GO FIGHTING CHERRIES!

𝐟𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐰

𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖌𝖔𝖙 𝖗𝖔𝖜𝖊: 𝖆𝖓 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

the nice (?) cheerleader. nineteen. nursing major @ c.c.u. base/flyer alternate for cherries cheerleading club.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: Miss Margot has places to be and elections to win!

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: CCU Quad

Okay, you got her! Margaret Grace Rowe was a certified theater kid. It wasn’t a secret, by any means. After all, theatrics were so much cooler than they were in high school and she had practically been primmed to be the next leading lady of the drama club after that poor Blaire girl’s murder. When one blonde leaves, another takes her place! Or... something like that! Becoming president of the Living Bards Society was just her first step in segmenting herself as a force to be reckoned with at Cherry Coastal.

It was almost primal, Margot’s desire to be a winner. To be a part of a winning team, the best of the best, the cream of the crop. While her number one love would always be for cheer, drama came at a close second. And while she didn’t have the balls to go against the likes of Elaine Archer or Zahra Jackson, she did have the balls (and triple threat talent!) to go against the dweebs of the Living Bards Society. 

She spent the entire night before making posters, practically begging her parents to let her use the color in the printer. By the next afternoon, Margot had about forty little flyers adorned with her face with red and pink doodles telling you to vote for her. She stood on her tip toes, attempting to hang one of her flyers on a pole, but it seemed like plenty of others had the same idea as her, and there was only room in places she couldn’t reach. Margot turned her head, looking over her shoulder at someone who was a mere few feet behind her.

“When you’re done staring, do you think you could help me out?”

𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗡 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗥!​​ 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧: i haven’t written a damn thing in about a week and a half so do i know what this is? no. am i also on day 2 of a hangover so feel like this may be rough? yes. is it written with love regardless? yes. yes it is.  𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘: the pit stand 

There’s been a scowl on his face ever since he received class schedule. Meditation… really? What would that do? Help him breathe through his problems? Come to some kind of acceptance that life may indeed be shit but at least he’s got tranquility and positive thoughts to get him through? There’s no amount of breathing that would help with the existential dread he’s been feeling over the past few weeks. But he’s not about to go kick up a fuss about it. That’d just be embarrassing. So, instead, he’s leaning into the old tried and tested - looking like he’d rather be anywhere else than standing behind The Pit’s stand while stealing occasional glances at the piece of paper that’s sat on the edge of the table just waiting for liquid to be poured on it. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. 

“Sorry, i was busy counting down to one and thinking of fluffy kittens and rainbows,” he deadpans as he finally breaks from his reverie for long enough to realise that shockingly(!) some people want to be served at a bar. “Can I get you the non-alcoholic beverage of your dreams? And by that I mean we have a very limited menu so choose wisely.” 

— ♡ —

Call her dramatic but Margot felt exposed, naked, without a uniform clinging to her body. Sure, it might be totally impractical but there was nothing that consumed her thoughts more than belonging. Belonging to a team, a squad as notable as the CCU Cheerleaders, she felt the need for constant rep (and pep!). Then call her stupid for wearing her coveted Cherries Cheerleading Club sweatshirt during summer. She thought she could get away with it as long as she wore a pair of shorts and for the most of the morning? It had worked in her favor, but as soon as the sun started coming out and the breeze stopped? Color her hot, and not the in Phoebe Cates way.

And she could have ran to her dorm and changed, she really could, but she wasn’t ready to part with a piece of Cherry merchandise. She would just make a mental note to maybe wait to break out the sweatshirts until the weather started to drop. All that to say she was in desperate need of something cold to drink which lead her directly to The Pit stand. She would have never been caught dead in a bar at any point in her life, but since they were just a little pop up on campus, what’s the worst that could happen? And they had to have water. “Just anything that includes ice would be nice,” she admitted, her nose scrunching, noticing that she had clearly interrupted him from whatever he had been daydreaming about. 

Then, ever the polite person, she piped up with her own insight. “You don’t exactly look like someone who’d, you know, be thinking about kittens and rainbows in your free time.”

Maddie was naturally a little nosey, it wasn’t that she wanted to dig up the dirt on others or even mildly stir the soil for that matter, she just liked to feel as if she were a part of things. Since that was the case, it was rather fitting that Maddie was in charge of the ledger that contained everybody’s dorm assignments for the semester. She could see where everybody would be living, who they would be sharing their quarters with, with whom they would have neighboring walls and it was all very exciting to her.

As a recent transfer student, she didn’t know everybody on the ledger and it was a perfect opportunity for her to put faces to names and feel like she was contributing something to the CCU community in the process. More comforting than that, however, was to see the gang around the place, despite all that had happened as of late.

“Hey,” Maddie greeted, “Got your assignment yet? I won’t tell if you want to do a little swapsies, there’s still time,” more than half of the names in the ledger remained unmarked, which meant, in Maddie’s exclusive opinion that as the on-duty dorm assignment director, she also had the power to move things around for the right person…or the right price.

— ♡ —

Living in the dorms hadn’t been Margot’s first choice of living arrangements. She lived in the cul de sac of Cherry Proper, there was almost no need for her to trade in her full size canopy bed in for a twin xl that would surely be the bane of her back problems in twenty years time. But, Margot was all about community. There was something special in sharing a bedroom with someone else, the campus life in general, and if that meant spending a few nights a week in what she could only describe as a shack? Then sign her up.

Inquiring about room assignments, Margot quirked a brow. “Actually.... no, I haven’t,” she admitted. Truly, her room assignment wasn’t at the top of her priorities. Margot still had a bed to sleep in, so her main focus was on getting her schedule figured out and being with her team. It was clear this girl had some say in room assignments or at least, was the one dishing them out which came Margot’s question. “You wouldn’t happen to know if I was stuck with anyone who I’d like, want to do a ‘swapsies’ with?”

who: jamie and literally anyone who will talk to him​ what: he was in his dorm room and started feeling existential so now he’s looking for a distraction and saying, like, anything to find it  where: out and about in the quad

It’s not like Jamie had very many belongings to move in from his Van, but somehow trudging them up toward his dorm room - paid for fully with students loans that would surely come back to bite him in the ass -  still felt like sort of a big deal. His first place that was all his own! (Even if it technically was split down the middle with Ted Lewis… and CCU property, but whatever!) It was good enough for Jamie as he shoved his backpack full of clothes into a drawer, and set his guitar in the corner - it was good enough for Jamie as he sat on his bed and bounced just a little. Huh. When was the last time he had slept on an actual mattress and not just the mat that was laid out in his van? 

When was it all going to fall apart, like it always did? 

The thought was a whirlwind. It was a trigger, and it’s fire left him spinning out toward the buzz of the quad and the flurry of people. He needed to find a familiar face - he needed to find a moment of peace. He just needed something. 

“You ever think about how lucky we are to live at the same time as CCU cheerleaders?” Jamie said out loud to no one in particular as he waved a group of girls - out of Uniform, but wholly recognizable! Who wouldn’t know a Fighting Cherry by sight in this little town? - past. “I’d never lay down and invite God to let me suffer, but for one of them…?” 

He smirked. “I’d suffer.” 

At least it’d probably get a reaction out of someone - he was craving it. 

— ♡ —

Margot always thought that high school would be the worst of the worst pertaining mean girls and hierarchy. Joining the Cherries Cheerleading Club, though? It was clear that high school was only a precursor for how awful the cheerleaders here could be. Still, Margot had found a way to weasel her way in, forcing herself into their clique. Whether that was talent or because they could get Margot to pick up dry cleaning on a good day? Well, that was left to be discovered, but Margot had to remind herself that this was the best of the best and that she should be lucky that she was a part of the clique to begin with.

She walked behind the group, almost embarrassingly as if she were a lost freshman. Margot hadn’t quite found her footing with them yet, perhaps because she actually had a semblance of a moral code. You ever think about how lucky we are to live at the same time as CCU cheerleaders? Margot’s head turned in the direction of the voice. Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed it, but she did. It wasn’t unusual to hear unwarranted comments or advances, it came with the uniform after all, yet it still made her stop dead in her tracks while she rest of the cheerleaders toddled off, leaving sweet little Margot behind, defenseless. 

Never the confrontational type, Margot stood, just processing his words. It was the mention of God that almost made her snap. "I think that’s wildly inappropriate,” she countered, in her best attempt to come across as intimidating. Failure. Margot would never have the sharp words of her friends, if you could call them that. She was always more fragile and delicate compared to her peers. “And it’s a good thing God doesn’t work on an invitation basis.”

Who did this guy think he was?