Chapter Text
“Oh my god, Rory are you okay?”
The question leaves him frozen. He knew there were a few marks, maybe two?? three?? Okay no, definitely more than three, but surely they can’t be that bad? He knew he should’ve tried that stupid spoon trick he found on WikiHow. Whatever. That's besides the point, right now, Rory needs to respond, fast.
“S-sorry?”
Brittany barges into his room as if it’s her own (which, okay yeah it’s her parents' house, but still) and begins inspecting him thoroughly “Woah” she remarks, squinting at his neck” Looks like someone tried to eat you, I didn’t realise you had a girlfriend”
She’s onto him. Rory loves Brittany, but as far as he’s concerned, if she finds out, so does the entire school. And in a blind panic, he says what could only be the worst thing to say in this moment,
“They’re not hickeys!”
Brittany pauses her inspection and tilts her head
“…. They’re not?”
Great. Now he’s got to come up with an excuse. Curling iron? That could work… if he had hair like Brittany’s. What else? Mosquito? Nuh uh, It’s February in Ohio. As he began to scramble even more desperately for answers, he watched as Brittany’s eyes squinted, and the answer slipped out of his mouth before he even had time to think about it.
“Ghosts”
“What?”
Her face falls. At the very least it looks like she doesn’t totally not believe him, and besides, what else is there to do apart from dig himself an even deeper hole?
“Yeah!” He nods, trying desperately to make this somehow sound believable “I was uh… rehearsing in the choir room after everyone else had left, and this spirit! It floated towards me, and the next thing I knew there were all these… ghost marks… all over me. Yeah”
God, he deserves an Oscar for that performance. At the very least, it has Brittany on board. Her brows furrow for a moment as she glances to the floor, before snapping right back up, cheery as ever, before responding,
“Okay!”
And as she exits the room, he lets out the biggest sigh of relief that he didn’t even realise he was holding, and as he stumbles to his mirror, he begins to inspect the bruises.
Jesus Christ. He leaned in even closer to inspect his collarbone, he knew Sam left a good few, but this many is absurd. If Rory didn’t know any better there’s a chance even he’d fall for the ghost excuse.
He considers trying to cover them up with some of Brittany’s concealer, but as Britt calls for him to finish getting ready, he hurriedly grabs the closest hoodie to him and zips it up as high as humanly possible. But hey, at least it can’t get any worse than this?
————————————————————————
It’s gotten so much worse.
As he opened the doors to the choir room, he is immediately greeted by a very fervent-looking Tina Cohen-Chang
“Rory!” She exclaims, “Brittany told me about your ghost”
Oh no
“I think I can help you out, trust me, I used to play a lot of Phasmophobia.”
Ignoring her muddled logic, the fear settled back in Rory’s spine. He’d nearly forgotten about that ridiculous ghost excuse, and he’d hoped that Britt had too, but how could she?
He could almost find Britt’s worry for him adorable, almost. Now he’s faced with a new issue, surely if he shows the bruising to Tina he’s screwed. She’s a smart girl, she’ll be able to see right through his lies… right?
“Well? What are you waiting for Rory, show her the ghost marks!” Britt urges.
Well, he’s busted. He takes a moment to breathe in, before putting on the best brave face he can muster,
“Okay… okay, can we just. Move out of the doorway first? People might want to get in”
The move to a cluster of chairs, and as he unzips his hoodie, he is absolutely prepared for the worst, for Tina to recognise them for what they actually are, but to his utter disbelief, she leans in, and with that same intense look as before, meets Rory’s eyes,
“Hmm… by the shape of the bruising… it looks like this could’ve been caused by residual energy…”
Oh Jesus Christ.
“However… these look like they have some force behind them… What did you say happened again yesterday?”
New problem, he’s just realised he’s not even planned an actually believable story. But whatever, his improv skills have somehow already brought him so far; maybe if he just lets them sort out a teensy exorcism, they can all, very hopefully, forget about this ghost business.
As he recounts the story he told Brittany earlier that morning, albeit with a few new added plot points, Sam walks in without Rory noticing, and falls very quiet.
Tina sits there for a moment, allowing her mind to absorb all of the information, before her head snaps up with sheer confidence,
“I’ve worked it out!”
“You have?” Brittany responds, now on the edge of her seat. As does Rory, in a far less convinced voice. At this point, he was praying to god that she would just call him out on his lie, and it could simply die between the three of them. Alas, Rory’s luck doesn’t work that way.
Tina snaps a library book out of her backpack, and as she flips through the pages, she lands on one and flips the page around for Brittany and Rory
“POLTERGEIST”
“According to this book”, she begins “Poltergeists are known to be spirits experiencing intense physical turmoil, and will act out their subconscious feelings on their living targets”
“Maybe the poltergeist has a crush on you?”
If he wasn’t knee deep in the worst lie of his life, he almost could’ve laughed at the absurdity of the situation
“Awh Rory, that’s so cute! I didn’t know ghosts could like boys!” Brittany brightly responds, and he leans back in his chair, a cold sweat now adorned his forehead as he meekly responded
“Neither did I”
Meanwhile, Sam began to shift uncomfortably in his seat as he listened in on the entire ordeal, and across the room, Santana watched on as the chaos unfolded, with a sly smile growing on her face.
Tina had already buried her head right back into that book of hers and pulled out a pen as she began to highlight seemingly random passages
“Tina” Brittany starts, “isn’t that book from the library?”
“It’s fine. I steal books from there all the time, the librarian quit weeks ago and they forgot to hire a new one”
Once she was done, she shuffled her chair so that it was between Rory and Brittany, and presented one of the passages to them,
Rory doesn’t even bother reading it at this point, he takes this small bracket of time with the two girls distracted to silently pray to whatever higher force is out there that this is all just a bad dream.
————————————————————————
After the two girls finished their scheming, Rory finally thought he had a moment to breathe.
The hallway before him felt ridiculously long as Sam walked alongside him, looking as if he was dying to say something. And in a hushed tone, he begins “Rory, I really like you.. but if you’re- like- bringing ghosts and stuff into the choir room then I really-“
A groan rumbled from Rory’s chest, and he covered his face with his hands, “Sam… there’s no ghost”
Sam paused in the hallway, dumbfounded “But… wait then what were you guys talking about earlier in the choir room?”
Rory felt his cheeks heat as he brought Sam into a private enough corner underneath the stairwell
“Okay…” he paused a moment to allow whatever dignity he had left to flee his body “So… you remember the other night, right?”
Sam squinted as he thought back to their “duet practice” and responded slowly “I mean… yeah, but what exactly does that have to do with Polter-“
Before he could even finish, Rory had unzipped his hoodie, showing Sam what he had left, and Sam’s eyes widened further than what he thought was humanly possible, as his face flushed red “Oh my god”
“Yeah” was all Rory had to say “and Britt ended up spotting them this morning, and-“
“-and you told her it was a ghost?”
Rory cringed at his own logic, he leaned against the wall, sliding down it “Yeah…..”
And looking back up at Sam again with those wide blue eyes that carried ridiculous amounts of guilt, he continued, his voice quieter now
“Are you mad at me?”
Sam almost wanted to laugh, before noticing the sheer genuine guilt on his boyfriend's face, and Sam dropped down next to him as he began
“What? Rory, no I’m not mad! I’m just glad there’s not like… any actual spirit haunting you”
A small chuckle escaped Rory’s mouth as he added on “Nope, just a boyfriend without any self-control”
Sam winces, equal parts both grinning and mortified “Yeah… Yep, I deserve that” he glances at Rory’s chest as his face heats “Jesus I didn’t realise I’d uh… left that many”
Rory shrugs sheepishly “I mean… at least now we know where to stop?”
The two sit there sharing the embarrassment, before Rory speaks up once more
“I just- I know it’s a lot to ask, but please can you… play along? I’m just scared that if Britt knows it’ll spread through the school like wildfire, and I see the stuff Kurt has to deal with already, and I just…” He takes a deep breath before continuing “I’m just scared of having to go through that on top of the regular bullying”
Sam’s face softens, before smiling, taking Rory’s hand in his “It’s fine, I promise. We’re in this together, okay? Nobody else needs to know right now, not Tina, not Brittany.”
With that ever so gentle reassurance, Rory felt as if some of the weight of this situation had been alleviated, he brushed Sam’s hand with his thumb “Really?”
“Really,” Sam responded firmly “Just let me know what to do and I’ll do it, we’ll do our best to get through this ghost ordeal together, okay?”
Rory allowed himself time to breathe as he let his head fall onto Sam’s shoulder “…okay”
And with that, the two stood back up, and even though Rory knew he still had to deal with this ridiculous lie, it somehow felt a lot more manageable with Sam by his side.