DISCLAIMER: I do not own, or claim to own, glee, any of the characters or songs mentioned in this story.

So, new chapter. Slightly shorter than the last one - which has been the longest chapter to be submitted to this story as of yet - but longer than I'd expected after I'd written it by hand.

As always, I'd love for anyone to review and, if you find some, tell me about grave mistakes in my English.

Now I don't know how to finish this, but no one reads author's notes anyways, so ...

New Adrenaline

Chapter 10

- The "Initiation Ritual" -

Jesse picked me up with his black Range Rover – which he'd obviously somehow been allowed to keep when he left Carmel and Vocal Adrenaline – on Friday, so we could drive to school together on his first entire official day of school at McKinley High. My dads exchanged a meaningful glance across the breakfast table when the giant black car pulled into our driveway, and I realized that the two of them were the last people in my life who hadn't yet found out about Jesse. I jumped up from my chair, gave them an apologetic smile and leaned over the table to kiss both dad and daddy chastely on the cheek. "I'll tell you everything at dinner today. I promise." I told them, and stormed out the door, almost forgetting to take my book bag that lay on the kitchen counter.

Closing the front door behind me, I beamed at Jesse who had gotten out of the car to greet me. He wrapped his arms around me and placed a quick peck on my lips. Smiling, I snuck a glance in the direction of the kitchen window. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I grinned up at him, returning a brief kiss before I explained. "I'm pretty sure my dads are watching us through that window right now."

"They'd better." He grinned back at me as he removed his arms from around my waist and took my small hand into his larger one in order to lead me over to his car. Perfect gentleman that he was, he opened the door for me and helped me climb into the passenger's seat. I watched him walk around the car and get in on the driver's side while I put my seatbelt on.

"What are you looking at?" He asked with an innocent tone, and I blushed when I realized I'd been staring at him.

"Nothing." I said, attempting to sound as convincing as I could – which was futile regarding the circumstances. His ego was already huge; I didn't need to contribute to its further growth.

"What a shame. And there you had me thinking you were staring at me." He joked when he started the motor and pulled out of the Berry driveway. A small smile formed on my face.

"So, do they know about me?" He asked casually after we'd remained silent for a while.

"Who?"

"Your dads."

"Oh. They do now." I laughed. "I kind of forgot to tell them after all the glee drama, but I just promised to answer all of their questions tonight." I answered truthfully.

"Do you want me to be there?" The question came completely unexpected, leaving me at a loss for words.

"I … I hadn't thought about that." I stuttered, a gazillion thoughts racing through my mind all at once. My dads and Jesse …?

"I didn't want to put any pressure on you." He added hastily when I didn't give him a definite answer all at once. "I just thought …"

"No, it's fine. It's quite a good idea, actually." I cut him off, smiling brightly at him. "I'm sure my dads would love to meet you in person. I'm going to call them during lunch break and ask them if it's okay with them if I bring you for dinner. I'm almost certain there won't be any problems, though."

"So that's a formal invitation?" He asked.

"Yes, it is. Consider yourself formally invited to have dinner at the Berry house tonight." I confirmed.

"I accept, milady." He matched my half-serious tone perfectly. "So that's the awkward first meeting with the parents of the girlfriend tonight." He said, as if he were ticking a box on a mental to-do-list. "And you have two protective fathers to work my way around." He pretended to shudder, but the smile was evident in his voice.

"What about your parents?" I asked and, as if on cue, his entire body tensed. I realized we really breached that topic before. "I … I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude." I apologized hastily although he hadn't said a word in response yet.

"No, it's alright." He reassured me, but his usually so sonorous voice sounded unnaturally blank. "It's … I don't have what you'd call a close relationship with my parents. Sometimes I think we don't have any kind of relationship at all." A grim smile appeared on his handsome face. "They're nouveau riches, I don't even know what they did to make the money, but they're practically drowning in it. All I've ever seen them doing is enjoying their lives, flying from one city to the other, shopping, partying … A toddler or a kid of school age is a rather big obstacle to that kind of jet set lifestyle, so they left me behind in their main house in Carmel, in the care of a nanny." He finished his rant as he pulled into the McKinley High parking lot.

"I'm sorry, Jesse." I said and placed my hand on his shoulder, not knowing what to do to comfort him. "It must be awful not to have your Mum and Dad around when you need them."

"I don't need them." He answered promptly. "I've learned dealing without them a long time ago."

"Yeah, but that's … dealing." I didn't know why I couldn't drop the subject right then, and, for a brief moment, I was afraid that I might have crossed an invisible line when he kept staring at me intently after he'd stopped the engine.

"Well, how do you deal?" He finally asked. "It's not like your Mum is around."

"Well, how do you deal?" He finally asked. "It's not like your Mum is around." He blurted out and could have slapped himself as soon as the words had left his mouth. He shouldn't have said that. He shouldn't have gone anywhere near that topic. He hadn't intended to, it was just that he forgot to keep his guard up around her. Which was ridiculous, really. He shouldn't need a guard when he talked to the one person in the world he really loved. Everything was that easy around her. Why couldn't he just not know? Then he wouldn't be caught up in this struggle, unable to decide whether or not to keep his mouth shut.

"That's true. But I have two dads who love me and care about me." Rachel answered, oblivious to the turmoil inside him. "Your situation is a lot different."

"Yeah, I guess." He agreed, breathing a silent sigh of relief. "But I meant what I said. I haven't needed them for the last few years, and I certainly don't need them now. My life is complete as long as I have you." He looked straight into her eyes when he said the last sentence, hoping to somehow convey how honest his words really were.

"Wow." She breathed and closed the space between them what started out as an innocent peck, but soon turned into a long, deep, passionate kiss.

"It's such a shame that we have to go to school right now." He whispered as soon as he'd regained his breath. Her melodic laughter echoed throughout his car.

"It is. But I wouldn't want to be responsible for you missing your first day at William McKinley High school." He watched her climb out of the Range Rover – which he knew was a real challenge for such a short person – and dared to close his eyes for a few seconds, breathing deeply. He cursed Shelby Corcoran for what she'd done to him. He shouldn't be caught up in these family issues, but he was, and now he didn't know what to do.

We ran into Kurt and Mercedes in front of the lockers, and Kurt greeted me with a quick hug. Mercedes took in the sight of Jesse and me, one arm wrapped around each other's waist, and have us a huge, knowing grin.

"So, how does it fell, being in a new school?" Kurt addressed Jesse.

"Well, I like what I've seen so far." Jesse answered, grinning down at me.

"Which would be Rachel and us glee kids." Mercedes stated the obvious.

"Right." Jesse confirmed, smiling at the black diva. "I plan to bring this club to greatness, with the help of Rachel … and you guys, of course." He added rashly when Kurt's narrowed eyes caught up with his soaring ego. There wasn't enough time for the fashionista to formulate a biting comeback, however, because that very moment a surge of slushy was thrown our way.

"Welcome to loser town, new kid." I heard Karofsky sneer, and when I dared to open my eyes again, I saw him and Azimio disappear around the corner of the hallway.

Even without Karofsky's comment, it was obvious that Jesse had been the main target of this particular slushy assault. To be honest, I had barely been hit by any of the frozen drink although I was standing directly next to him, and Mercedes and Kurt, too, had only gotten a few splashes on their clothes – at which, naturally, the latter one stared in horror.

I reacted fast, got out a handkerchief and wiped the slushy out of Jesse's eyes and face. Inexperienced as he was with this type of attack, he had not shut his eyes in time, and I suspected that the slushy in them must be stinging like hell.

"I am so sorry, Jesse." I told him in a soft voice.

"I told you you were at the bottom of the food chain here yesterday, white boy." Mercedes reminded him, scanning him from head to toe. "Looks like now you've really become one of us."

"At least you look colorful." Kurt acknowledged, his voice full of black humor. "Well, look at him." He defended himself when I gave him what must have been an incredulous glance, and when I scanned Jesse, much the way Mercedes had done before, I noticed that he was right. My boyfriend had been covered in a mixture of pretty much every type of slushy available – from the yellow mango-banana flavored one over the red one that tasted like strawberry to the green apple slushy and, finally, the purple one with the blueberry flavor.

"He's right, you look like a rainbow." Mercedes said, smiling at Jesse sympathetically. I noticed then that Jesse had just been standing there open-mouthed, watching our conversation from the outside as if there was an invisible barrier between him and us.

"Jesse, are you okay?" I asked him, frowning. "Jesse?"

The genuine worry in my voice must have shaken him out of his apathy. "Do things like this happen all the time?" He asked hesitantly.

"That probably means you've got nothing to change into." Kurt said, always the first one to think about clothes. I shrugged, thinking that his words were as good of an answer as anything I could have said.

"N-no." Jesse stammered, teeth chattering.

"Well, I would offer you something out of my extensive designer wardrobe, but I don't think it would fit you." Kurt said and continued to stare at Jesse, obviously trying to estimate his size. "I'm gonna go find Puckerman." He concluded eventually. "Rachel, you'd better rinse the slushy out of his hair right now if he's to make it to first period in time. I'm going to tell Puck to find you in the men's restroom."

I nodded, smiling at Kurt gratefully.

"Come on, Jess." I said, tucking softly on his hand.

"See you in glee." Mercedes called behind us.

I just waved at her, dragging Jesse behind me towards the men's restroom.

Rachel had rinsed the slushy out of his hair, and all he had been able to think about was how he had come here to protect her, not be comforted by her. Yet here they were, in a men's restroom that had, thankfully, been empty when he had entered it with his girlfriend who had then proceeded to wash what was essentially frozen corn syrup out of his hair with lukewarm tap water. She had told him how sorry she was over and over again, and each time he had told her that he didn't mind. He knew she felt that this was partly her fault; he had come here because of her, after all.

"How do you put up with this?" He had finally managed to ask her when she had started to towel-dry his hair the best she could. She had sighed, put the towel down for a moment, and he had known she struggled with a truthful answer.

"You get used to it, I guess." She'd said. "Kurt keeps telling us that he knows someday they'll work for him." She'd added with a smile.

"You shouldn't have to put up with it." He told her, taking the damp towel from her hands.

"Neither should you, and you wouldn't hadn't you come here. Because of me." She'd answered, looking up into his eyes with a glance that was both searching and sad. "You shouldn't have come just because of me. It's not worth the price. You're a star."

"You are, too." He'd told her, giving her a sad smile. "I am not going to let them extinguish your light."

That was when Noah, or Puck, as he liked to be called, had walked in on them, offering him a red, baggy t-shirt and washed-out jeans. He accepted both and sent Rachel to her first period class, giving her a quick parting kiss.

"You don't seem like the typical target for bullying." Jesse told Puck while he changed into the younger boys clothes. "How come you keep an outfit to change into in your locker?"

Puck just laughed at him. "I'm in glee club. That pretty much makes everyone a target. Even Quinn and Finn have been slushied – when he still was in the club, I mean." Puck remained silent for a short moment after he'd mentioned the name that Rachel had used in so many of the complicated stories she'd told him. "They call it homo explosion." Puck added with a smirk. "I'm pretty sure I coined that term before I joined myself."

"Have you ever tried to do something about this?" Jesse asked, gesturing at his slushy-stained clothes that were lying on the floor.

"It's next to impossible." Puck said. "If Figgins really were to do something about this, he would have to expel almost every cheerio and football player, plus a bunch of the other kids. About half the school, I think." Puck finished humorlessly.

Jesse shook his head resignedly. "This is messed up." He sighed.

Puck snorted. "It definitely is."

That's it for now. I know I answered some of you that I wouldn't really breach the Rachel/Shelby topic in this story, but I'm not so certain any more. The more I write, the less I seem to be able to leave it aside. And lies/secrets certainly aren't a good foundation for the serious relationship I want Rachel and Jesse to have ... just had to get this off my mind.

Anyways, I would be grateful if you reviewed. Yeah, you.