He's been watching her for a while now. Surreptitiously or whatever, not stalking. He doesn't need to stalk for female attention. That's not being cocky, it's just fact. It's just that usually when they're all together in the Glee room she's trying to be the center of attention, singing her guts out with that fucking impossible too-good to be true voice, and today she's got her face behind a laptop and she's so into it she completely missed when Schuster asked for volunteers to sing a duet from West Side Story. While Mercedes and Kurt are performing, Finn is sitting in the corner, pissed and moping which he finds pretty amusing. Suddenly her face flushes in embarrassment and she looks up guiltily like she wants to make sure no one is noticing her. Dude, she's totally looking at porn. He knows it. He sidles up next to her and she shuts her laptop and pretends to pay attention to the song.
"It's natural. You don't have to be ashamed of your new porn addiction," he says, raising one eyebrow suggestively.
"Shut up, Noah. For your information, I was not looking at porn. I was…" she trails off and he can tell she's looking for a good lie. "I was checking out college websites in New York City."
"Sure you were," he says. "Show me."
She flushes again and God it's so cute when she does that shit. "I'm not showing you anything, Noah. Go away." He grins and stares at her till her gaze falters and drops.
He leans close to her and whispers, "Show me. I'll keep your secret." She looks up, her chocolate brown eyes considering him for a moment and then she opens her laptop and passes it over to him. "It's not what you think," she says. He's shocked as shit because he was just messing with her and hoping to piss her off enough for some reactionary hot Jew-on-Jew action.
He opens the laptop and sees she's at a fan-fiction website. Seriously. That shit is hilarious. And hot. Because anything she does is hot. And also disappointing. He was hoping for porn.
"Okay, so you like to read fan-fiction," he says. "There's freakier secrets out there. I'll tell you one of mine if you tell me one of yours."
"Noah," she says, agitated. "Just read it."
"You want me to read the fan-fiction? Seriously?"
She nods her head, so he does and he's a half page in before he realizes it's a story about them…about him and Rachel. And yeah, it's kinda porn-like. A smile spreads slowly across his face and he leans back. "You wrote a story about us. Nice. I fuckin' dig this shit. I didn't know I had a fan-fiction page."
"It's not just about you, moron, and I didn't write it. There's literally thousands of these stories and they have us, all of us, the Glee club, in every possible coupley permutation."
"I don't know what that means, but it sounds kind of sexy."
"Take it seriously, Puckerman. Look at this!" and she flicks the back button to a home page where there are, no shit, thousands of stories about…he scans the list.
"What's a Faberry?"
She blushes again and replies, "it's a story about Quinn and me."
"Serious?" he asks, "like a chick fight?"
"Not exactly," she answers and tries to take the laptop back. He keeps his hold on it and clicks on the story. Oh yeah, this is hot.
"Noah! NOAH!" He realizes she's been trying to get his attention for a few minutes when he finally looks up.
"This is great writing. Seriously, I could get into fan-fiction. Why don't they have shit like this on the English booklists?"
"You're missing the point, Noah. Look at this…they have you and me, you and Quinn, you and Finn, you and Kurt-
"Aw, hell no! Not that I have a problem with Kurt being gay and shit. I don't. I'm manly enough to be secure about that, and dude, Kurt could do worse than me because I'm a stud. But I am 100% a dude who likes girls."
"And once again the point sails right over your head." She's getting really frustrated now and he can't help it, it makes him want to get in her pants. But he's a healthy dude and she's a hot Jew. A cool breeze would make him want to get in her pants.
"Okay, so what are you so upset about? People are liking you enough to write about you…that's cool, right?"
"Not all of them like me," she mutters under her breath. "They like you more," she says more clearly.
"Of course they do. I'm a badass." He tries to cheer her up but she's not having any of it and for some reason it bothers him. "Look, you're going to be famous someday, right?"
She looks up, a flash of insecurity passes so fast he almost misses it, "Well, Broadway stars don't always get the public recognition they deserve, but since I plan to pursue a film career along with a successful stage career, I'm sure my fame is inevitable."
"Then you're going to have suck that shit up and deal with it. Ignore it. It'll make you crazy if you keep reading all that and you already have enough crazy. You don't need more."
"Thanks, Noah," she says wryly.
"I mean it," he says, and he does. "There are always going to be people who don't like you, and you know what I think about those people?" She shakes her head. "Fuck 'em. They're idiots." She smiles up at him and she is legit adorable.
"I guess I'm also upset because I don't know how they knew-
She stops herself suddenly and he waits a moment before saying "knew? Knew what?"
"Nothing" she says, and blushes again.