eggs or a beer or an apple, he scrupulously avoids looking at it.
For a while, he manages to convince himself he’s better off without her. Shannon’s right, in a way: as an educator, as someone who’s dedicated his life to helping his kids achieve their dreams, he can’t really, in good conscience, be with someone whose five year plan includes the acquisition of several tanks and the blueprints of the U.S. Capitol building.
Except, on one particularly sleepless night towards the end of February, he can’t stop thinking about something she’d told him once, off-hand. They’d been in bed, Sue talking up a storm in his ear before sleep. “At least,” she’d said, “I’m honest about the fact that I put my needs first. You’d be a lot easier to tolerate if you just admitted you do the same.”
Will stops by Cheerio practice the next day and stands in the background, watching her kids execute tumbles and tuck rolls. It takes several minutes for Sue to turn around and notice him, but when she does, she scowls, points her finger at him and bellows through her bullhorn: “OUT, SCHUESTER.”
“Please,” he says. “Just a minute.”
She glares at him, her bullhorn still raised. “NO. AND ALSO YOUR SCALP LOOKS LIKE A FIVE-O’CLOCK-SHADOW GOT STUCK UP THERE WHEN IT TRIED TO RUN AWAY FROM YOUR FACE.”
“Would you put that thing down, Sue? Look, I need to talk to you. And I think my hair’s growing back nicely, actually.” He touches the top of his head, where little curls are just starting to reform.
“MEDIOCRE EXECUTION, TODDLERS,” she barks, turning back to her Cheerios. “HIT THE SHOWERS.”
They file out, obediently, and then it’s just the two of them in that huge auditorium. Sue lowers her bullhorn, looking at him through narrowed eyes.
“What do you want?” she demands, suspiciously.
“To apologize, for starters,” he tells her. “It’s my fault, what happened.”
Will expects her to assault him with a sarcastic comment, or roll her eyes, or relay to him one of her patently inaccurate histories about famous American traitors and how they got punished, but instead she says, quietly, “I told you what the result would be if anyone found out. There are consequences to your actions. You need to understand and accept that.”
“I know, but – ” He bites down on something he knows is better left unsaid, and shuffles his foot against the gym floor. “Don’t you miss it? At all?”
“What I miss or don’t miss isn’t what matters here. Beiste knows about us now, and so we’re through. Simple.”
“I'm that much of an embarrassment to you?” he asks, bluntly. “Is it really such a terrible blow to this persona you’ve built up, to have someone find out that you and I are – whatever you and I are? Jesus, Sue, is it that hard for you to admit to yourself that there might be something worth continuing here, even if it’s just a good – no, a great fuck, with the added bonus of someone who doesn't mind listening while you complain about everyone else’s utter incompetence?”
She opens her mouth, and closes it again, pivoting on her heel, striding away from him.
“You know,” Will yells after her, “for someone who’s made a career – a life – out of confrontation, you’re doing a piss-poor job of fighting back.”
Sue fires a middle finger up in the air, waving it behind her, in Will’s direction. She continues her march out, slamming through the double doors to the gymnasium.
Well, Will figures, that’s it, I guess.
He feels awful.
8. the bed is kind of narrow, but my arms are open wide
Two nights later, his doorbell buzzes. Repeatedly.
“All right, all right,” Will yells, stumbling out of bed, throwing on his robe. “I’m coming, hold your horses.” It’s two a.m., and he tries not to have any expectations at all as he lurches to the door, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
She doesn’t say hello or ask him how he’s doing, or waste time on any pleasantries (and that’s how he realizes it’s been so long since they’ve really talked, because he’d nearly forgotten her complete and total distaste for niceties), just ducks under his arm and rushes inside, where it’s warm. Her oversized parka makes her look paradoxically smaller, like an overgrown child.
Will closes the door and turns to Sue, waiting for her to speak.
“I,” Sue says, “do not have a persona.” It comes out in a rush, like she’s been itching to deny it. “What I am, William, is an experience.”
“You sure are,” Will agrees, and smiles at her: the stoned golden retriever grin. She sighs, annoyed with him, and shakes her head.
“It’s like talking to a follically-challenged brick wall,” she mutters. “Look, Will. The Sue Sylvester Experience is predicated on a number of inflexible truths.” She ticks off points on her fingers. “Number one: no weaknesses. Number two: only excellence. Number three: don’t tell anyone about fight club.”
“Shouldn’t that be number one?” he asks, unable to stop himself.
“Don’t interrupt me. Number four: Kelly Ripa should be imprisoned for crimes against humanity. Number five: Mason jar grenades are surprisingly effective. And number six: don’t get involved with annoyingly earnest men who wear plaid and unironically enjoy ABBA.”
“Hey,” Will protests, stung. “ABBA’s one of the best pop groups of all time.”
Sue throws up her hands in exasperation. “Do you need a flowchart and an instructional assistant, William, in order to better follow my point? Because I can get Becky down here to help out in about five minutes flat. She wears a pager at all times.”
“Don’t get involved with Will Schuester. I got it,” he says, wryly.
“You see my dilemma, then.” She paces the hallway, taking five steps toward the dining room, swiveling, taking five steps back.
Hope blooms in Will’s chest, and he’s startled by how much it’s affecting him. How much he hopes she’s come here to tell him she’s reconsidered. “There’s a dilemma?”
Sue stops pacing, suddenly, and looks at him. “You,” she admits, grudgingly, “are a better than average fuck. Certainly more pliable than most.”
“Not better than average,” he corrects, remembering how she’d clutched at him, how he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. “Great.”
“No, Jeff Bridges is great in the sack. You, buddy, are no Jeff Bridges.”
He’s never quite sure if he believes Sue’s stories of hookups with slightly sketchy Hollywood actors (although bagging the Dude, if true, would be an impressive notch on Sue’s belt), but it’s not what Will’s really interested in, at the moment. “Are you reconsidering truth number six?”
“If I did, it would also mean reconsidering truth number one,” she says, slowly. “And I’m not sure I’m willing to do that.”
Will crosses over to her, and touches her parka-clad arm, gently. “You don’t,” he tells her, “have to make any final decisions here. We take this thing one day at a time. No labels. No guarantees. Just you and me. Okay?”
Sue stares into his face, searching for something there, and seems to come to a decision.
“If you ever,” she warns, “try to make me watch Mamma Mia – ”
“I won’t,” Will promises, and kisses her.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2010-12-13 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-13 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-13 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-13 11:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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From:no subject
Date: 2010-12-13 11:35 pm (UTC)VERY VERY hot. Seriously.
Thank you for this.
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Date: 2010-12-14 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-14 12:21 am (UTC)Anyway, you wrote Sue so well :) And I probably wouldn't be averse to reading more Sue/Will if you were to write it, lol.
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Date: 2010-12-14 07:32 am (UTC)And, just so you know, I totally read your comment imagining House saying it out loud, which was awesome.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-12-14 02:22 am (UTC)Incredibly in character, and a great read. I love how you broke it up into sections. And if all that weren't enough, this line here sealed the deal:
“I’m honest about the fact that I put my needs first. You’d be a lot easier to tolerate if you just admitted you do the same.”
That's beyond perfect. Just. Yes. Thank you for writing and sharing this brilliant piece of work.
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Date: 2010-12-14 07:34 am (UTC)And thank you so much for this lovely comment! <3
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Date: 2010-12-14 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-14 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-14 05:30 am (UTC)That was awesome. I love how you wrote Sue. Gah, so funny. But overall this was a very VERY awesome fic.
Not to mention super hot. Goooo hate sex! WOO!
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Date: 2010-12-14 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-14 06:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-14 07:40 am (UTC)Making something work against all odds is pretty much the greatest compliment, so thank you! <3
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Date: 2010-12-15 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 05:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-12-15 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 06:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 01:21 pm (UTC)Just wow.
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Date: 2010-12-15 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 05:30 pm (UTC)I FREAKING LOVED THIS. Will/Sue is my OTP, and you're so right, it is so under represented in the fandom. And you, you describe both of them perfectly, it's so in character - your Sue voice is so perfect, I kinda feel like I should just go home and not try because you do it so well. I mean, “Your inability to sustain simple repartee beyond pathetic denials and weak insults isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac.”?? So Sue!
I'm totally jealous, can't you tell? lolAnd I adore Beiste and Will's friendship, so sweet.I just - guh. This is so awesome. Now I'm inspired to go and finish my fic that I was working on xD
btw, you should totally post this to
no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 07:32 pm (UTC)I had no idea about
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 05:08 am (UTC)Also, it was pretty hot. ^0^
This was awesome! (And long.) But worth reading all of it! I've been wanting to read this kind of fic ever since I realized that they had UST! (Which was awhile ago...)
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Date: 2010-12-16 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 03:00 pm (UTC)So I'm so glad you wrote this, because it is PERFECT. I loved - LOVED - your characterization of Sue, and the fact that you made Will and Beiste BFFs, and that Will SHAVED HIS HEAD for Sue, and... everything, basically. It all came together SO well. And I love that it's long, too, because it really gave you time to develop this story (and I loooove long fics when they're done well, which this really is).
So, you're awesome, basically. :D :D Thanks so much for writing this!
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Date: 2010-12-17 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-17 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-17 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-18 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-18 08:30 am (UTC)XD Not that I'm sure it IS cool to be so.. /dork
This? THIS IS AMAZING. So so funny, and totally spot on in character, and I just.. really adore your Will. And your Sue. and, you know, your writing. :D
*__*
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Date: 2010-12-18 09:33 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for your lovely comment. <3
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Date: 2010-12-20 08:18 am (UTC)(Also, BEISTE! <3)
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Date: 2010-12-20 11:16 pm (UTC)And I just love Shannon Beiste so very, very much.
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Date: 2010-12-20 05:08 pm (UTC)Please, please PLEASE give me more!!
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Date: 2010-12-20 11:17 pm (UTC)And I'll definitely be returning to these two in the future - they're my OTP, and just so much fun to write.
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Date: 2010-12-22 01:20 am (UTC)*calms down* Hokay, back to normal :3
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Date: 2010-12-22 06:41 am (UTC)Thanks for this lovely comment! I'm tentatively planning a follow-up of sorts, but no matter what, this is definitely not my last fic featuring these two - they're just too much fun.
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Date: 2010-12-28 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-28 07:43 am (UTC)