It was cold. Very cold. Blaine wondered why he had agreed to join Wes and David tonight as they went to a school somewhere in Ohio for the high school football championship game to cheer on one of David's cousins.

Oh, right. He loved football, possibly more than any of his friends did. He didn't play the sport himself, but he knew that he would've at least tried out if he'd been a bit taller, if he'd had a little more talent, and if football players and other jocks weren't typically the people known to bully gay kids in high school. Blaine had jumped at the opportunity to tag along, back when they'd first mentioned it. He hadn't realised it would be so cold, though.

No, Blaine didn't entirely fit the gay stereotype – something he was sometimes glad for. Not that it was a bad thing, fitting the stereotype, but for him, it was a good thing. People didn't immediately assume that he was gay, which meant that he'd managed to stay mostly anonymous at his old school for a long time. Only when people around him started to notice something off about him, the whispers had started and he'd become the centre of everyone's attention.

In the most negative way imaginable.

Either way, he was looking forward to seeing the game. The team David's cousin was up against had, apparently, been at the bottom of the ranks the previous year. And the one before that. This year, a new coach had taken over and all of a sudden, the team was one of the top contenders for the state title. That was fishy, as far as Blaine was concerned, and he knew which team he hoped would win.

The visiting team (the one Blaine was rooting for) was slowly gathering on the field, but the other team was strangely absent. Well – there was one player already getting ready, and as Blaine watched, a bunch of other bulky guys approached him. They seemed like football players, but they weren't dressed to play a game anytime soon. Maybe they were from some rival team, coming to watch the home team get defeated?

"You're kidding," Wes whispered incredulously. He jabbed Blaine and David in the ribs and pointed towards the field. Amidst several 'real' football players, a group of smaller people, apparently ready to play this game, entered the field.

"They're letting a bunch of girls play?" David asked, clearly not believing his eyes either. "I thought they were genuinely good this year…"

Blaine frowned at the new players. He wasn't a misogynist or anything, but he seriously doubted these girls' ability to play football and win this game. Most of them were even smaller than he was.

The bulkier guys who'd just walked up to the first McKinley player on the field had spotted the new players as well. They, like Blaine and his friends, seemed completely caught off guard.

Narrowing his eyes – they did sit a little too far away to make it out clearly – Blaine muttered, "I don't think they're all girls."

Wes and David stared at him for a moment before turning back to the field. "Oh, yeah," David said sheepishly, now also realising that the tallest of the group was actually a guy. But not a guy you'd normally expect on a football field. He was taller than Blaine, yes, but he was also thinner, and somehow, he seemed… fragile.

Who in their right mind would let someone like that play in a football game? Blaine glanced at David's cousin and his teammates. They would probably tear the boy apart within seconds.

Blaine didn't know why that made him so anxious.

The group on the field was definitely enthusiastic, Blaine observed. His observations were cut short when Wes jabbed him once more. "Look!" he hissed. "There's a kid in a wheelchair as well!"

David was frowning by now. "Are they trying to poke fun at the other team by putting all these people on the field?" he asked, sounding very unhappy about the whole ordeal.

"They're the ones that look like fools," Wes tried to soothe him, but David shook his head.

"It's like they're trying to ridicule the entire game," he said. Blaine had to admit, it would be a logical explanation for this situation.

When the referee blew his whistle for the first time, and all the players gathered around him, Blaine realised that half of the team didn't seem to have any idea of what they were doing – the quarterback was showing them their positions, and they looked extremely nervous.

"Is it just me, or aren't there nearly enough players on that squad?" Wes asked, confused.

Blaine shook his head. "They let you play with a few players short in high school football," he told his friend dismissively, not wanting to miss the start of the game.

What on earth –

As soon as the game really began, the smaller players on the home team just lay flat on the ground. They weren't even trying to play, they just… laid down.

Seeing Wes and David's incredulous looks, Blaine shrugged. "They don't have to play. There just ought to be enough players on the field…" However, he wasn't sure if this tactic was going to win this team the game.

The match continued exactly like this – as soon as the whistle sounded, the smaller players got out of the way. Once or twice, Blaine noticed the boy get up after that, trying to help out somehow, but it was no use. He knew he should be glad – after all, he was here to support the opponents.

Shortly before halftime, one of the girls suddenly started running towards the ball and, once she had it, she tried to score. Blaine's eyebrows rose to a new level as he watched her run. She wasn't fast enough, and the crowd in the stadium quieted immediately when she was tackled by a guy twice her size. Luckily, she was still breathing, and seemed alright. Blaine just hoped she wouldn't try something like that again. He didn't even know the girl, but still. Everyone was worried, right? And he certainly didn't want anyone to die tonight.

One of the girls on the field pulled off her helmet to talk to her team's quarterback, who then proceeded to give instructions to a couple of his other teammates. Then, he ran off of the field, leaving a bunch of rather confused spectators behind.

"Where's he going?" David asked, turning to Blaine immediately, as if he, with all his knowledge about football, should know the answer to that question as well.

"I don't know," Blaine scoffed.

"Maybe he's going to hide away in shame," Wes suggested.

Wherever the quarterback had run off to, the game went on and the home team kept on losing opportunities. Blaine could safely say that this wasn't what he'd been expecting when he'd agreed to come to this championship game. Hopefully the rest of the game would be better.

"Do you want to watch the halftime show?" he asked his friends, who nodded eagerly. "Let me guess," Blaine continued, "because of the cheerleaders?"

They didn't even hesitate to confirm this.

After a minute, David asked Wes, "What's wrong? Is something up?"

Wes shook his head at first, then shrugged. "We're here at McKinley High, right?" he asked. "I'm… sure that I heard from that school before, but where?"

Now that he mentioned it, it did sound familiar to Blaine. However, he had no idea why that was the case, and neither, it appeared, did David.

In the meantime, people were gathering on the field – people in football uniforms, girls in dresses, and a marching band. This school was obviously going to try to make up for the bad first half by giving the audience an elaborate show.

"No cheerleaders?" David asked, his disappointment more than evident.

"Where did all those football players come from?" Blaine muttered, trying to block out his friends' lament over the lack of cheerleaders on the field. "There were only a few of them just now, and now there are loads – "

He was cut off when a girl started singing and the band started playing. The smoke on the field gave the whole thing an eery feel, especially when Blaine also realised that all the girls and the football players were actually looking quite like zombies.

"A mash-up of Thriller and Heads will roll," Wes muttered. "That's genius. We should look into that – "

"Somehow, I doubt something like this could be done a cappella," David objected. "Besides, how would we pull this off while wearing our Dalton uniforms? It would just seem weird."

Blaine had to agree with David. The mash-up looked and sounded amazing; the singing was great and the choreography was awesome too. The crowd loved it. But the Warblers shouldn't do something like this. They'd better just stick to recent Top 40 hits.

When they were done, Blaine didn't hesitate to join the applause. He didn't know how they'd done it, getting all those football players to sing and dance along, but this must be one of the best performance Blaine had ever witnessed. It was better than any cheerleading show could've been.

A little later, the football players from McKinley returned to the field. They were all big, burly guys this time, though – the same people who'd just performed that mash-up.

"Are they still wearing their zombie make-up?" Wes asked, shocked.

"Why would they do that?" Blaine wondered.

David shrugged uneasily. "They probably didn't have enough time to get it off after the show."

"Then why does it sound like they're making zombie noises?" Blaine asked.

His friends' silence told him enough.

In the meantime, the girls who'd participated in the show were standing next to the field, cheering and waving pompoms around. They were still wearing their scary dresses and zombie make-up as well. It was the creepiest cheerleading squad Blaine had ever laid eyes on.

Next to the girls were the boy in the wheelchair and the fragile looking boy who'd been on the field during the first half as well. The two of them were still in their football uniforms, and also still wearing the zombie make-up.

With all the burly guys on the home team and the fact that both teams now had the same amount of players, this game could get interesting. Both teams were pretty evenly matched, and McKinley must be out for blood now. Their opponents probably wouldn't let them win so easily, though. At least, that's what Blaine hoped.

By the end of the second half, the home team had managed to make up for their (more than) bad first half. They hadn't completely caught up with the other team, but at least their loss wouldn't be as dramatic as Blaine had expected around half time.

Oh well. There were only ten seconds left. There was no way they could turn their loss into a win, and Blaine was glad for that. If McKinley's team would win, that would mean a very grouchy David for the rest of the night… maybe even the rest of the week.

After a short time-out, the home team started chanting something all of a sudden. Blaine was too far away to make out what exactly they were saying, but it seemed to unsettle the visitors greatly. Then, the cheerleaders on the sidelines started chanting along, just like the football coach –

"They're chanting 'brains' over and over again," David muttered, and now, Blaine could hear it clearly too. That chant, combined with the fact that the team still looked like zombies, had to affect their opponents in some way. It wasn't long before the biggest part of the audience – everyone who'd come to cheer on the home team, which seemed to be the entire town – was shouting the same thing. Wes looked around, looking a little scared.

Before Blaine knew what was happened, the whistle sounded. The quarterback of David's cousin's team seemed very out of focus due to the chants, and for that reason, the home team could have another go at scoring that goal – and they scored. And won.

The stadium erupted in cheers, but the three Warblers didn't have the heart to cheer along. They had, after all, rooted for the other team. Luckily, they weren't the only people in their part of the stands who were disappointed by the outcome of the game. Overall, the visiting team had been better, Blaine thought. And in the end, they had only lost because the home team had started chanting – everyone would lose focus then, right?

"They lost." David sounded close to tears. "How could they lose? They were much better!"

The three of them sat in silence for a moment while the rest of the stadium emptied quickly. "Come on," Blaine said after a couple of minutes. "Let's go back to school, alright?"

The other two nodded numbly and followed Blaine down. They were almost out of the stadium when they bumped into a boy who came jogging out of the school – it was the thin boy who'd been out on the field during the first half. Blaine raised his eyebrows, and the boy copied him, before narrowing his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" he asked suspiciously, now eyeing David and Wes as if trying to remember them from somewhere.

"We came here to watch the game," Blaine answered with a forced smile, a little caught off guard by the fact that they were speaking to someone from the opposing team. "That was a… surprising result."

The boy nodded, but before he could reply, David stepped forward. "You didn't even do anything!" he said in an accusing voice, and Blaine knew that, had David not just witnessed his cousin losing his biggest game ever, he would never, ever, talk like that. "You just… laid down on the ground."

The boys narrowed his eyes at him even further. "Well, excuse me for not wanting to get trampled on by a horde of rampant football players. The ones at my school already shove me around enough, thank you very much. I don't need any football related injuries to add to the ones I already have. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly built like a football player. And sure, I used to be the kicker at some point, but kickers aren't normally on the field during most of the game."

That was true. Trying to steer away from the match itself, Blaine said, "The halftime show was amazing, though. I mean, who came up with that idea? A mash-up of Thriller and Heads will roll? That's brilliant! And your zombie costumes and make-up looked freaky as well."

A small smile formed on the boy's lips, before it turned into a slight smirk. The boy pretended to wipe himself off before perfecting his bangs. "And to think," he started, sounding a little too smug for Blaine's liking, "it's not even Regionals yet." For a moment, he turned towards the parking lot and waved at someone. Looking back at the three Warblers, he added, "You'd better bring it at Regionals. But either way, we're going to wipe the floor with you."

With that, he walked away, making his way to the parking lot while Wes gaped after him. All of a sudden, he didn't seem as upset about the loss as he'd just been. "What was he talking about?" he muttered to himself. "What – I don't – "

"Let's just go to Dalton," David said. "I don't want to be here anymore."

Right. For a moment, Blaine had forgotten the slightly humiliating loss they'd just witnessed as well. Regionals? What was that supposed to mean?

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"It means," Wes told him once they were back at Dalton and David had gone to his own room already, while Wes and Blaine were both still in Wes' room in an attempt to clear up the confusion, "that I was right when I said I'd heard of the William McKinley High School before." He pointed at his computer screen and Blaine squinted to see what it said.

"New Directions?" he asked, horrified.

Wes nodded sagely. "New Directions," he confirmed.