I Want To Introduce You To Jesse

A/N: Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Why Finchel is being pushed as the best Glee couple is beyond me. I sincerely hope Jesse punches Finn in the face one day, and Rachel comes to her senses and marries Jesse. Anyhoo, since Jesse isn't very developed in canon because he's the designated villain, I figured I'd make my own headcanon. Thusly, I present it to you. I seem to have a strange obsession with writing Jesse; hopefully he's IC. Set in S1, but most of it carries through to S2, especially the ending. I dunno about the ending, though. Probably cheesy. You have been warned. *insert shameless-but-effective review plug here* PS. I have another Jesse story, Three Things. Go check it out. This can stand on its own, but it'll help to read Three Things.

Disclaimer: If I owned, I would have spent more than $700 on my CD collection.

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"You know Jesse St. James, star of Vocal Adrenaline and your competition at Regionals. But I want to introduce you to Jesse; the guy who's nuts about you, the guy who would never hurt you."

And true to his word, there was a lot more to Jesse St. James than that.

In the early stages of their relationship, when she was still anxious about his allegiance to Vocal Adrenaline, he told her that they weren't so much a glee club as a family; the toughness of rehearsal meant he saw everyone at their weakest, and they him — and when it's like that, enemies become comrades. That Shelby was like a mother to him, since his parents wintered in Bali and springed in Paris and summered in Spain and autumned in Canada.

When they watched movies together, Rachel learned that Jesse was very touchy-feely, always snuggling up to her. That he liked to make sarcastic comments whenever characters did something stupid, and he liked his popcorn drenched in butter but no salt, with honey slathered over the top. That he liked to watch movies to the end of the credits and insisted on a minute of silence after each to absorb and get the story straight.

After their first heated make-out session, tongues sliding and hands wandering and some but not all clothes lost, she ran her hand over the rough denim of his jacket and commented on his tough dress style. Jesse said airily that he'd been in every show his elementary and middle schools had done, and some jocks hadn't taken too well to that; his big brother Joshua had taught him how to dress like a badass after his first beat-up, which warded off the rest after that. That, in fact, excepting show costumes, he was uncomfortable dressed any other way, so strong was the force of habit.

The first time Jesse took her to his house, she saw an opulent mansion with everything but residents. (And Rachel learned the St. James family wasn't hurting for money. Instead, she learned that the St. James children needed love.) Jesse showed her the kitchen where his younger sister Jacinta taught him how to bake, before she became bulimic in a desperate bid to become a model or pop star, and Joshua's shelf of dance trophies — he had passed on his expertise to Jesse, before becoming a professional dancer in New York. And then he'd taken her to his room, which had an annexe for his trophies and the walls covered with posters of Broadway shows and stars.

The first time Rachel called Jesse a pet name, he blushed. Nobody had ever called him anything other than "Hey, Jesse!" or "St. James!" or "that weird kid who's obsessed with theatre and crap like that". The pet name had only been Jess, but it had made him feel special and loved all the same. And from then on, whenever they were alone together, she called him Jess, or honey, or darling, or baby. But his favourite was Jess.

And Rachel learned the little trivialities about Jesse that made up everyone; that he went to bed promptly at 10:30 every weeknight, and midnight every Friday and Sunday. That he kept his soundtrack collection in a separate CD wallet than the rest of his collection because there were so many. That when he wasn't watching movie-musicals, his favourite movies were action movies, and his favourite actor was Johnny Depp. That he liked video games, and owned an XBox 360, Wii, and DSi, and Pokémon was his very guilty pleasure. That his favourite band was Queen, and he owned all their albums on both vinyl and CD.

And Rachel learned that she loved him… and always would.