Adam took a deep breath shaking off the slightly nauseous feeling in his stomach that he always had when he was nervous and pushed open the doors of the main entrance of William McKinley High. A quite big number of students lingered around in the hallways, talking to their friends and catching up after spending the summer apart from each other. Girls in high ponytails and cheerleading uniforms threw flirty glances at the jocks and the boys' eyes followed them as they walked away in their ultra-short skirts. Then and there, between groups or popular and normal kids, stood a girl or a guy in glasses and with a pile of books in their hands – the nerds. Those kids looked utterly terrified and seemed to be avoiding the popular students by all means. At first sight, it all seemed pretty normal, an average American High School.
However, taking a closer look not only the nerds seemed to be intimidated by fear of the jocks and pretty girls. Over at the blackboard stood a group of students, all of them scribbling their names onto what seemed to be a sign-up sheet and constantly glancing over to the group of jocks. Curious as he was, Adam walked a little closer ignoring the aggressive stare coming from a blonde guy in a football jersey.
"I know we probably won't have enough members but I'm sure we can convince Quinn to rejoin. We are so going to win Nationals this year! I mean, we simply have to!"
This statement came from a short girl with dark hair and a quite odd nose who stood close to a guy who was at least one and a half heads taller than her. Adam noticed that there were also two cheerleaders in the group, one of them sitting on the lap of a bespectacled boy in a wheelchair while the other girl stared at the couple angrily. Furthermore, there were two students of Asian ethnicity holding hands; a hunk guy with a Mohawk holding hands with a big girl and then an African-American girl whose arm was entwined with a boy's whose hair was neatly done. Admiring said boy's clothing style for a few seconds, Adam recognized that the jacket the kid was wearing was one out of Marc Jacob's new collection. Almost instantly, his mind was racing. Who the hell was that kid? Why was he wearing Marc Jacobs to school? Shaking his head, Adam guessed that the brown haired boy was merely a snobby gay guy whose parents lived to blow their money for him.
However, he decided to walk up to the group and ask for the way since he had no idea where to find the secretary.
"Excuse me?"
All of a sudden, there were ten pairs of partially curious, suspicious and questioning eyes on him. The short brunette cocked her head to the side a little and then spoke up. "Yes?"
Adam cleared his throat, tugging the left sleeve of his shirt over the palm of his hand nervously. "Uh, I was wondering if one of you maybe could tell me where to find the secretary office …Please?"
The suspicious look on the brunette's face disappeared almost instantly. Taking a step forward she smiled at the new student and held out her hand.
"Of course. Hello, I am Rachel Berry. Come on walk with me, I'll show you the way."
He shook her hand politely. "Adam Swanson, nice to meet you."
Rachel started walking down the hallway, signalizing him to follow by simply waving. Once they were out of the group's sight, the girl spoke up again. "So, you are from Britain, aren't you?"
Of course, his accent made it quite obvious. Smiling lightly, he confirmed his descent.
"Your accent is quite attractive, you know. Many girls will swoon over you once you open your mouth." She giggled a little, making Adam feel slightly uncomfortable.
"Err, I'm not into girls, really," he said, fixing the purple scarf that hung loosely around his neck. Accessoirizing a simple jeans-and-shirt outfit with a nice scarf or jacket had always been Adam's thing.
The expression on Rachel's face was something inbetween surprise and joy. "Oh, you're gay?"
"Obviously."
Grinning confidently, he gestured his hand in a way she only ever saw Kurt do. Rachel snorted with laughter and shook her head. "My, my, I already like you, Mr Swanson."
After walking down another hallway, she pointed at a door. "Here it is."
Adam thanked her, flashing a smile before he knocked on the door.
"Oh, and watch out for jocks with Slushie's in their hands. They'll welcome you anyway, but you can put it off for a few more days."
Although the raven haired teen had no idea what Rachel was talking about, he nodded his head and a moment later, he found himself in the secretary office.
Once Adam had received his schedule and had gone through some paperwork with one of the school's secretaries, he made his way to the first class at that day – Spanish, taught by Mr. Schuester.
On his way to the classroom, he spotted some students that he recognized had been part of the group in front of the blackboard as they seemed to walk in the same direction as he was. Arriving, he entered the classroom and handed a notice to the teacher before taking a seat in the second row.
When the bell rang, the brown haired man clapped his hands and leaned onto the front of his desk. "Welcome to Spanish class, everybody!"
It was nothing extraordinarily special, just a simple Spanish class. Adam was anything but thrilled to be learning yet another foreign language. As if French and Latin weren't enough already, America seemed to be rather happy with shoving La Vida Loca down his throat. Realizing that the gel-haired teacher was indeed not joking when he said they would sing that song Adam right now in class he wondered if this was some kind of sick hidden-camera show where they trick students into doing completely ridiculous things in class. But apparently, Mr Schuester's inspiration had been someone named Holly Holiday and the Glee Club. Though Adam was not sure if the former was some kind of new pop sensation or yet another moaning woman in the butt-chinned teacher's porn collection he definitely perked up at the mentioning of the school's show choir. As Mr Schuester started singing the chorous Adam had to mournfully admit that the man had in fact a really nice voice. If this was the man who ran the Glee club it couldn't be that bad, could it? He wondered what they sounded like and if they did songs other than lame and sloppy mainstream pop music. 'They're probably all Bieber.' He snorted a little only to catch various students' atteintions.
'Oh no,' he thought but a second later, the not so enthusiastic singing stopped and Mr Schuester threw an icy glare in his direction.
"And who are you if I may ask?"
Honestly, it was not the tone that he had exspected. The teacher's voice was soft and kind, almost encouraging. Touching his cheek to test if he was blushing (luckily, he wasn't) Adam told the man his name. The teacher nodded and went on with the lesson for a few more minutes before dismissing the class early. Just as Adam was about to walk out of the classroom, he spoke up again.
"Are you all right, Adam? You didn't seem to enjoy yourself very much."
Biting his lip, a freaky habit in his sister's words, the teen nodded.
"I'm sorry, sir. I was just lost in thought, I guess."
Smiling understandingly, Mr Schuester placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Tell me, Adam, do you enjoy singing? If you don't mind me asking, of course."
'Of course he would ask. They are looking for new members after all,' Adam thought as he remembered Rachel and her friends talking about not being enough people to compete in a show choir competition.
"Are you asking me to join your Glee club?"
Mr Schuester looked surprised as he didn't know that Adam had met Rachel already and had overheard them talking about their problem. Scratching the back of his neck, he answererd:
"Yes, that was my intention. So, what do you say?"
Adam smirked. "What kind of songs are you doing?"
"Oh, well… we do all kinds of music, really. Some showtunes, a little bit of 80's, some chart hits, et cetera."
"What about classic rock songs?"
There was no way Adam would join a club that didn't appreciate rock music.
"Of course. We have done The Rolling Stones at our first competition."
Mr Schuester looked a little nervous. Adam's questions were clearly unnerving to him.
"Yes, all right. When are auditions?"
"Wednesday from three to five."
Bloody hell, that man looked relieved.
The second period after lunch, all members of the New Directions found themselves in the audience of the school's auditorium. There were holding auditions despite the small hope of recruting new members. What the kid's didn't know was that Mr Schue still had another ace up his sleeve – Adam.
"Seriously guys, do you really think anyone is going to audition this year? I mean, we were lucky enough to have Sam sing for us last year but what if we have another Sunshine Corazon incident? We can't slip in a situation like that again. With her help, Vocal Adrenaline totally crushed us at Nationals – not to mention with their rad choreography. Honestly, guys, we really need to work on that I think. How about some lifts? They'd look great! Oh, and the boys carrying the girls down the steps on the stage bridal style would be an amazing move for Sectionals! All in all, I suggest a cheerful yet romantic song for our group number. Blaine and I could sing lead and-"
Kurt ended his mini-speech by flashing his pearly white's at his friends and slung an arm around his boyfriend's waist who stood grinning sheepishly beside him.
"Look, Dollface McTwinky, I don't mean to sound homophobic but the last time you and your precious boytoy performed a solo at a competition, you and your warbling gay bro's came in last place. I hate to remind you of that, but there is no way we're gonna ruin our chances at totally killing it this year by letting you vomit glitter and rainbows all over the stage," Santana said with a calm voice, eying her pink painted fingernails and polishing them on the skirt of her Cheerio's uniform.
For half a second, it Kurt looked defeated but decided to defend himself in the other half. "That's insanely offending!"
"Yeah, but Santana has a point," Rachel interfered. "I suggest that Finn and I sing lead this time."
Mercedes decided to stand up for her best friend and walked over to Kurt's side. "Do I really have to remind you that every single time Finn and you sang a duet at a competition we lost?"
Nodding his head in a 'hah! Got ya!'-matter, Kurt added: "Exactly! That is why we should shake things up a bit and leave the duet to Blaine and me."
"Kurt, I love you and you are really talented and Blaine is too, but we really have to focus on winning!"
Rachel sounded like she was talking to a little kid, explaining that picking one's nose was disgusting and impolite.
Pouting, the blue eyed buy crossed his arms in front of his chest only to be patted onto the back and kissed on the cheek by Blaine.
Will Schuester rolled his eyes, listening to the New Direction's argumenting. Standing up and walking down the stairs in the audience to where the kid's were currently sitting, he clapped his hands just like he did in Spanish class before.
"Guys, this is not helping at all. We still have about six weeks to Sectionals and we are certainly not discussing duet possibilities for it at this point. Right now, we are looking for new members for our Glee club, in case you have forgotten."
The students sat in silence for a moment until Finn spoke up.
"No-one's auditioning, Mr Schue. We tried to talk to Quinn and she refuses to come back. But now that Blaine has joined, we don't need any more members to compete. We can close the audition since all we do here is proclaim our loserness anyway."
Rachel shook her head. "Finn, even though I am very proud of you having to proclaim in your vocabulary, loserness isn't a word. It should be proclaim the fact that we are losers, which we aren't."
"Okay, first of all, we are the most unpopular club at this school so we are losers, not all of us, but everyone except Brit, the football players and myself. And secondly, Finn is right. We have enough members so why don't we close this whole audition thing and stop begging people to join our club."
With that being said, Santana linked her pinky finger with Brittany's and grinned triumphately.
"Guys, we can't just close the audition! There still is someone who will sing for us today, we just have to wait a little longer. It's only quarter to four after all!" Mr Schuester announced, receiving questioning looks from his students.
Rachel was the one to speak up. "How would you know that someone is still going to come? Nobody except us signed up."
Mr Schuester grinned at the teenagers. "Just wait and see."
"Mr Schue, it's ten to five! No-one's coming!"
Mercedes' voice interrupted his thoughts and he glanced at the entrance to the auditorium. He felt guilty for having the kids sit in there for two hours when nobody was auditioning. Why hadn't Adam shown up yet? Had he forgotten? Or hadn't he planned on showing up in the first place?
Rubbing his eyes, Mr Schuester sighed and looked at the twelve students a few rows down. They were sitting on the backs of the seats, some of them on the edge of the stage as they chatted with each other discussing performance possibilities. Suddenly, the door to the auditorium burst open and a touseld looking Adam stood in the doorway. Rushing over to Will, he apologized to his teacher.
"Mr Schuester! I am so sorry for being late! I was on my way here when this big African-American dude shoved me into the lockers and we kind of had an argument. I'm so awfully sorry! Can I still audition? I know it's already like, two minutes to five but I'd really like to!"
The New Directions stared at the raven haired teen in shock while Mr Schue smiled and gestured towards the stage.
"The stage is yours, Adam."
Grinning, the boy jumped onto the stage and sat down at the piano which was standing on the left side. "Uh, my name is Adam Swanson and this is Let It Be by The Beatles."
After he had finished his performance which everyone seemed to enjoy, the kids spoke up.
"Is that a piercing in your tongue?"
Kurt looked absolutely disgusted when Adam nodded smiling. "Are you even allowed to have one? I mean, how old are you? Fourteen?"
Adam raised an eyebrow at the flamboyant soprano. "What makes you think I would do something illegal? And I'm sixteen, thank you very much."
The blue eyes boy in front of the stage huffed and turned to whisper something to his best friend Mercedes.
"Well, guys. What do you think of Adam's performance?"
Mr Schuester was uncertain of their opinions. After all, no one but him had applauded Adam which didn't seem to be a very good sign. "Blaine?"
The dark haired boy's hand had rised along with Rachel's, apparently they had formed an opinion.
Turning to face Adam with a smile on his lips, he spoke up.
"I don't think I've ever heard someone do a Beatles cover with so much emotion in their voice. Frankly, I was blown away."
Rachel's statement was given right after Blaine had stopped speaking.
"I completely agree with Blaine! Adam, your performance was amazing and I must say, I adore your voice. Having new members in Glee club is great, but you really are special. Thank you for performing for us!"
She flashed her new friend a beaming smile, giving him a thumbs-up before entwining her fingers with Finn's. Everybody seemed so agree, interferring with "yeah!", "Rachel's right!" or "I totally agree with both of them!".
Clapping his hands once more, Will Schuester grinned and stood up from his seat.
"I guess we have found a new member of the New Directions! Welcome to Glee club, Adam!"
A/N:
I just had to have some bitchy keeping it real Santana, because I love her to bits! Tell me what you think of the name she called Kurt, please. And please, don't be offended by it, I absolutely adore Kurt and even if he may come across a little sulky in this fic it is part of the storyline and any those bits OOC-ness is not my way of offending him. Like I said, I love him and character bashing is absolutely not my thing. But I do think that he acts a little selfish sometimes. And that's not a bad thing, in my eyes, since he has every right and the amount of talent necessary for it to be acceptable to act that way sometimes.