Work Text:
The first thing Rick notices when he gets to Coach and Mr. Coach’s house is how everything smells a whole lot like cooking meat, which makes a lot of sense once Rick sees the grill. He didn’t know they made grills that big. Or meat that big, come to think of it.
“You see all that meat on the grill?” Rick asks Miles. “That’s a lot of meat.”
“I’m still admiring the grill,” Miles says, “but you’re right. That is a lot of meat.”
“I think she’s got a whole ribcage on that thing,” Rick says. “Hey, Alicia!” he calls over to where she’s standing with a bunch of Cheerios, though most of ‘em don’t look that much like Cheerios without the uniforms and the ponytails. They just look like regular old girls, except for Alicia, who always pretty much looks perfect.
Alicia turns and smiles real big at him, waving, then turns back to the other Cheerios and says something that makes all of them giggle. Rick elbows Miles and grins in Alicia’s direction.
“Alicia’s so pretty,” Rick says. “I like her yellow dress.”
“You keep your eyes on her face, Foots,” Miles says sternly.
“What? I’m not doing anything, Brown! She just looks like sunshine, is all!”
“Uh-huh,” Miles says skeptically. “Did you come to this shindig last year?”
“Nope, I was JV, and JV don’t get invites,” Rick says, shaking his head sadly. “It’s more crowded than I thought it was gonna be. I thought it was just the football players and Cheerios and stuff.”
“Didn’t you see the event page? Anyone could invite anyone else! Taylor’s been bugging Alicia for days.” Miles points across the yard. “See?”
Sure enough, Taylor’s apparently using this party as a chance to cozy up with Alicia’s Cheerio friend Maci, whose name is apparently really Marciella, though how she got Maci out of that, Rick just doesn’t know. He figures she’s probably cute enough; not cute like Alicia, but cute in a not-Alicia sort of way. She’s the one Taylor talks about the most, anyway, and she seems to be getting on with him okay, so maybe Taylor’ll score a phone number or something.
“Hey Taylor!” Rick shouts in Taylor’s direction. When Taylor turns to look at him, Rick shoots him a thumbs up. Taylor grins and then turns back to Maci with a wave in Rick’s direction. Rick looks back over at Miles. “So’ve you seen Karofsky or Casey? Casey’s probably easy to misplace as long as he’s not talking, but Karofsky’s sorta big, so I figured I’d notice him if he was here.”
“I think they claimed the only two lawn chairs,” Miles grumbles. “Look back under that tree.”
Miles is right. Karofsky and Casey are planted in lawn chairs under the only tree in Coach and Mr. Coach’s backyard, holding lemonades and making the same faces they’ve been making since Coach and Mr. Karofsky decided Casey had to move. It’s kind of a cross between pitiful and pissed off; pissedful, maybe.
“Hot dogs and brats are ready!” Coach yells from deck beside the grill. “No burgers or ribs yet, though.”
“Should I eat a hot dog or hold out for ribs, do you think?” Rick asks Miles.
“I’m gettin’ a brat before they disappear. Get a hot dog now and ribs later.”
“Yeah, that probably makes sense,” Rick says. He follows Miles up to the grill, where there’s a good-sized herd of people, mostly dudes, waiting for food. Evans, Chang, Hudson, Puckerman, and Kurt Hummel are all up there, and Hudson’s got his arms over Puckerman and Kurt’s shoulders, the three of them laughing about something. Chang’s shaking his head at them, but they don’t seem like they notice or care, on account of how they’re too busy laughing at each other. “Well, somebody’s having fun at least,” Rick says to Miles.
Miles snorts. “You think they’d notice if someone yelled fire?”
“I don’t think they’d notice if you set ‘em on fire,” Rick says. “But that’s just me and what do I know?”
“We could try it,” Miles jokes. “Coach might get upset, though.”
“Shit, son,” Rick says, shaking his head. “You think you can outrun Hummel if you set his clothes and his boys on fire? Good luck with that.”
“His boys?” Miles shakes his head. “Nah, they’re just messing around with me. Think I hit on Hudson too much or something.”
Rick shrugs, because he know what he thinks is going on with the three of ‘em, but Miles would probably know better than him. Still, Rick doesn’t think it’s really got anything to do with Miles, since the world doesn’t actually revolve around him. “If you say so, Brown.”
“I do say so.” Miles grins as the line moves forward. “And now I have my brat, so almost all is right in the world. You know what I need now, Foots?”
“Oh, Lord, I’m afraid to even ask.”
Miles rolls his eyes. “Sauerkraut, Foots.”
“Yeah, you would,” Rick says. “Ruining perfectly good food with that stuff. I swear, Brown. You eat the weirdest stuff.”
“It’s just not a good brat without it,” Miles insists, loading his plate with some of it. “Let’s go bother Shep and Cherry.”
“Mustard. That’s all a hot dog or brat needs,” Rick grumbles as the two of them walk over to where Karofsky and Casey are sitting. They don’t look real thrilled to be bothered, but then, Karofsky never looks real thrilled about much of anything, so that might just be how his face looks.
“Hey, Cherry,” Miles greets Casey. “Shep. You should go get a brat before Evans eats them all.”
“He could probably fit them all in there at once,” Rick adds, which makes Casey start giggling. Rick notices Casey and Karofsky’s arms are dangling off the sides of their chairs and they’re holding hands like they think they’re being sneaky. Which, since nobody else seems to be paying attention to it, they probably are.
“It’s true, David. He probably could,” Casey says.
Karofsky snorts. “Yeah, someone should suggest that to Coach. Brat-eating contest.”
“Good thing you went ahead and got yours,” Rick says to Miles.
“Maybe ribs,” Miles says decisively. “Rib-eating contest.” He smiles broadly. “I don’t eat ribs if there’s burgers.”
“David, you should go get some food,” Casey says. “I won’t let anybody take your chair. Not even Miles. Not even if he has candy.”
“Sometimes I think Miles is the guy that our parents warned us about as kids,” Karofsky says as he stands up. “You know, the stranger with the ubiquitous candy?”
“You know, he did say something about ring pops and a kidnapper van,” Casey says. “Back when Rick was stoned and wandering all over the school.”
“Hey!” Rick protests. “I never was!”
“Yes, you were!” the other three of them say back to him, all together. Rick just crosses his arms and glares. It’s not his fault his pain medications made him confused, but he wouldn’t go so far as to say he was wandering or anything.
Karofsky does go get himself some food after that, looking back at his chair and Miles suspiciously. Casey props his leg across Karofsky’s chair until he comes back with his plate, then says, “See, David? Nobody even tried. Well, Miles thought about trying, I could tell, but he didn’t actually.”
“Hey!” Miles protests. “I didn’t even move.”
“Burgers are done,” Karofsky says all calm-sounding, grinning briefly as he sits back down.
“Coach say anything about the ribs?” Rick asks, craning his neck to try and look around the grill on the back deck.
“Said they still had three or four minutes,” Karofsky answers. “So if you head up now, you might be first.”
“Sweet!” Rick heads in the direction of the grill and, sure enough, gets the first ribs coming off. He also loads his plate up with potato salad and a few of the weird salad things that Mr. Coach made. When his plate runs out of room, he takes it over to where Alicia’s at with all her Cheerios, sitting in a circle on the grass, and he sits down next to her and plants a big kiss on her cheek.
“Hi Daniel!” Alicia says, then giggles. “Ooh, that potato salad’s good.” The other Cheerios all giggle, too, and Rick gets a feeling like maybe they were talking about him before he walked over. He hopes it was good-talk, at least.
“Yeah, it looked pretty good. You want some of mine?”
“Yes, please!” Alicia flashes him a smile and takes a spoonful of it. “Having fun?”
“I was over talking to Casey and Karofsky with your brother,” Rick says.
Alicia pouts in that cute way that takes all her concentration, just to get her lip going like that. “So I’m guessing that’s a no?” she says.
“That’s a... something, anyway,” Rick answers, shrugging. “Your face is gonna stick like that one of these days and then what’re you gonna do?”
“Look adorable?” Alicia shrugs. “Get my way all the time?”
“Probably. Or a bird might perch on that lip and then you’ll be sorry,” Rick says. “But yeah, they’re all mopey back there. No questions about why, though. I can’t blame ‘em, can you?”
“No, I guess not.” Alicia elbows him lightly. “Look over there, though.” She points to the other side of the circle, where Taylor is sitting really close to Maci.
“Yeah, I thought they looked like they were getting cozy,” Rick says, nodding. “Well, go get you some, Taylor.”
Alicia giggles. “I think he’d like that, yes.”
Rick would put his arm around Alicia, but he needs both his hands to eat his ribs, so he eats and Alicia goes back to talking to her girlfriends, and Rick just looks around the yard and watches people.
Fabray, Santana, and Brittany are sitting together sharing a plate of that weird marshmallow stuff with the fruit in it, and Santana’s got one of her hands up the side of Brittany’s shirt; Rick looks away real quick, so Alicia doesn’t notice that he noticed and get mad at him. Chang and LadyChang are sitting next to Hudson, Puckerman, and Kurt, and LadyChang must have some of the same clue that Rick has, because she keeps watching those three like she’s expecting them to get up to something. Poor Evans’ girlfriend didn’t even come to the party, and he’s sitting with some of the juniors, talking to them about college ball. Mr. Coach keeps flitting around moving pans of food and sneaking kisses from Coach, which is either sweet or sorta traumatic, or maybe both.
Coach disappears into her house for a few minutes and then comes back out with an enormous cake. “Time for cake!” she yells across the yard. “And a little bit of business.” She waits until most of the people there move towards the deck before she keeps talking. “So as I said in the invitation, this is to honor our players that graduated, whether they’re going on to play ball in college or not. So if the five of you would come up here.”
Chang, Evans, and Hudson stand up, Hudson grabbing Puckerman by the hand and hauling him along with him, and after a couple seconds, Karofsky walks up there, too, still looking grumpy. Coach gets a big bag handed to her by Mr. Coach, and she pulls out five red and white gifts.
“This here’s to take with you when you head out of Ohio,” she says. “Go ahead, open ‘em!”
Evans, Chang, and Hudson all rip into their presents. Puckerman still looks confused and Karofsky just keeps on looking grumpy, like the gift insulted his family honor or something, like in those samurai movies. Puckerman finally starts to unwrap his, shooting a final confused look at Coach, and after another few seconds, Karofsky seems to realize maybe he should open his, too.
Rick’s not sure what they’re supposed to be, on account of how they’re just black rectangles with little thingies out the back. Luckily, LadyChang seems confused, too, because she squeals, “What is it, Mike?”
“It’s a digital picture frame,” Hudson says. “My mom has one of these in her office at work. It’s awesome, Coach, thanks!”
“You’re welcome!” Coach says, smiling at the five of them. “I put just a few pictures on there for each of you, get you started.”
That makes all of them start to look at the frames. Evans has a sappy grin, and Chang laughs at something. Puckerman seems to be looking at his slowly, and at one point he nudges Hudson and points to his frame. Hudson shows his frame to Puckerman and the two of them both smile and look at Kurt. Yeah, Miles is possibly wrong about that one, Rick’s pretty sure. Karofsky’s still frowning when he starts to look at his pictures, but after a moment he sorta jumps a little, like whatever he’s looking at surprised him.
Karofsky looks up a few seconds later and stares out at the rest of them, only he’s just looking at Casey, and it seems like maybe no one else is there for a few moments, at least in Karofsky’s mind. Rick looks back at Casey and pretty immediately wishes he hadn’t, because it feels like walking in on somebody’s private business, like he’s intruding just by looking at either of them. Rick’s a lot of things—dumbass probably chief among them—but nosey he ain’t, so he looks back up at Evans and Chang and Hudson and their happy faces, and he pretends he didn’t ever look at Karofsky and Casey even the once.
“So everybody get a slice of cake!” Coach says, still smiling really wide. “Left side’s chocolate, right side’s yellow.”
Suddenly, Rick doesn’t feel that much like eating any cake, so instead he wraps his arms around Alicia and holds her tight. He’s not sure why it’s so easy for him and so hard for so many other people—definitely not because he deserves easy more than somebody else—but that’s just the way things seem to work in Lima. The people who probably don’t deserve the easy ride get it, and the ones who need it the most don’t.
It’s a shit world, and it’s a bigger shit world than somebody like Daniel Rickenbacker has the brains to figure out.