Les Âmes Soeurs
AnniKay
Sam/Mercedes/Puck
Disclaimer: I own Nothing…Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennen along with Fox and others own this fandom and all the characters there in…Anything you recognize obviously belongs to them
****THANKS to everyone who has taken the time to review! Your encouragement helps more than you know!****
I took the entire month of December off to recharge the batteries. All I did was do the background research and figure out some of the plot points. My lack of posting has nothing at all to do with my betas; their turnaround was stellar as always.
Special thanks to KayBee80 & Illiandyanndra who have been Beta rock stars for all of my ten stories
Summary: The gang has moved to New York. College and career are on the horizon…Are the Original New Directions ready for what all the future holds?
*Want to see the finishes and details for the Brownstone…Check out Illy's Flicker Account.
*Want to see the 'face claims' or, as I call it, the Casting Call for the OCs…Check out The Illy and Anni Yahoo Group.
Can't Hold Us (Macklemore)
Puck PoV
Our first Labor Day all on our own was all kinds of cool. In an effort to get to know our tenants and because it was hot and it seemed like a good idea at the time, the eight of us decided to have a barbeque. Mills had done a great job filling the downstairs apartments so we had four people relying on us and only knew one of them even close to well. In the fully empty apartment, she had placed a psychology grad student from CUNY and a law student from NYU. She had even managed to find Ryan a roommate before he finished fully unpacking his stuff. His free bedroom was filled with a NYADA sophomore who had moved in the Saturday morning before the holiday. The BBQ was actually not a bad idea. The place was already set up for us to do stuff in the backyard all four units shared. Kurt had the builders create a nice patio space, he hadn't gone all crazy and decked the thing out with an outdoor kitchen or anything extreme, but it had plenty of space for grilling and lounging.
Saturday afternoon, while Sexy Mama was getting her new weave put in, Sam, Anderson and I borrowed Sexy Mama's Tahoe and drove to a Home Depot on the upper west side. After some arguing and picking apart the different features of the ones they had in stock, we ended up picking out a bomb ass Weber propane grill. Sam also grabbed a largish charcoal grill, because according to him hot dogs just weren't the same off the propane grill. Anderson made sure that we grabbed two of the propane tanks and a big ass bag of charcoal and some lighter fluid. We also grabbed some really cool grilling tools. We might have gone a little overboard; probably we didn't really need a different set for each of us.
While the three of us were at Home Depot, Artie had dragged Satan and Brittany to Best Buy. He was determined to make our cookout the certified, bonified and total shit. The next day, Kurt and Sexy Mama were just as resolute in their pursuit of the same goal; they were just going at it from a different angle. As soon as we'd all agreed that we wanted to do the whole Labor Day barbeque thing, the two of them had immediately decided that they were in charge of buying all the food. We wanted to do the thang right, but we also didn't want to blow through the all food the parents had bought us before they left the week before. So each of the eight of us chipped in a hundred bucks, fifty for specifically for the meats for our simkhe, and the rest to go for all the other food crap they started planning. Blaine just waited until they finally started winding down on their reenactment of the planning of the Tet Offensive and asked politely that Mercedes make some of Angel Mom's shrimp salad. I knew I liked Anderson…stupid first name or not.
Since a second Home Depot expedition demanded the space of the Tahoe, and Art-man was adamant that he still needed the Cayenne to get the right set up for the back yard -plus Satan really didn't let anyone else drive it. Not that I blamed her; it was a Porsche. Cede and Fairy took advantage of the fact that Uncle Saul had added her, Sammyboy and myself to his zip car account. Apparently since NYC has some of the best food shopping in the world, Cede and her bestie did that shit up HUGE. What they called grocery shopping did not resemble what I called grocery shopping in any shape form or fashion. They didn't hit one store and get everything in one stop like I would have. They didn't hit a big box store and a grocery store like Mom would have. No, not Sexy Mama and Hummer, that would be silly. Instead they actually woke up at the ass crack of dawn and went to some special produce market. Then a special seafood market, on the way home they stopped in at a kosher butcher and got all the beef and chicken and a normal butcher for the pork. After they got all of that they came home, put it all away in the fridges, they headed back out and went to some specialty spice market they had seen on Food Network or something. After that they finally made it to a store with a name I actually recognized, Super Target. There they got all the stuff the toi-toi places they had been all morning would never carry; chips and sodas and ice cream and shit that made working out worth it.
My jaw actually hit the floor when I saw how much stuff they had gotten. First of all, I never thought you could get that much fresh fruits, vegetables and meats in Manhattan for eight hundred bucks, let alone all the rest of the food stuff. Second of all, I thought we were just having a little barbeque. When I said as much to Babygirl, she smiled at me and laughed. "Boo…you do know that we're about to enter the busiest time in our lives, don't you? Anything that you and the guys grill up that we don't eat is gonna get frozen and we can have it for dinner later on when we have no time to cook. As for the sides, the freezable ones…we'll make twice as much as we need and freeze half. That's the reason we shopped the way we did…so we could get as much as possible for our money. For the next month or two we're going to be running crazy between school, meetings, getting the album recorded…and whatever else God decides to toss in to our path."
"True, true." I agreed pulling her into my arms. "Artie still gonna work with Tana for our background vocals?" I asked quietly. Mr. Cohen was cool with us using our friends and paying them like regular background artists, but Artie was having a hard time with the thought of taking money for what he saw as 'helping his friends'.
She nodded, her face burrowing into my pecs. "Yeah. I was finally able to convince him that being able to say he did professional behind the scenes work could only help him later, and since we are using one of the Warner studios, even it if it is off site he might still make some good connections. They say in the movie business, it's as much who you know as what you can do."
"Gotcha, play the 'think about the future' angle." I teased her a little.
That must have struck a little bit of a nerve because she popped my back. "Stop that. Don't act like I'm manipulating our friend just to make our lives easier."
"No, not just…" I laughed at the look on her face when she tilted her head back to glare at me. "You know I'm just playing."
"Yeah, yeah…alright, I'd better get to work. You'd better shoo before I find something better for you to do other than torturing me." she teasingly chided.
"Babygirl, you know you don't even have to ask." I ran over to the sink and washed my hands, came back and dropped a kiss to the top of her head before asking her what she wanted me to do.
Since I had volunteered, Cede wasted no time at all in putting me to work. Kurt joined us and while we started working on the marinades for the meats, he started peeling and slicing and dicing for some of the side dishes. In pretty short order we had the beef ribs marinating in one thing, the T-bones in something else, the sirloins in a different concoction, the chicken bone in pieces and wings in something else, the chicken breasts in something, the big ass shrimp in one mixture and finally the salmon fillets in some lemon, herb, olive oil deal. The pork ribs just got a dry rub. Sexy Mama didn't use any of those bottle marinades either. She made all that shit herself. Once all of the meats were soaking and in the fridge, Cede directed me on how to boil the small shrimp for the Angel Mom salad. The three of us were talking and laughing. Hummer isn't so bad now that I know him and realized that he can't really help himself for dressing so damn prissy. He's just got a border line OCD or something. I will say that I don't think that I ever realized how much he knew about Cede, Sam and my sex life. Apparently, Sexy Mama knew just as much about his and Anderson's so I guess it was a bestie thing.
"Hey, how come girls can talk among themselves all about what goes down in the bedroom with their significant others, but when guys do it we get told off." I asked curiously.
"Probably because the insecurities women have won't allow them to be sure that their guys are bragging on them, not slamming them." Santana said as she came in carrying some big ass Party City bags. "I got some 'we don't give a fuck' dishes. Puck, there is more shit in the Cayenne." She tossed me the keys, "go get it while Britts and I start washing all this shit so we can use it tomorrow."
"Good looking out." Cedes threw them both big smiles. "That way we won't end up dragging our good serving dishes and stuff outside."
"Yup, got paper plates and stuff too. There will be no real dishes or glasses out on the patio." Santana growled. "Ain't been here but a hot minute. It is way too early to be breakin' shit. Puck, you might wanna grab Trouty and one of the other guys too. There are some folding tables and chairs. Brittany wanted to make sure that we had enough places for people to sit."
"Sam and Blaine are both out back helping Artie setup the sound system. We were all wondering where the two of you had disappeared to." Kurt pointed out as he replaced the fully cooked shrimp with eggs that needed to be boiled on the stove. "Artie will probably thank you for getting them out of his hair."
"See, you have plenty of help." Santana told us as she started taking the labels off all the plastic dishware. "Oh and Ben's friends Sam and Sock decided to surprise him since they had the long weekend off. He wanted to know if it would be okay with us if he brought them along. Plus, Jon wants to know if it's okay if he brings his girlfriend Mallory?"
"I'm good with that." Sexy Mama nodded. "We're all booed up, no reason to exclude Jonathan's honey. And of course Ben can bring his friends. He wouldn't come otherwise and this is about getting to know them.
Kurt agreed too. Santana didn't even try to see if I had an objection and I knew she wouldn't say a thing to Anderson, Art-man or Sam…for something like that she wouldn't count our opinions anyway unless we had a major problem with something. "I forgot to tell you guys. Ben offered to provide us with alcoholic refreshments for the barbeque."
"Uncle Saul made the same offer before he and Mills decided to go up to the Hamptons with Neil and Jarrard. Granted, he said he'd get us one beer each and a couple of bottles of wine. But still the offer was made. Something tells me that's not what Ben means."
"No." Kurt shook his head. "He mentioned making Mai Tais or Pina Coladas or Sangria."
Cede worried her bottom lip, making me want to kiss her senseless. "Maybe we should tell Ben and his friends thanks but no thanks…we start classes the very next morning. It would be a bad idea to show up all hungover."
I went over and pulled my love into my arms pressing kisses to her shoulder and neck. "We'll be fine as long as we don't drink too much. Nobody try to kill a pitcher all by themselves and we're golden. I don't know why they give first semester freshmen classes that start so early. I mean I've got an eight o'clock class…it's like being back in high school all over again." I grumbled.
"You do realize that classes in high school started at twenty minutes to eight…right?" Fairy pointed out.
I looked at him quizzically, "and? Your point is?"
Hummel smirked. "No point. Just an observation."
For some reason, his comment threw me back to the very first day Sam, Mercedes and I had walked into McKinley as a thruple. "Don't worry Fairy, I promise to carry books this time." Of course everybody in the kitchen looked at us like we'd lost our minds when we started laughing so hard that we could barely stand. Once we got our breath back, I grabbed the guys and we went and emptied the car while Kurt and Cede pressed Tana and Britts into service.
By the time dinner rolled around, Sexy Mama, Hummer, Satan, Britts and I had spent so much time getting the meats and side dishes ready for the next day that we barely wanted to eat food let alone cook any. So Anderson hooked us all up with pizza from a little place right on the edge of Morningside Heights and Harlem. Artie, Sam and Richie Rich had gotten the grills, patio furniture, tables and sound system all assembled and setup, so we were set.
When we went up to bed we were supposed to head to bed. The next day was scheduled to start early and would hopefully end pretty late. It didn't matter. We got in the room and Cede started getting undressed for her shower and all thoughts of going to sleep early went out of our heads. Sam and I waited for a second until she got down to her pretty teal bra and panty set and then we struck. We enveloped her, trapping her between us, taking turns kissing her until she was as aroused as we were. Sammyboy and I might have tried to do our usual top, alpha thing, but that night Mama swapped that shit on us with the quickness. She knelt between us and tried her very best to fit both our cocks into her mouth at the same damn time. That shit felt completely awesome. She ended up covered in cum that Sammyboy and I had great fun cleaning off her while getting ready to fuck her until we were all too tired and satisfied to do anything but sleep.
Of course, considering how late we were up boning and sexing, we overslept. Thankfully the Fairy got the day of preparations underway. Sam and me rushed through our showers and got dressed. I threw on some cargo shorts and a tee shirt that everyone had gotten at Sam's family reunion. It was a great shade of blue that Hummer would tell me later was called lapis, with black writing across the front that said 'Just Puckett'. Some socks and tennis shoes and I was ready to go. I headed back into the bathroom to see what was keeping Sam. He'd gotten distracted watching our woman as she showered. I shoved him towards the bedroom and watched the rest of the show myself. I could see why he had though. It was kind of like watching a naughty peek-a-boo show. The way the shower enclosure was done with the frosting and then the swirls of clear glass watching Cede shower meant that we might see a nipple or it might be obscured by the opaque glass. It was so fucking sexy. But before I could shuck off my gear and join Babygirl, Sam dragged me down to the back yard.
Since all of the prep shit had been done the day before we were cooking in no time. Making sure that I was alone in the kitchen, I threw together a big pot of Carole's special BBQ sauce while Sam got the charcoal grill going. She had taught it to me a few summers ago when Finn had proven that he was hopeless in the kitchen or at the grill. Blaine took care of firing up the propane grill for me. Once it was hot, I laid out the beef and pork ribs. I looked over and noticed that Sam had grabbed the foil packets of vegetable and started letting them start cooking while the coals got ready for the meats. Ben and his boys came out around eleven with coolers of beer and pitchers of sangria with fruit and shit floating in it. Sock was pretty cool. He and I got along immediately. Man, that dude was fucking hilarious. It was easy to tell that he had never really been able to like, talk, to any gay guys before. He kept asking Hummel if gay guys would consider him hot. But thankfully he was funny enough about it that nobody got offended. Ben's Sam was way intrigued with 'all the polyamory' going on in our house. He very quickly proclaimed that Artie was the 'king of nerdy dudes everywhere'.
Jon came up with his girl Mallory; a tall, leggy brunette with fake blue eyes and even faker tits; and a huge ass platter of his grandma's special recipe cookies. Jonathan Scully and Benjamin Gonzalez looked like the newest version of the odd couple or some shit. They didn't look like they would even know each other let alone have been best friends and roommates since their second year of college. While Ben, at five seven, was a shortish, lanky, Latino with long, curly hair, Jon looked more Irish than Rory ever had. He was at least six five, broad and solidly built. He had reddish, dirty blonde hair and honestly he looked like he was ready to rip off somebody's head and spit down their throat if he wasn't smiling. Luckily he smiled a lot.
I didn't much care for his girlfriend Mallory. She was in her first year of the MBA program at Columbia. She was cold blooded like only a rich bitch can be. But that wasn't why I didn't like her. While, Ryan, Sam and I had been helping Ben and Jon move their shit in, the faithless bitch had flirted with all three of us whenever Jon wasn't around. Hell even for the barbeque, it was like she was trying too hard or something. Tana and Britts came out wearing shorts and a baby tee and a tank top and flip flops. When Cede finally made it down she was rocking some sexy ass purple, capri length leggings and a strapless cotton tunic top that showed off her tits so good they were making my mouth water. She had finished her 'casual but cute' look off with her favorite pair of purple flip flops. But not Mallory. She came out in a hella expensive looking sundress and high wedge sandals that had Gucci embossed on the wedge.
Ryan and Seth came up dragging what looked like the bouncy house's answer to Twister. It was a lot bigger than the traditional Twister sheet and it was inflatable. The last to arrive lived in what had been the extra bedroom in Ryan's apartment. Jamison Michaels was a cute black girl from South Carolina with a cute face, long hair that Cede swore was real in that 'it grew forth from her scalp', and a real dancer's body. Ryan took her around and introduced her to everyone. During the leasing process she had only met Brittany, Ryan and Anderson. They had all approved her and so had Mills, so she was in. Within twenty minutes of meeting the rest of us, she and Kurt had bonded over NYADA and she was planning on being something of a mentor for him around campus. Santana and Jamie did their bonding while dissecting Mallory's overdone makeup and way-too-expensive-for-a-backyard-barbeque getup. When she came over to me she looked me up and down and said quite honestly, "I have no idea what to say to a guy with a Mohawk…none at all."
"So let me guess; you talked theatre with Kurt, hair or music with Cede, southern culture with Sam, dissed fake chicks with Satan…you haven't had a chance for any one on one time with Britts or Artie, but you'll find some common ground with each of them. Relax, it's okay, you passed the interview…you got the job…or apartment as the case may be. You can stop buttering us up." I said lightly.
Jamie nodded thoughtfully. "Okay cool. So then can I ask? I mean Ryan said that you and Sam and Mercedes were together and Santana and Brittany and Artie are together. You are all from the same home town and were in the same glee club together. So is the whole threesomes thing like a thing in Ohio?"
I stopped and gave her a total 'judging you' look. "I passed English with the lowest grade I could get and Cede's and Sam's parents still let me sleep with my loves and even I know that that sentence was all kinds of wrong."
"Did you get what I was asking?" Jamie kicked back with a roll of her eyes. I nodded. "Well then it was right enough…Are you gonna answer?"
I shrugged. "For some people high school is so bad it is as much of a bonding experience as war. Cede, Kurt, Artie started off as the tortured. Tana and I were their tormentors. Brittany was too but in a kind of negligent kind of way. Different shit happened and we ended up tormented ourselves and Cede, Kurt and Artie…the rest of the glee club took us in and we all bonded. Sam moved into town and Cede and I were complete. Artie and Britts fell in love, but she loved Tana too…so she tried to just be with Tana, but she still loved Artie, when Tana realized that she loved him too…it just works for us. Kurt and Anderson are going on two years together. Sam, Cede and me are at fifteen months and Bartana hit a year in July."
"Wow, that's kind of deep." Jamie said with a wide grin. "It's weird. I'm sure that you get all kinds of shit for your relationship, but you come across as really loving your Sam and Mercedes. That's cool. After a year away from them I barely remember half my classmates, and if it weren't for Facebook, I probably wouldn't be in touch with nearly as many. It's really nice that you and your peeps are keeping up with each other. So what can I bond with Artie over?"
I shrugged. "Nineties hip hop and R&B, comic books, sci-fi shit, how hot his girl friends are…movies, books, actual science, how hot his girlfriends are… computers, cameras, tech shit, how hot his girlfriends are…that's about it."
Jamie looked at me like I had grown a second head. "Umm…I consider both Santana and Brittany very pretty, but they don't have what it takes for me to consider them hot."
"Yeah they do…they just bought theirs from a store rather than coming equipped." I told her with a dirty grin before I headed over to see how Jon and Ben and his boys were getting along.
But before I could make it more than a few steps, Artie came out and shouted, "Let's get this party started. Now, since the point of this whole shindig is to get to know each other 'cause hey, we from small town middle America and it seems wrong not to know the people who live basically in the same house as us; let's all take a second and introduce our selves. But since just standing up and giving your name, rank and serial number is boring and lame…we each have to stand, give our name, where you're from and all that usual BS, then tell us your favorite thing about being here in the city that never sleeps, and our biggest fear about starting whatever stage of life you're entering." He waited patiently until we all groaned and threw shit at him. "I have to go first because my parents thought that having As start both my names was just a great idea. I am Artie, former Limian, current NYU/Tisch freshman, Hubby of both Santana and Brittany. If you've got a problem with that please let me know so that I can ignore your existence from here on out. We live in Numba Two. I'm on your contact list as tech support, do not call me for trivial shit though." He threw up a peace sign. "I like NYC because nobody gives a fuck here. Seriously…I saw a drag queen in a chair the other day. That was so freaking cool. Biggest fear about going to college is that I'm only damn near genius level smart when compared to my old classmates. That in the real world I'm not as special as I thought."
"Hold up…if you are damn near genius level smart, why were you only third in the class?" Cede asked curiously. "Do me and Tana need to drive back to Lima and kick Figgins ass?"
Artie laughed. "It wasn't Figgins' fault…Tanaka would pass me in PE, but he only gave me a C…it fucked up my GPA."
"Wow that man was an asshole." I said with no little bit of hate. Asshole may have been too nice a word to describe that jerk.
"Alright, thanks and all but it's water under the bridge." Artie brushed our indignations off. "Ben, you're up next then Blaine cause you've got the next name in alphabetical order going by first names…and we're going by first names cause I don't remember everybody's last names yet."
"Hola, that's hello to anybody other than Santana. I'm Ben Gonzalez from Seattle…basically. I mean technically I'm from a suburb named Puyallup, but still. I'm starting NYU Law tomorrow. "I think I'm gonna focus on litigation. Then I can work as either a prosecutor or a defense attorney. I don't really have a steady girl. These are my boys Bert Wysocki better known as Sock and Samuel, AKA Sam, Oliver. I'm not really afraid of anything right now, but I cannot wash out and end up back home looking like an idiot. It took me too long to get my shit straight and get to school."
Blaine rolled his eyes and stood from where he was chilling on the outdoor sofa with Kurt. "Okay, I guess it's my turn. I'm Blaine Anderson from Lima, Ohio. I currently live in Number four. I'm starting Columbia tomorrow, along with about half of my housemates. My major is Business and Political Economy. I'm in love with this very handsome young man next to me. What I love about New York is that I can just BE here. Back home Kurt and I had to keep our touches and everything quiet so as not to offend the passersby. Here we can just walk together like a normal couple and its okay. I guess my biggest fear about starting college is not doing well enough to make everyone proud of me. I have a company that I will inherit from my dad, and I have to be able to make it a success so that none of the people who work for us are harmed."
"Damn that's deep. I mean whoa. I don't know if you meant for me to do this too, but hell I like to talk so I'm gonna jump in anyway. I'm Sock…Benji's friend since like forever. We used to get high together, but then he got scared straight and came to school but I refuse to let him forget his slacker roots. I like New York because there are a lot of gorgeous women here. I mean just looking around this yard and you see four different types of sexy represented. Five if you're into the 'chew out your heart and feast on your innards' type. I'm not entering a new stage of my life…and I like it that way. Growing up is bullshit. So onto the next one." Socks laughed.
Britts bounced up next and told the new folk who she was and that she loved NYC because she got to sleep every night with Wheels and Tana. The looks on their faces were priceless when she said she was too awesome to be scared of anything but she did miss knowing what would happen that day thanks to Lord Tubbington who she explained was her cat that got psychic powers when he had catnip. I guess they saw that the Lima contingent wasn't fazed by her communicating, clairvoyant feline, so those unused to Brittany S. Pierce just let it go. That was pretty smart of them since Santana looked like she was ready willing and more than able to fuck up anyone of them who tried to say boo about Britts specialness.
Jamison was up next. She had taken a second during the other introductions to help Ryan and Seth with their addition to the party so she had to scramble to her feet when Artie called her name. "Okay…I'm Jamison Beverly Michaels. Born and raised in Spartanburg South Carolina. I've been doing musical theater since I was cast as Annie at the Converse College production of well, Annie, when I was six. NYADA seemed like a good fit for me so here I am. Tomorrow I begin my second year. Last year I was lucky enough to be in the Winter Showcase. So I've guess I'm scared of not living up to my hype this year. Oh, and as cliché as it sounds the thing I love most about being in New York is the music. No matter what kind of music you're into, you can find it here. In clubs, on stages, hell in the subway, there is nowhere else like it."
We found out that Jonathan was from a Navy family and had grown up in a whole bunch of places. He loved New York because it was a lot closer to his favorite relatives down in Maryland and DC and a whole country away from his father and perfect older brother. He feared that he wouldn't make as good a psychologist as his uncle and aunt thought he would be. He said they were his biggest supporters and he didn't want to disappoint them.
Kurt was next. It was no surprise that he loved the 'Great White Way' and the fashion or that he feared having to go back to Lima because he wasn't good enough. I didn't think he had anything to worry about but I definitely understood not wanting to end up as a Lima Loser after getting the fuck out of that town. He sat down and then Mallory decided to hop her happy ass up. "My name is Charlotte Mallory Koch. Technically I'm from Wichita…but I grew up between a house in LA and an apartment here on the upper west side. I'm working on getting my MBA in global economics and my Masters in communications from Columbia. Like Blaine, I'll be entering the family business after I graduate. I really only fear that by the time I graduate the country will be even worse off. That the economy will be completely tanked and all values and morals will have withered on the vine." The look she gave the rest of us showed that she truly felt that we were part of the problem.
Ben just laughed. "Mal, please stop preaching all that sanctimonious garbage around me. I know that you are nobody's virgin, you drink to excess at least two nights a week, you're judgmental and have a very loose relationship with the truth. So if we're all going to hell…you're right there with us."
"You all will have to excuse Mallory. She just got back from a summer with her family…she must have been drinking the Kool-Aid." Jonathan said as he pulled her back into the seat next to him.
Sexy Mama gave the bitch a severe side eye. "Okay on that note." She started and quickly introduced herself, including the fact that she, Sam and I were deeply in love. She talked about how she was looking most forward to experiencing as many different aspects of New York life as she could. Her fear was that things might prove too much for us and we'd let people down. I noticed that she was kind of careful not to mention anything very specific so I did the same thing. Ryan's intro was way more interesting. He said no more than five words for each part. His fear was stated simply as "Failure."
Our Sam went next. "I'm Sam Evans, of Nashville, Tennessee by way of Lima Ohio. I belong with and to Puck and Mercy. Anybody who doesn't like that fact can kiss my country ass." I should have realized that Sam would be seething about the comments Mallory had made earlier. His parents were proud southern liberals…which was still pretty conservative compared to, like, Californian liberals but he'd have found that pseudo-Christian allusion to our relationships being wrong as a personal attack. "My favorite thing about New York is that there are so many different cultures coexisting. That is all kinds of awesome, the freedom to exist and coexist and just be is way beyond cool. The thing I fear moving into this new 'stage' of life…like everyone else…not making it. I'm scared of not succeeding at college or growing up in general."
Ben's friend Sam looked around. Since all the other guests had gone as well we were all looking at him like he needed to get up and make with the talking. "Okay. I'm Samuel Oliver. I have a fairly boring life in Puyallup Washington. I tried the whole college thing and it so didn't work. I've gotta agree with Sock…the women in this city are all kinds of beautiful. I'd try to say something flirty about you ladies, but I'm not as funny as Sock and I don't want your guys to kick my ass. My life is stagnant for the next little while so there's no fear other than like getting fired or dying or something."
When he sat back down, Seth popped up quicker than a Jack-in-a-box. "I am Seth Ezekiel Cohen, Ryan's brother and therefore the unofficial third roommate in number eight at least until I manage to make some friends at school…but when you consider that my first friend at school back home was Ryan when my parents adopted him when we were in high school…it could take some time. So Artie, if you need some help acting as IT for this crew, let me know. I've got your back. I like this city cause that's where my bro lives and Sam…Evans not Oliver, cause Sam is the man when it comes to helping me with continuity in my comic. I have a girlfriend, she's at Brown, but she would cosmically sense it if I called any other woman hot, though she has given me leave to say that Mercedes is and that if Mercy-Cede will let me I can add her to my comic, cause the book needs some ethnicity and apparently it is hard to tell a Jewish person from a regular white person in a comic book. I guess my fear is that I haven't learned anything in the last three years and I still have no idea how to make friends or influence people."
I decided to bite the bullet. "Ummm…Seth, hate to be the one to break it to you, but you were the one to get us all talking when we did the campus tour. Ryan isn't that chatty."
"Maybe not but Ryan has made a habit out of teaching me when to shut up and what not to say." Seth pointed out.
"Oh yeah, that whole what not to say thing is hard. I mean, I still remember talking with Artie when he was dating Brittany and I was dating Santana and saying that I hoped that our friendship would be as close as theirs…when they were actually an undercover couple." Sam laughed.
Artie chuckled too. "You so made me think that Kurt had been right about you when you first moved to Lima." Oh no. I've seen that look on Artie's face. He is about to say something he thinks is wrong, but he can't help himself. "Then again since you've got Puck in your bed too…I guess your lemon juice blondeness was a homosexuality indicator after all."
Sam looked fierce and for a second I though he was really mad. But then he rolled his eyes and affected his 'Just Jack' voice. "Catch the vapors, and clutch the pearls…how many times must I tell you people. I'm not homosexual, I'm not heterosexual…I'm Puck'n'Mercy-sexual…much more satisfying."
That set the party off right. The rest of the afternoon was hilarious as Sam, Seth and Sock all tried to make people laugh so hard they shot any of the various drinks out of their noses. It only got worse once we started sipping on Ben's sangria. He'd made a red and a white and laughingly told us that the white had some tequila and the red had some brandy. "Either way, we're gonna have a damn good day." He said as he poured the very first glass. Around one, Mercedes, Kurt and Santana had us set up one of the extra tables as a buffet and they brought out the sides. Between the different meats and all the sides, we were all full and happy by three. The grills however were kept busy until almost six.
But other than Kurt, Blaine, Cede and Sam going in for about an hour to put all the barbequed hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs, steaks, chicken breasts and other parts into zip loc bags and into the freezers, we all just chilled out in the back yard. I don't know if I have ever done anything that as much fun with my clothes on as playing the bouncy Twister with one hell of a good buzz. Eventually as it always does when we are involved, singing and dancing commenced. Jamie had a damn good voice; she and Cede did a James Brown song together and pretty much brought down the house. Nobody wanted to go after them. Around ten Sammy, Cede and I headed on up to our room…we had class bright and early the next morning and none of us wanted to fuck up.
School Days (Chuck Berry)
Mercedes PoV
There was never a point in my life where I wasn't an undercover nerd. I loved back to school shopping. I loved getting my backpack together and ready ahead of time. I knew what was going to be my first day of classes outfit when I bought it in LA. After we finally decided to head up to our room, I headed into my closet and pulled the outfit together and set it aside on my 'what I'm wearing tomorrow' shelf. That done, I double checked my back pack and added my wallet and ids. The only thing I would need to drop in in the morning would be my phone and my iPad.
"Baby, you're set." Sam teased leaning against the doorjamb. "Noah's running us a bath. Leave that bag alone; if you repack it one more time…it might just sprout legs and run away. Time for us to go and relax."
I giggled a little at having gotten caught, but I let him pull me away from my OCD like nitpicking. I wrapped my hair before joining my men in our jetted tub. The bath lasted twice as long as it probably should have and by the time we got out, my legs were wobbly, my breasts sore from all the attention the guys had paid them and I would probably need to rethink the top I'd planned to wear to hide the multitude of hickeys I was sporting. Puck and Sam helped me slather on the lotion and I repaid them by giving them oral pleasure until they begged me to stop. I was a little shocked when I fell asleep sated and satisfied.
I'd set my clock for six and despite being very excited, it was still hell to get my ass out of the bed. Thankfully I wasn't leaving Sam and Noah behind looking comfy either. They had to get up too. Working together, our bed was made very quickly. I threw on some exercise clothes as they did the same and we headed down to the workout room. Blaine was there already and he said that Kurt had gone over to Number 2 to stretch and warm up with Brittany. Blaine, Sam, Noah and I warmed up with some yoga and then Puck started working with the weights, Sam got himself strapped into the power tower and started working on his core while Blaine went to work doing a million pushups. I hit the treadclimber and did thirty minutes on that. I cooled down with some more yoga and showered while the guys finished their more intensive workouts.
Kurt and I met in the kitchen and by seven we had breakfast for everyone ready. Spinach, bacon and Swiss omelets with whole grain toast and fruit smoothies; they were healthy and hopefully would give us all the energy we needed for the morning. Kurt, Santana, Brittany, Artie and I ate together and then Artie headed out to get to NYU before his eight o'clock. The rest of us headed back to our rooms to get dressed. Noah was just finishing his shower and Sam was getting dressed when I walked back into the room. I'd thrown on a pair of ivory tanga panties and the matching embroidered demi bra under a maxi dress to go and cook. So it was easy to toss off the dress and fix my hair and face. I poured myself into a pair of black wash capri length jeans. I topped it with a cute tiered tank top that was a bright purple color with ivory lace embellishments at the scoop neck and straps. I had a black wash denim jacket to take with me in case classes were as cold as they were in high school. I slipped my feet into a pair of black thong wedges, grabbed my stuff and was ready to walk out the door.
Puck had thrown on a pair of comfortable jeans and his Overlook Hotel tee, shoved his feet into socks and some sneakers while I took the bathroom to do my face and hair. By the time I finished dressing he and Sam had eaten, grabbed their back packs, which I may have packed for them a few days before too, and were ready to go. I looked over at Sam and he was wearing his WWJSD shirt, wearing his inner nerd right on front street. Unlike Puck though, he'd gone with some cargo shorts and was looking very much like a college student. Blaine said his goodbyes to Kurt and the Columbia contingent walked the eight blocks to campus together. We got to campus in time for Puck to be right on time for his statistics class. Sam and Ryan headed off to their classes, both of which started at twenty minutes after eight. Blaine and I had some time to kill so we asked around and found a little coffee shop to chill out in until we needed to make our way to our English class.
From the moment that class was called to order to the end of my colloquium at Juilliard on Friday evening, life was just a blur of syllabi, and lectures and figuring out scheduling and how to get to places without being late to anything. I made notes not just on the lecture materials, but on the train schedules and the best ways to get between Columbia and Juilliard. Though the first day of classes was actually Tuesday, we were expected to attend our Monday classes, which kind of threw me, but in the end it seemed to work out fine. Puck, Sam and I did carve out some time to go to Temple with Bubbie for Rosh Hashanna, even if we didn't really celebrate the holiday the way it was supposed to be done. I saw my Columbia-attending housemates on the daily, but despite basically living together I didn't see most of the others until Friday night. We ordered Chinese, worked through some last minute changes to a few of the songs we were wanting to record and vegged out.
The second week of school was a little easier as we worked our way into a routine. But it also included Yom Kippur. I truly love him, but a fasting Noah is a pain in the ass. Those twenty-five hours felt like they lasted a month and a half. The third week of classes was interrupted by a lunch meeting with Lyor, Josh Todd and Keith Nelson. By the time we had to rush out of there to make our Juilliard classes, we were golden to cover their song and couldn't wait for our first day of recording that following Saturday. Unfortunately, that weekend day started really early we had to be up at seven to get to the studio by nine. Lyor and Deborah met us there and introduced us to the producers we had to choose from. Deborah had already done the preliminary screenings. The six producers she brought to us were all used to working with newer artists. Their fees are all within our budgetary constraints and were all willing to work around our hellacious schedules.
But it only took us like ten minutes to get rid of one. He was so big into HipHop that there was no way he would be able to help us create the fusion sound that we wanted to create. Another bit the dust when he looked disgusted when Sam made a joke about Puck's lower lip and his dick. Either the guy was homo-phobic or he just didn't like crass humor. Either way he was all wrong for us, between Sam and Puck's humor and Kurt and Blaine obvious gayness…that guy would have had an aneurysm in a day. The third guy to go shot himself in the foot just as much as the other two, he was determined that we'd only work with his approved background musicians and singers. The look he gave Sam when he pointed out that he and Noah both intended to play for our album and that we had our own background singers got him kicked out by Lyor before Puck could open his mouth or even worse, Santana could open hers.
The other three were all very cool. They listened to what we had to say and talked to us rather than just to Lyor and Deborah. Xavi Rossi was a young, up and coming producer who likened our sound to an R&B version of the Evanescence kind of fusion sound. Since I was an Amy Lee fan, I didn't mind the comparison at all. The other two were actually a pair of producers that worked together and called themselves ANSANE. They were Canadian and had begun as pure rap beat makers, but were hype to get their fingers into other pots. Noah, Sam and I got the best feeling from ANSANE but we liked Xavi as well. In the end we talked everything through and decided to stick with all three. Our hope was that it would allow for a more interesting album to have several producers rather than just the same sound across the board.
After lunch we decided to have a test session with Xavi first. Santana, Artie and Blaine were all soon ushered into the booth to lay background vocals for the first track we were going to record, a R&B heavy, rock light song I'd written during the time Sam and Puck hadn't been talking Senior year. In fact, the lyrics had been completed the day before their knuckle buster. Once Xavi was happy with the background vocals, he set us up to record the main track. Blaine took the baby grand in the studio, while Artie, Noah and Sam all grabbed their guitars. The music itself was bare bones and stripped down, everything acoustic. When Xavi finished the rough cut, we were all shocked. He'd pulled forward the piano and let the guitars add fullness without overshadowing or even really being heard in such a way that you could tell that they were there.
Lyor smiled a wicked smile. "Xavi, I'm going to say something I almost never say after one edit. That was perfect. Mercedes, you caught the pain and the sorrow of that place and time so strongly, I almost want to know what on earth was happening to make you write such a sad song. I won't ask, of course, but I must say that will be the second single off the album. Deborah, start trying to come up with a video concept."
ANSANE had been listening through our stash of the songs we'd written over the previous six months and they picked the one they wanted to help us record as their test session. While we'd been working with Xavi, they had worked out the bass line and the beat mix they felt would work best with the song. They sent us out to eat and when we got back an hour later they had trumpeters, saxophonists and a few other musicians assembled and learning the music by ear from the simple track Sam, Noah and I had recorded in the den at the Mays house when we were in LA. The song had been spawned by the night the LAPD had decided to harass me based solely on the color of my skin and the word of some asshole neighbor. The song itself was fun and uptempo and some of the questions asked were silly and fun, but many of them were thought provoking…or so I hoped.
The feeling in the room for the second song was totally different from the first. We were all laughing and teasing, everyone threw out their own 'shakin' my head' question. But eventually we got our asses to work. The end result was actually less raw and more polished than the slower song Xavi had done, but the nature of the song lent itself to that. This song was more pop/rock with soul than the deeper, slower song we'd done before dinner. By the time we left the studio that night it was after eleven, but we were completely satisfied with the decisions and progress we'd made. We scheduled studio time from seven in the morning until eleven at night for each of the next six Saturdays, alternating between Xavi and ANSANE. Despite the lateness of the time we returned to the house, Sam, Noah and I made love until we fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms.
Sunday morning we had planned to go to church all together, but Sam got a call from the Manhattan BMG office at like six in the morning. They needed a blonde male model for some underwear ads for Vogue, and the guy they had scheduled had gotten into a car accident on his way to the shoot. Since Goykhman knew that Sam and Puck were in New York, he'd asked for Sam as the replacement. They offered him five grand for the day if he would help them out. There was no way that Sam wasn't going to do it. Goykhman had kept them in work in Chicago and he was very kind to them, plus they were still technically under contract until the following June so Sam got up, showered and took the train down to the Central Park shoot.
With Sam working, Puck decided to sleep in. Unfortunately, while the extra sleep might have been nice, I found that I just couldn't roll back over and go back to sleep. I was feeling so very blessed I had to go and praise the Lord. At seven I got up and showered away the soreness that the long day and night had caused in my legs, hips and feet. I ran through my usual morning hygiene and beauty rituals and donned a pair of black silk panties and a sturdy but pretty black bra. A shaper slip went into place before I pulled on a really conservative black lace over nude linen A-line dress with a higher scoop collar and cap sleeves. I kept my makeup very light just lining my eyes and lips and a clear gloss. I put on the cross my daddy had given me the fall before and platinum knot stud earrings. I grabbed a purple leather handbag and stuffed in my wallet, cell phone and tucked in my bible as well. My feet were slipped into purple ballet flats; I dropped a kiss on Noah's sleeping cheek and headed out.
The pastor at my church back home had given my mother the name of several churches, with clergy he knew or knew of. Pastors who wouldn't be bothered by the appearance of our thruple in the pews of their church. That morning I decided to take the train further up into Harlem to St. Mark's United Methodist Church. The church was old, having been established in the late eighteen hundreds. The congregation was led by a female pastor. Rev. Jermin gave a beautiful sermon on the joy to be found in a good relationship with God and how to define the relationship not by talking about living a Christ centered life, but by our actions and tolerance and love of our fellow man. I found that I really enjoyed her sermon, but the choir was, well, it was very quiet. I knew that I wouldn't have the time to join it so I shouldn't complain, but I knew I would need to keep looking for another church home.
When I got home from church, Puck was awake and playing Call of Duty with Artie over in his Gamer's Den so I was able to get some time to myself. As much as I loved my men, there were times that I really just needed peace and quiet. Time alone with my thoughts. I put on my headphones and just sat in the center of the bed and tried to figure out if we were on the right path. I loved Sam and Noah and I knew that we were good on the relationship front. But I found that I was very, very worried about the meeting that was coming up with the image and marketing people from the label. It had been a battle to become truly comfortable in my own skin, secure in the love of those around me. The very last thing I wanted was to find that I was weak enough to allow people who knew nothing about who I really was to undermine or wreak havoc on all the hard work that had been done in the last year and a half.
Well Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hope that you are all still enjoying the Learning French Series. Here is the newest installment.
I'll let you figure out for yourselves what the title means.
Let me know if you are. I'm also taking part in a writing event called Out With A (Big) Bang over at AO3.
Review and let me know which other gleeks you want a peek into their college lives. Every other Chapter I will include the point of view of one of the New Directions who aren't in NYC. Probably won't focus much attention on the season 4 new kids other than Jake and maybe Unique. I didn't watch so I don't know them well enough to write them.
Okay enough of my chattering. Read & Review. Thanks in advance for all the review love.
TTFN,
Anni