A/N.: Edit 17/08/2014
Chapter 4 – Smooth move, Q.
Tuesday, Rachel's second day of school. She was on her way to her locker when she was ambushed and dragged to a restroom by someone. Or more precisely, by two someones.
"What the…? You two!" Rachel hissed seeing who her captors were. "Why you two did that?"
"We want to talk to you without having other people snooping around." Kurt told.
"Yeah, so we asked you to meet us here." Mercedes added locking the door.
"Firstly. You didn't ask me to meet you. You dragged me here. Secondly, this is the female restroom you shouldn't be here Kurt. And lastly: Why you locked that door?" Rachel inquired exasperated.
"We don't want to be interrupted!" Mercedes spoke like it was the most obvious thing ever. "Now answer us!" she demanded.
"You didn't ask me anything!" Rachel hissed.
Her fur bristles and her claws were showing in angered frustration. Mercedes blushed and looked at her partner in crime. He just rolled his eyes a straitened his back while crossing his arms, the room temperature dropping a little.
"Well, first what you did for my brother and the three most popular girls in school to be all friendly and stuff with you? Since, seriously, it can't be because of your fashion sense." He said looking right at her
"I didn't do anything." She answered rolling her eyes. "I just was at my locker when they showed up, and Santana's snakes got all worked up. Brittany apparently thinks I'm cute for some reason and Santana seems to not really have an opinion about me... while Quinn… Quinn alternates from looking at me like I'm her dinner to being really friendly." Rachel says hopping that it would satisfy them. "And your brother… Finn right? He looks like a giant scratching pole, my claws itch wanting to scratch his bark like skin. I think he thought I was checking him out."
Mercedes giggles at that trying to control herself. "The boy sure is a hollow trunk…"
"Hey! It's my brother." Kurt weakly defended the ent boy.
"Sorry." Mercedes shrugged
"If he is your brother, why he ran away from you two yesterday? Also, how that happened? He being your brother…" Rachel asked trying to get some answers too.
"I almost put him on fire six months ago… Now he avoids me like I'm with the plague." The fire huffed annoyed, bringing the restroom temperature up again.
"His mother, who is literally a flower of a person, married my father. Dad is a earth elemental, my mom was a winter fairy. His dad was also an ent." Kusrt explained before taking a more demanding posture again. "But, anyway, moving on… the cousin of a friend who is in the same class of the neighbor of the boyfriend of a girl who has gym with you and was in the locker room while you still was there, told me that you said you could sing. Is that true?"
"What…. I mean… yes. Of course it's true." She answered looking dubious at him.
"Oh, wonderful!" He claps excitedly looking at Mercedes with a smile before looking at her again. "Will you join our glee club?"
"No. Thank you. Is it only that?" he nodded a little taken back. "Magnificent. I'm going now." She said before passing by them a unlocking the door.
She let out a breath when she gets out of the restroom. Those two sure could be very tiring. She went back on her way to her locker when once again she was stopped. This time by a tall, blond woman wearing an orange and brown tracksuit. She was strange. Rachel couldn't say which species the woman was. She smelled different too. That was kind of unnerving.
"Hello, Kitty Girl. As you must already know… I'm Sue Sylvester. Coach extraordinary. And I want you on my cheerios. And I will have you, so accept my proposition already or mark my words." She declared before turning on her heels and going away. "I'll expect an answer by lunch time in my office. You better come or I'll go after you!" she said from down the hall getting everyone attention.
When Rachel finally got to her locker Quinn was already there and she was alone. She didn't appear to be there for her locker, though. She watched Rachel every step until de girl opened her locker.
"Did you wake up late today?" Quinn's voice came from behind her making Rachel turn and notice that the lion girl was much closer to her this time.
"Hum… no I was just interrupted two times on my way here." Rachel answers with a shrug facing Quinn
"By what... Or whom?" the blond asked leaning on the locker beside Rachel's and trapping the girl between her and the opened locker door.
"W-well…" Rachel stuttered a little with the lioness proximity. "The hot n' cold duo and then a tall blond woman wearing a tracksuit. She is rather crazy by the way." Rachel swallowed trying to sound normal.
"Oh… that's Coach Sylvester… she is already after you then?" Quinn chuckled.
"She is the cheerleading team coach?" The blond nodded
"She is very proud of her Cheerios. Being personally recruited is really an honor, you should know..." Quinn never broke their eye contact, while Rachel every once in a while would look away.
She didn't know why, but the blond made her very nervous.
"Cheerios?" Rachel inquired more to herself than anything.
"Yeah… The cheerleading squad. Cheerios is our moniker…"
"Oh, thank God. For a moment I really thought she wanted to put me on her cereal…" Rachel breathed with relief making Quinn chuckle again. It was a rather endearing sound she thought. "What is she, by the way? I have a strange feeling about her. And she smells… weird."
"Oh! You won't believe, but she is actually human." Quinn said getting closer and making Rachel hit her locker door with her head when she tried to pull away.
"No way! Lies! Such things like humans don't exist. And if they existed they're supposed to be extinct ages ago." Rachel said rubbing the back of her head.
"Well, nobody knows how, but it's true." Quinn says brushing away the hair from the smaller girl's eyes and, then, massaging the back of Rachel's head herself.
Rachel blushed with the gesture, felling even more nervous when she noticed Quinn getting even closer.
"You should really think about the cheerios, however. I heard you did pretty amazing on gym class yesterday." The blond smiled. "See you at lunch, Rachel." She said with a last brush to Rachel's hair.
It took some minutes to her recompose herself. Why Quinn Fabray was so dammed overwhelming? Looking at her with such hunger and this other thing she couldn't put her finger on yet…
Rachel was really surprised to discover she wasn't late for her first class. She got her things out of her locker and ran to the classroom wanting to be able to choose her seat.
To her amusement she shared this class with Sam… and Noah… and Mercedes. This was one of the only classes she took from the normal course instead of the AP one, aside from Spanish.
As soon Sam saw her he waved and signaled for her to sit next to him. The moment she did it, Puck grabbed all his things a moved to the desk beside Rachel, leaving her between him and Sam. He looked really proud of himself.
Mercedes was fast at changing seats too. She now was sat on the desk behind Rachel, probably hoping to eavesdrop something. It was a really awkward situation and every student who was already inside the classroom was looking at them and every student entering the room gave them a weird look before going their way.
"Is Coach Sylvester really human?" Rachel asked Sam not caring to lower her voice.
"I'm not sure… I'm as new as you to McKinley, I've being here just two weeks longer than you." Sam confessed. "But it seems like it."
"She is!" Puck says butting in. "The demons get offended when Coach Sylvester is called she-demon. Scary, uh?"
"Suure." Rachel trailed off turning back to Sam. "She came after me today. For a moment I really thought she wanted me on her cereal." Rachel repeats what she had told Quinn before, making the boys, and Mercedes, laugh at it.
"She probably heard about how awesome you were yesterday!" Sam smiled at her. "Oh! By the way, about yesterday? I wanted to ask you something…" he state.
"What?" Rachel inquires curiously, also noticing the shift beside and behind her.
"Yesterday you transformed… and then you transformed back and you had all your clothes…" He says not knowing how to phrase his question
"Oh! I can transform my clothes together with me, so when I transform back I'm still wearing then. It's like a little magic of will. After you get used to it, it come out as naturally as transforming normally." She explains, she feels odd about something but can't really put her finger on it.
"Really!?" Puck asks sounding surprised. "We can do that?"
"Yes… the same way Mercedes can catch on fire without burning her clothes…"
"I can do that!?" Mercedes actually yells at hearing it.
"You don't, like… learned it on grade school? I thought it was common knowledge…" Rachel sights, it was common knowledge, right? She feels like she might be wrong about that.
"Not here in Lima." Puck drones…
"Neither on my home city. Though, I'm from nearby." Sam mumbles too.
"All these years of lost clothing… And it could have been avoided!" Mercedes dramatically whines "So many shameful situations… You have to teach me how to do that!"
"Me too!" Sam and Puck speak together.
"Oh, boy…" Rachel sighs once again.
This time during lunch Rachel doesn't even have time to think about where she was going to sit. She is simply dragged to a table by a very happy blond and a scowling Latina.
Brittany makes Rachel sit before her and the angry gorgon, much like the day before. She is surprised that Quinn wasn't with them, but don't think much about it. Or rather she doesn't have much time to think about it because Sam sits next to her, giving her a smile and greeting everyone else in the table. He was on the football team so nobody thought much about it. Brittany and Santana shared a look, however.
"I don't think Q will like when she sees him sitting there." The nymph whisperers just for Santana.
"I know, but it sure will be fun." The gorgon answered giving the blonde a wicked smile.
"That's mean, San. But true." Brittany chuckles and gives a small peck on the corner of Santana's mouth.
Rachel was having an animated conversation with Sam when Quinn entered the cafeteria. Coach Sylvester wasn't pleased when Rachel didn't show up on her office one minute after lunch break had begun.
After ten minutes Sue Sylvester was fuming and Quinn was getting really scared that something was going to happen to her. She heard that when humans walked on earth they would use lion's fur as coats. What if she decided to kill her and use her fur for a personalized and furry tracksuit?
Luckily for Quinn, Coach Sylvester just sent her after Rachel, demanding that she discovered why the girl wasn't there and dressed as a Cheerio yet.
Quinn went directly to the cafeteria thinking about recruiting Santana and Brittany's help. Even if she had to blackmail them with extra laps on their after school cheerleading practice.
She was really surprised when she got to the cafeteria, however.
On her seat, sitting next to her – soon to be, at least – Rachel was Sam Evans. The new kid! Well, the other new kid. The not, as much, interesting new kid. Sam Evans. And he was laughing with her. With Rachel. They were sitting together, he was on her seat and they were laughing! Together!
Yes she was being repetitive and she didn't care one bit. Fuck Coach Sylvester, she would have to wait a little more. Also, she already had found Rachel anyway. Quinn had to take care of this first.
Her claws where already out and a low growl was building up on the back of her throat as she approached the popular kids table. The entire room was silent. Just watching her.
"Excuse me?" she snarled very dangerously making shills run down everyone's back. But mostly Rachel and Sam's back.
They both turned at the same time. Sam's eyes bugging out. He knew about Quinn's fame. He heard that she almost ripped Puck's balls off when he made a crude comment about her. Hell, he heard that she actually ripped some guy's balls off when he touched her accidentally on her butt.
Rachel was just confused and overwhelmed by Quinn's demeanor.
"You're on my seat." Quinn continued only looking at Sam Evans for the moment.
"So-sorry, but it was empty and..." he tried to apologize, but she didn't seem to have any of that and was starting to bare her teeth in a very menacing way at him.
His only luck was that Rachel was beside him and very confused with the way Quinn was acting.
"Quinn… are you ok?" Rachel asks with a low voice and reaching for the blonde's hand "Your claws are showing."
One touch… one look and her claws where retracting and her features relaxing… Her expression was becoming almost pouty.
"Dear Lord, she knows her for two days and is already whipped." Santana mumbles to herself making Brittany chuckle and nod in agreement.
"But, he is on my seat." Quinn all but whines.
"You can always ask him nicely to change seats. I know how we tend to be quite… territorial, so I'm not going to call on you about your extreme overreaction, ok?" Rachel speaks sweetly getting an almost entranced nod from Quinn. "Magnificent." Rachel smiles proudly. Probably at herself for being able to calm down a lioness.
Quinn was opening her mouth to say something when the cafeteria door flew open giving passage to a tracksuited woman.
"Brilliant Q you found her!" Coach Sylvester said "I'm a little disappointed that you didn't took her immediately to my office, though."
"Sorry, Coach." Quinn says still suffering from Rachel's calming effects. The girl was still holding her hands for God's sake!
"And you Kitty, why weren't you at my office with you positive answer by the beginning of the lunch break?" the woman towers over the still sitting girl.
"I don't really know where your office is. It's my second day here." Rachel shrugs.
"And you didn't ask around where it was because?" Sue demanded.
"Because I wasn't really interested to know, also I was really hungry." Her answer makes the whole student body tense with anticipation.
Nobody talked to Sue Sylvester that way. The woman was crazy after all.
She laughed however. Not the reaction they were expecting. But there it was, the woman laughing, a laugh full of amusement. When she stopped, though, she went straight to serious. "I like her, Q. Make sure she agrees to enter the team." And with that Sylvester walked out of the room.
"Why don't you get in the team?" Brittany asked from the other side of the table. One of the only people not fazed by Sue Sylvester's crazy demeanor. Apparently it was more common than not.
"I don't know…" Rachel says with a frown. Not noticing she was still holding Quinn's hand. Not that the blond minded.
"It will look good on your college application." Quinn hinted
"I just moved here this week…" she weakly retorts. "I don't want to fall behind on my studding schedule."
"I can help you study. I'm on the honor roll and on the Cheerios and others club activities too." The lion girl insisted. "Also, if you start now you will have more than enough time to learn our routines and perfect yourself. Competition is not that far away!"
Rachel loved competing. She loved to have a goal to achieve. The answer wasn't this hard after all.
"Okay, I guess. I will talk to my dads." Rachel answers.
Quinn is fast at jumping at her and hugging her tightly. Brittany is bouncing on her seat and clapping her hands while Santana just chuckles at how obvious Quinn was being again in front of the whole fucking school.
"You can let me go now…" Rachel says overwhelmed by the hug and by being everybody center of attention.
"Nu-uh… we're teammates now and I'm you captain." Quinn says trying to discretely nuzzle Rachel's neck.
Rachel never was popular before, but, man, she was already full of it… she thought, while patting Quinn's back.