FLASHFIC: Kradam HS AU

[debaser]

OH MY GOD! I DIDN'T EVEN READ THESE YET BUT I'M FREAKING OUT!!! YOU ARE TWO OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS IN THIS WHOLE FANDOM!!! <3 <3 <3

OMG. I'm going to go give more because it hardly seems fair that I just got two for one and I'm soooo unbelievably excited and happy and <3 <3 <3 <3 right now . YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING. I'M FANGIRLING ALL OVER THE PLACE.

/end embarrassing flail

ETA: I love these both so much. Thank you thank you thank you x infinity.

[sparkysparky]

Sept 3, 2009 14:25:51 GMT -5 debaser said:

OH MY GOD! I DIDN'T EVEN READ THESE YET BUT I'M FREAKING OUT!!! YOU ARE TWO OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS IN THIS WHOLE FANDOM!!! <3 <3 <3

OMG. I'm going to go give more because it hardly seems fair that I just got two for one and I'm soooo unbelievably excited and happy and <3 <3 <3 <3 right now . YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING. I'M FANGIRLING ALL OVER THE PLACE.

/end embarrassing flail

ETA: I love these both so much. Thank you thank you thank you x infinity.

I have to thank you for giving, because I got to read GLEE!AU and now I'm getting MOAR of it. <3333 So yay OP for this great prompt!!

[sprat]

Another small excerpt, but not necessarily the next one. Hope you see this here -- I wasn't sure where else to put it.

Things work all right for a while. Kris just has two lives, two personas: most of the week, he does baseball practice and hangs out with the rest of the guys on the team and pretty much everything is the same as it used to be, but on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, he does Glee Club, where, for a few hours, he doesn't pretend not to care about things like whether or not Michael Jackson's going to make a comeback, or how the new Kanye single might sound if it was arranged differently, like a folk song. It's okay. It sort of works. He thinks it might be doable.

But then he's sitting with Mike and Jason and Porter and Brent in the cafeteria one day when Adam walks by and it's already messed up because Adam sees him and then carefully pretends he hasn't seen him, chin lifted, eyes on the Got Milk banner over the coolers. But it gets way more messed up a second after that because Brent covers his mouth and goes "nerd" like he's coughing and then Porter laughs and copies him and then all four of them are doing it, cracked up like it's the funniest thing in the world, and Kris feels like everything's turned around all of a sudden, like these guys he grew up with are strangers, assholes, people he doesn't even know at all.

Adam stops walking and turns to look at them. He sets his head on one side and wrinkles up his nose like he's smelled something bad. "Wow," he says. "Classy." He looks at Kris and then away again, his mouth tightening a little, and the thing that sucks the most out of all the many things that suck about this is the way he doesn't look at all surprised.

Kris is standing up. He doesn't remember doing it, but he is, somehow, rubbing his damp palms against his jeans. Brent and Porter are looking at him, half-smiling like they're totally expecting him to join in, and Kris swallows hard, feeling sick. "No," he says and then clears his throat, makes his voice louder. "It isn't. Classy, I mean. It was kind of totally douchey, actually."

Adam smiles a little, like he's cautiously pleased. Kris makes a face at him. "I'm sorry," he says.

Adam tilts his head. "You didn't actually do anything."

Kris shrugs. He turns to his friends, who are maybe not so much his friends anymore, and spreads his hands. "I'm going to go sit with Adam. We have Glee Club stuff to talk about."

Four blank faces stare up at him. Mike blinks. "Why are you talking about Glee Club stuff?" he asks, slowly.

Kris pushes his chair back in at the table. "Because I'm in the Glee Club," he says.

They keep staring at him. "You're in the Glee Club," Mike repeats, like he can't quite wrap his head around it.

Kris nods. He gives them all a little wave. Then he jogs a bit to catch up with Adam. "Can I sit with you?" he says, a little breathless; he guesses that he is probably kind of a douche himself, for assuming Adam'll be cool with that.

Adam gives him another one of those small, wary smiles. "I sit next to the garbages," he says. "Between the ESL kids and the kids who have parole officers. But yeah, sure, help yourself."

Adam isn't joking. Kris puts his tray down across from the spot Adam's chosen and the girl on his right side immediately helps herself to the dessert at the edge of his tray, ignoring him in a way that is somehow still pretty menacing when he looks at her. Adam shrugs, settling into his chair. The look he gives Kris is a little challenging, and maybe still a little wary, too. Kris lifts his eyebrows. "I guess you'll have to give me half of your dessert, then?" he says.

Adam's grin gets a little wider. "Yeah, no," he says. "I don't think so. But come on -- you said you were here to talk about Glee Club, which I have decided to take seriously in an ironic way, so let's hear it. What do you really think about the whole harvest theme thing?"

And it turns out that Kris actually does have stuff he wants to say about that, mostly along the lines of "seriously, what was Mr. Cook smoking?", so he pushes his tray away and leans in.

[sprat]

debaser: yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Thank you! I'm so glad you liked your ficlet, and you are awesome for donating twice. <3<3<3

[sparkysparky]

SPRAT YOU MAY BE MY NEW FAVORITE PERSON EVER. YOU SHOULD CONTINUE THIS. TOTES. UNFORTUNATELY, I AM BROKE UNTIL I FIND OUT IF I WIN ANY AUCTIONS. :-) I AM ALSO STUCK IN CAPSLOCK.

[roga]

Yay cont' Glee AU! Heee, I love this so much. Teen Kris and Adam are awesome, and "what was Mr. Cook smoking?" will ALWAYS MAKE ME LOL. So awesome

[krismc09]

So I would totally be willing to donate another $5 for another installment of KRADAM Glee AU. Sprat, are you up for a part three?

[sparkysparky]

KRISMC09 I LOVE YOU!

[sprat]

Sparkysparky and Roga: THANK YOU! I'm so glad you liked this! And sparkysparky, thanks for donating more, too! \o/

krismc09: YES, YAY, ABSOLUTELY! I'm going to be offline for a few hours, but if you go ahead and donate, I will post a new piece this evening.

[krismc09]

Okay, donation made. Let me know if I need to send the confirmation to anyone. Can't wait for more fic:)

[sprat]

During the first real rehearsal, Mr. Cook wants anybody who's interested in a lead role to audition, which means singing in front of everybody else by yourself. "Totally voluntary," Mr. Cook tells the group. "Only if you're into it. We also need people in the chorus."

They've moved out of the French room now, to the school auditorium. Mr. Cook is talking as he walks, leading the way to the stage. The rest of them are filing along in his wake, most of them texting on their phones or talking to each other in low voices. Kris spots Adam and stops walking until they're next to each other. Adam looks vaguely surprised, but he returns Kris's smile. Kris hikes his backpack up a little higher on his shoulders. "You going out for lead?" he asks.

Adam tilts his head, like he's considering it. "I thought I might, yeah. You?"

Kris shakes his head and it ends up being one of those head shakes that turns into a full-body shiver. "Nah," he says. "No way. I'm more of a chorus guy, I think."

Adam lifts his eyebrows and opens his mouth as though he's going to speak, but Mr. Cook interrupts before he can. "Okay," he says, hoisting himself up onto the stage. "You guys all have the audition songs I handed out last meeting, right? Who wants to go first?"

There's about twenty seconds of crickets. Mr. Cook claps his hands, rubs his palms together in front of him. "Okay," he says. "Kris it is, then."

Kris blinks. He looks around the group, in case there's just been some kind of mistake and Mr. Cook's actually talking to somebody else, then spreads his hands and shakes his head. "It's, uh. That's okay, Mr. Cook. I wasn't really planning on actually, um."

Mr. Cook does a come-here kind of thing with his hand. "Aw, whatever," he says. "Sure you are."

Kris swallows. "I thought it was optional?" he says.

Mr. Cook just motions him closer again, ignoring his protests. It doesn't exactly seem fair.

Adam claps him on the back encouragingly. "You'll be fine. Just, you know. Close your eyes at first. Pretend you're by yourself."

Kris sighs. He really has to learn how to be a little less nice, he thinks, climbing the stairs to join Mr. Cook on the stage. Nice was what had made him spend the last four summers mowing Mrs. Johnson's lawn for lemonade and quarters, and nice was responsible for the terrifying week he'd spent as Maggie Lawrence's boyfriend last year, carrying her books and trying to sidestep her super-aggressive advances until she'd found out he didn't have his license yet, let alone a car, and had dumped him. Nice could get you into serious trouble, and this right here was only the latest in a very long line of examples.

"Think you can manage 'Man in the Mirror'?" asks Mr. Cook, looking unfairly amused at him. It's the song Kris was singing in the shower, so Mr. Cook knows very well that Kris already knows the words.

Kris scowls at him. Mr. Cook ignores that, too, and instead does a weird walk-like-an-Egyptian thing with his hand and lets it lead him to the piano.

And...it actually isn't bad. Kris takes Adam's advice and keeps his eyes closed during the first few bars, trying to pretend he's on his own in a bathroom somewhere and his voice is a little shaky at first, but it finds its way. He manages the whole first verse and then he opens his eyes for the chorus, lets himself get a little louder and more expressive when he sees that people are just listening, not laughing at him or covering their ears. Not that he expected anybody to actually cover their ears? But somewhere in his head he thinks he kind of maybe did, and it's encouraging that they haven't. Or whatever. So. It goes pretty well.

Mr. Cook stops playing after the last chorus and applauds instead. The rest of the group does, too, without having even been prompted, and Adam is pretty much beaming, "Nice," says Mr. Cook. "Great way to kick things off, Kris. Who's next?"

The next kid to audition is Anoop, and he's actually pretty great, except that he misses the high C at the end of the first chorus of the song he chose and just stops dead in the middle of the audition and crumples his sheet music up and flings it at the floor, then stomps off the stage, disgusted. A couple of seconds later, they hear the outside doors bang open and then slam shut. It's kind of great, like watching one of those crazy tennis player blowouts. Mr. Cook scrunches his whole face up and then scratches the side of his head. "Okay," he says. "Who's next?"

A whole string of girls comes after that and they're all kind of okay, but also kind of same-ish and so Kris starts doodling on the back of his school planner, a little robot guy he likes to draw sometimes, with a single, floppy antenna on its head. Today it's driving a zamboni, just for no particular reason, and Kris spends a while filling in the details, completely absorbed, which is why he doesn't know that Adam's even gone from his seat until he hears somebody fricking killing the opening notes of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and looks up from his doodling to see him there on the stage.

And it's not just the perfect pitch thing, or the way he can sing a whole phrase without needing a breath, or the way his voice fills the auditorium in this easy-seeming way, without ever sounding strained. It's some whole other indefinable something that makes people stop talking and stop doodling and look up from their phones to watch him, that makes Mr. Cook take his fingers away from the keyboard and just watch, silently, his hands folded in his lap.

When the last few notes of the song die away, there's silence for what seems like a really long time before Kris kind of shakes himself and starts to applaud. The rest of the group follows suit (even Anoop, who'd snuck back in the interior doors at some point during Adam's audition). The applause goes on for a long time.

[kairi]

So I have this thing against High School AUs. They tend to be rather shallow, cliched and are often not-very-well-written. This? Is the exact opposite. I love this fic. L-O-V-E. I can't get enough of it! So um, sprat, do you think I could bribe you for another part of this? I'm totally willing to donate another $5 to a project of your choice (or if you don't have any preference, I'll pick one).

[jerakeen]

You guys are both made of awesome and these should be epic, novel length fics! Can we, like, donate 50 dollars and have 5 more of each? *looks hopeful*

[debaser]

lol, Jerakeen - I don't know if you're joking, but I seriously second that. These are so, so amazing. Maybe if we all pool together? I'm in for $10!! (If they agree, of course. But really, no pressure - they're just both so good )

[condancer]

I love them both!