check please! sideblog

“Morning, guys!”

Lardo’s greeting is unusually chipper for such a foggy grey February morning, and Derek is immediately suspicious. After being at Samwell for a full semester already, he’s grown accustomed to Lardo’s uncanny ability to recruit the Samwell Men’s Hockey team into whatever cacophony of Fine Arts-related schemes she’s planned. The most recent of Lardo’s Art Schemes left Ransom and Chowder with glitter glue in their hair for a week.

The rest of the team at the breakfast table turn their attention to their petite team manager. Many, like Derek, look unsurprisingly worried. Ransom subconsciously adjusts his snapback.

In her arms, Lardo has a forebodingly large stack of papers, and on her face, a toothy grin.

“So!” she continues, “As some of you may remember, last year’s Spring Talent Show was held at the same time as our playoffs, and we were on a roadie that day so we missed it. Buuuut, good news, I convinced the director of the Talent Show to shift the dates so more students could participate!” At this, she drops the stack of papers onto the table with an unceremonious flump, nearly missing a ketchup bottle and Dex’s plate of hashbrowns.

The papers she was holding appeared to be flyers for the Spring Talent Show, with the date and time of the show, framed by clip art images of a magician and a guitar player.

“I’ll be helping backstage with the show this year, as part of my volunteering requirement,” Lardo says, “so naturally I said I’d be bringing along members of Samwell Men’s Hockey to help out.”

Ah, there it is, Derek thinks.

“If you can help out, I’d be very happy,” Lardo says, in a tone of voice that suggests choosing to opt-out may have dire consequences. “But! If you’d rather participate in the talent show, go for it. It’s for charity after all.”

Derek feels Holster, who is sitting beside him, sit straight up in his chair. He turns to look at him, and sees what appear to be literal stars shining in his eyes. He looks like he’s about to speak, but all of a sudden, Chippy and Bubbly Lardo turns into Serious Business with a Side of Anxiety Lardo.

“Okay but seriously I have like five hundred of these flyers to put up and y’all gotta help,” she deadpans without breathing.

“That’s a shot,” says a grinning Bitty, incidentally the first one to speak up since Lardo’s arrival and one of the few people capable of placating her nervous Art Scheme related energy. She chuckles absentmindedly at her slip and mumbles a “damnit…” to herself.

(Derek still thinks it’s hilarious how the team decided to come up with a system to deal with the increasingly obnoxious use of y’all, eh, and hella thanks to the influence of Bitty, Jack, and Chowder, respectively. Anyone else using those words is required to do an extra shot at the next kegster. Yes, Ransom has a spreadsheet for it.)

Lardo smiles at Bitty, seemingly remembering to take a breath this time. “So what are you going to do for the talent show?” she asks him.

Bitty blinks, flustered. “Me? No, no way. Unless they can put an oven onstage, I have nothing else to bring to the table,” he laughs nervously, his face turning pink, “unless the school wants to see me shake it to Beyoncé.”

“Really? I thought you’d be totally into getting onstage!” she says.

“I’ll… think about it,” Bitty acquiesces, turning away to unceremoniously shove pancakes in his mouth.

To Derek’s surprise, the next person to speak up is Jack.

“I think it’s a good idea. We’re supporting the school, and it’s for charity. I’d be happy to help, Lardo,” he says as he reaches for the stack of flyers. Lardo gives him a small smile and passes him a sizeable chunk of the stack with a quick “thanks, bro.”

Beside him, Holster has finally seemed to snap out of his reverie, though his eyes seem no less starry. In fact, he seems… inspired, almost. Suddenly he stands up, fists balled tight in front of him, and bellows

“HELL YEAH! I’M GONNA SING!”

The table beside them turns with a simultaneous death glare coupled with a “SSHHHH!” which causes Ransom and Derek to immediately start cracking up. The rest of the table quickly follow suit, earning them another shushing.

As Holster sits back down, Ransom says “duh, dude, of course you gotta sing. This school would be fuckin’ missing out on your glorious voice if you didn’t.”