The Music In Me
Glee Au Fan Fiction
Chapter 6
Rachel woke up early the next morning, as she usually did, and was already dressed, in the process of doing her hair and make-up, when her friends woke up. She was sitting at her desk, dressed in a pair of dark wash denim cuffed shorts with a pink, sequenced tank top. Her dog tag styled Star of David necklace dangled from her neck and a two-tone pink thick-bangle moved along her risk with bow-tie earrings to match the bow-tie belly ring. On her feet were a pink of pink wedges with a tribal print on the heel.
She had her Victoria's Secret pink backpack already packed at the foot of her bed with her Juicy pink purse and matching wallet besides it. Her pink sunglasses were lying on top of her bag and she was almost ready to go.
If only her friends were ready to join her for breakfast.
Kurt had woken up around the same time as Rachel and disappeared to his own room to get ready. Brittany had left a few moments ago to go take a shower and should be returning shortly. The only real problem, was Sam.
The door swung open and Kurt came walking in, dressed in a pair of straight leg jeans with a cuffed-sleeve hunter green button down, his dad's old dog tags tucked safely inside with his best friend's bracelet-a watch on one wrist and a bracelet on another. His sunglasses were pushed up in his carefully messed up hair while his messenger bag was swung over his arm, brown leather wallet in hand with his brown covered iPhone in the other hand.
"Is the lazy slug still asleep? He's going to miss breakfast, and we all know that's his favorite meal of the day," Kurt rolled his eyes, dropping down onto Brittany's already made bed.
"Breakfast?" a mess of blonde hair sprung upright on Rachel's bed, jaw dropping at the word. "How long do I have?" He asked, kicking at the blankets until his long legs were free.
"Thirty minutes," Kurt glanced at his watch.
"I'll do it!" He shouted, falling from Rachel's bed and jumping to his feet, racing from the room just as Brittany entered, blonde hair hanging in damp waves down her back.
"I love that skirt," Kurt observed, eyes locked on Brittany's short, Harajuku patterned skirt that she'd paired with a red, cropped, fitted vest.
She had red, stacked wedges on her feet and she nodded her thanks to Kurt as she made her way towards her dresser where her jewelry box was located.
She pulled out a red heart belly ring, putting it through the hole before resuming her search.
"Somebody understands what happens when you oversleep," Rachel giggled, turning around, finally finished getting ready.
"Rachel, it's only oversleeping to you, because you take that long to get ready. Everybody else can get ready in whatever amount of time they have," Kurt rolled his eyes.
"Actually, it's a girl thing. We'll use whatever time we have to get ready, if we need it or not," Brittany explained. "If you give me half an hour, I'll be ready in half an hour. Give me two weeks? I'll take the entire two weeks," Brittany shrugged, turning around as she hooked her gold and red heart-shaped earrings into her ears. Her arms were covered in a mess of gold and red bracelets, all with something different about them, while a red heart-shaped necklace hung from her neck.
"Are you wearing a Wonder Woman arm cuff?" Kurt's eyebrows went up at the sight of the object resting on her upper arm.
"I swear, it's like she was made in a factory. She's perfect for Sam," Rachel whistled.
"Oh, shut up," Brittany stuck her tongue out, snapping a new case onto her iPhone. "Sam doesn't need some factory made girl. He has plenty throwing themselves at him already." She replied with a shrug, grabbing her currently empty red purse and tossing it besides her full backpack.
Silence filled the room at her statement as the two brunettes took in the hidden meaning of her words.
She wasn't saying that Sam didn't need another option when he already had so many others. She was saying that Sam wasn't even going to consider her, when he had so many other girls who were more than willing to be his significant other. Especially when he was already rejecting all of those other girls, because his focus was on somebody else.
She grabbed a Superman wallet and stuffed it into the main pouch.
"The difference between those other girls and you, is that you happen to be perfect for him," Rachel rolled her eyes, trying to lighten the mood again. "And we actually like you," She replied carelessly.
Brittany rolled her eyes again, thinking of a way to change the topic as she tried to hide her comic book key chain from the group, sliding it into her bag as nonchalantly as possible.
Rachel shrugged, standing up and grabbing her bags.
"Are you ready?" She asked, the backpack swung over her shoulders with the purse on the crook of her arm, sliding the sunglasses to hold her hair back.
"Yeah," She nodded, shaking out her blonde hair, that was the type of hair that could look good when left to its own devices, being told to air dry. Unlike Rachel's own silky, dark locks that needed constant maintenance. "Let's do this," She nodded.
"I can't believe you're going to join the Glee club," Mike shook his head as he and Puck entered their first period class-english. "That's so weird. We don't do things like that," he shook his head again before running a hand through his dark hair.
"Hey, it's helping me get closer to Rachel. You said it would, remember?" He shrugged, glancing around the room for a seat, smirking at the sight of Rachel, sitting alone in the back row, right in the back corner, near a window.
He had suspected she would be a front-row kind of girl, but clearly he had been wrong. Before telling Mike what was going on, he made his way over to Rachel and took a seat besides her, dropping his backpack on the floor in the aisle between them, nodding an acknowledgement towards the small girl when she raised her head to see who had sat down besides her.
"Is this seat taken?" He asked, raising his eyebrows at her, eager for a conversation without his sister's interruption.
"Oh, no. Samuel has history this period, with Brittany, and Kurt is in geometry for this hour. I'm the only one who starts off Mondays with english out of our little group. Although, typically Finn Hudson tries to take a seat besides me when he catches me without Samuel or Kurt, so, thank you for that. You've earned yourself a new enemy-he's the one glaring at you right now," Rachel explained, turning back to the notebook she had been writing in.
Class hadn't even started yet, and she was writing things. Puck was pretty sure he was already going to have his work cut out for him, even without this annoying Finn kid-it was good to know she didn't seem to have any sort of an interest in him, however.
That made things easier, because it meant he didn't have any competition for her heart.
He turned towards Mike, talking about something or other with his roommate, while watching Rachel from the corner of his eye, trying to figure out what type of music she liked-he was going to have to audition, afterwards, and that meant he was going to need to sing something. He might as well use his audition as a way to impress her just a little bit more.
But, she made it hard to concentrate, with the way her dark mane of hair fell around her face, shielding it from the full viewing pleasure of her audience. Or, with the way she stuck out her tongue, just a tiny bit, whenever she was deep in thought. Or when she would raise her pencil to her lips, tapping the eraser against the equally as pink skin, before shaking her head and erasing whatever it was she had just written down.
She wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary for a female, especially a teenage one, but she made it look hotter than she should, and that was the part that bothered him.
After all, Kitty and Quinn had just come prancing into their room, and they were easily the hottest girls on campus, or, they were supposed to be at least. There was something about blondes that turned Puck off, and he wasn't exactly sure what it was, but he was rarely attracted to blonde haired girls for anything more than a one-night-stand, and that was only if he couldn't get anybody with a darker hair color.
Brittany liked to joke that his anti-blonde fetish was because she had set the bar too high when it came to blondes, but Puck thought that her idea was gross and just ignored her whenever she said it.
Of course, the two leggy blondes just had to make their way over towards Puck, plopping down into the seats in front of him and Rachel, smirking right at him while seeming to ignore Rachel's very presence.
"Hey-Puck, right? I'm Quinn Fabray," the blonder of the two said, pushing back a strand of curly, golden blonde hair that was hanging loose around her face, falling to her shoulders while framing her face just enough.
She was dressed in a short, blue and white print dress with a tight fitting bodice and a flowing skirt that ended just under her butt. If it were longer, it would be something that was practical and flirty. Instead, with her white wedges, she just looked like she was trying too hard to get that whole 'sexy-religious' girl thing down to a perfect T.
She had a simple blue purse slung over her shoulder and was in the process of wrapping the straps of her galaxy print backpack around her chair. On her desk was an upside down iPhone, to show off her blue case, covered in logos.
Hanging from her neck was a slender gold chain with a simple golden cross. Matching gold earrings hung from her ears and he wanted to laugh when he saw the sparkling ring on her finger, with the words TRUE LOVE WAITS engraved across the silver band.
He settled for rolling his eyes.
"Yeah, that's me," He shrugged.
"I'm Kitty," the dirty blonde said, turning around to face him.
She was texting on a sequenced phone case in various shades of pink, with her blonde curls pushed over one shoulder. Where Quinn was all about looking as nice as possible, it was clear that her best friend didn't care what she wore to school, dressing more like the other girls Puck had seen around campus.
In a pair of short, cut-off, distressed shorts with a black fitted tank top that read CHEERLEADER across her chest in hot pink font, she had the sex appeal that Puck was sure she wanted to get across, while looking like a normal teenage girl. She even wore wedged Converse to complete her casual appearance. She had a pink, obviously designer, bag on her desk with her multicolored back pack on the floor, carelessly tossed aside.
The only thing that showed a real effort for her to have gotten ready that morning was her armful of pink bangles that jingled with every move that she made, and the dangling pink earrings that seemed like they'd weight a hundred pounds.
"You know, just because you're the new kid, it doesn't mean you have to sit next to Rupaul," Quinn said, shooting Rachel a look of disdain. "You can always tell her to move. You're on the football team. You're popular and Man-hands over there is nothing more than a lowly little Glee Club loser," she rolled her eyes.
"Are you talking about Rachel? You know, it's kind of offense to call her Rupaul just because she's Jewish. It's sort of prejudice, you know? I mean, I'm Jewish," Puck said, noticing that Rachel's ears had perked up at the mention of her nickname, before her shoulders had slumped in defeat. "And Man-hands? She's got cute hands," He shrugged.
"What?" Quinn's jaw dropped.
"What?" Kitty repeated, turning towards him in shock.
"Excuse me?" Rachel asked, raising her eyebrows as she turned her attention onto the people around her.
Puck reached out and took her hands in his own, staring down at them thoughtfully.
"You've got really cute hands, did you know that?" He asked her with a goofy grin on his face, winking before he released his grip on her, allowing her to bring her hands back to herself, crossing her arms over her chest tightly.
"Are you seriously defending Yentil?" Quinn made a face.
"And there you go again, insulting my religion. You know, I think it's funny that you've got that purity ring on your finger when all I've heard about you was that you were a slut. Clearly daddy doesn't know what his daughter's up to in her spare time, does he?" Puck challenged her.
"Noah, you don't have to-"
"Noah? Who the hell is Noah?" Kitty asked, glaring at Rachel, as if the entire scene happening were her fault.
"That's my first name. The name that she can call me by, because she's my friend, and you two are just Blonde and Blonder, and I'm not a fan of blondes, thank you very much," Puck said, turning to face Rachel, his attention off of the two cheerleaders who were gaping in shock at what had just happened.
From the smile that Rachel was giving him, it was worth it, though, and he would gladly take on a pack of rude, bullying cheerleaders any day of his life, if it meant he got to earn a smile like that from Rachel.
"Who's that?" Brittany asked Sam.
They were the first two to their history class and Brittany was bored.
So, as soon as another person entered the room, she had started asking Sam for as many details as he could give her about the student before the next one would arrive.
"Artie Abrams. The girl wheeling his chair is Tona Cohen-Chang, his girlfriend. They're both in the Glee club," Sam nodded.
The boy mentioned had an a-dork-able type of look to him, in a completely different way than Sam's own. With his carefully styled, spiky brown hair and the square-frame glasses covering his blue eyes, the wheel-chaired boy looked like he belonged in the AV-club, especially with his sweater vests and biker-gloves that gave him a slight edge.
The girl was rather pretty, with pale skin and brown eyes, black hair falling in a wavy matter, pinned to only drape one shoulder. She had a punk-gothic type of edge to her clothing choices, with a 90's twist over the entire thing.
Brittany turned back towards Sam, raising an eyebrow as she signaled for him to continue.
"Artie's one of the few kids in the Glee club that isn't on a scholarship of some sort. Tina is on a partial one. She scares me, and I really don't know much about either of them, except for the fact that Artie is Finn Hudson's roommate-Finn's in the Glee club and he used to play football. He quit because I beat him out of a starting position," Sam went on.
"You're afraid of a girl?" Brittany asked, raising her pale eyebrows up at him.
He lowered his head sheepishly, not giving an answer. She burst out into a fit of giggles which quickly burst into full blown hysterics, having her leaning across her desk and slightly against him. She was laughing so hard for so long, she missed the arrival of the last student to enter the classroom.
The only reason either of them were made aware of the arrival was because the boy came and took a seat besides Sam, calling out a greeting to him before raising his eyebrows in curiosity, trying to figure out not only who the attractive female was besides him, but what was going on between the pair.
"Who's this?" Brittany asked, straightening up into an upright position, eyes locked on the newcomer.
He had boy-band ready, honey brown hair that fell into his carmel colored eyes with a slightly long face and an expression that looked like a cross between angry and sad, would it not have been for his smile which was taking over his entire face. He was obviously tall, as tall as Sam at least, and lanky, with long limbs.
"Ryder Lynn-he's a freshman. He's really good at English, though, so he takes it at a sophomore level. I'm jealous, because he's dyslexic, like me, but he's at least good at one subject, whereas I suck at everything," Sam pouted.
"Thank you for announcing my little problem to the entire world. I only skipped a grade for English because my dad sent me here because they have some of the best teachers to work with dyslexic kids. I could barely even read when I got here. The teacher worked with me and I just kind of surpassed everything. Sammy and I have always had English together, since I was in the seventh grade," Ryder shrugged his shoulders.
"Lucky bastard," Sam shook his head, reaching out to give Ryder a shrug. "That's what happens when he has it worse than me. I don't get as much time with my tutors," Sam pouted.
"You don't want dyslexia as bad as I have it, Sam," Ryder insisted. "And can we stop talking about that and introduce me to the incredibly adorable blonde in the seat besides you?" he asked, eyes locking on Brittany.
"I'm Brittany Pierce. Rachel's my roommate-that's why I'm stuck hanging out with this loser," Brittany said, slapping Sam on the back of the head playfully before stretching her arm forward to shake Ryder's.
"If you ever get bored of hanging around with Trouty Mouth, feel free to give me a call," Ryder winked at her and she giggled as she pulled her hand back.
Sam sat there, watching the scene unfold with his arms crossed tightly over his chest and a scowl sketched across his face.
He knew that it shouldn't bother him that Brittany and Ryder were flirting with one another with their playful banter. He shouldn't be bothered by how they were acting. He didn't even know why he would care about it.
But, he was bothered and he did care.
He didn't like it, and it wasn't because he was snapping into that overprotective mode that he went into with Kurt and Rachel all of the time. Instead, it was because of something different. It was even worse than the feelings he had gotten the previous year whenever he'd seen Rachel and Jesse together.
These feelings were something even worse than the jealousy that he was overcome with whenever Rachel was around another guy who wasn't Kurt, but it didn't make sense for him to be jealous of any guy that was talking to Brittany and getting her attention, making her giggle in that cute way with that adorable smile on her face.
But, if he liked Rachel, why did he feel jealous when it came to Brittany?
He shook his head, trying to clear these thoughts from his head. It just wasn't doing him any good to discuss to himself internally his feelings on girls. He needed to wait until he had somebody who understood emotions, the female mind and the male mind. Than, he would be okay.
He had to wait until he could talk to Kurt about what was going on, because that was the way he handled any and all problems in his life that involved a female.
After all, just because he was attractive, it didn't mean that he knew what was going on inside the mind of the species he was so attracted to, and it didn't mean he understood what was going on in his own head half of the time.
Kurt sat all alone in his geometry class, while Mercedes Jones sat besides him, filling his ear with pointless drama. And as much as Kurt loved gossip, he wasn't a fan of Mercedes Jones. She seemed to have it in her head, along with the fact that her brightly colored clothes were actually in style, that she should be Kurt's best friend and Rachel should be forgotten about.
"And that new kid? Mike Chang's roommate? Apparently he's been asking all around about Rachel! I mean, that boy is one fine specimen and he's asking about Rachel? There must be something wrong with him. But, apparently he's taken an interested in her. His brother's that one that auditioned for the Glee club yesterday-but you knew that, right? Rachel asked him if they were related or whatever? But, anyways he's got a-"
Kurt tuned in at the mention of Rachel's name, but shook his head and turned right back out when she started to ramble on and on. He didn't have the energy to follow one of her tangents. She was more annoying than when Kaley Cuoco was on 8 Simple Rules, playing that annoying girl Bridgette who never shut up when she started one of her stories. She was almost as annoying as her red haired little sister who never managed to crack a smile for three seasons, despite the wonderful life she was living or the doting boys she managed to attract whenever she went on a date.
He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, giving a silent prayer of thanks as the bell rang, signaling that start of class. As soon as the bell rang, the teacher was starting class-sometimes, a strict teacher worked wonders.
It got Mercedes to shut up, anyways.
Still, Kurt now had these newfound knowledge to deal with in regards to his best friend.
Maybe Rachel wasn't supposed to be with Sam Evans-that was Brittany's place-and maybe Noah Puckerman was one very sexy and attractive specimen, but that didn't mean that Rachel should settle for him based on looks. But, knowing Rachel, she would fall for him as long as he offered her the right attention.
Finn offered her plenty of attention, but Kurt had had a crush on him, already making him off-limits. Besides, he was obviously interested in her because she was his back-up, a safety net in case he couldn't do any better. And the harder she tried to reject him, the harder he worked to try and get with her. She was a challenge to him, and not in the same way that Kurt was sure she was a challenge for Puck, who thought of her as a challenge for not immediately throwing herself at his feet because of his appearance. Finn thought of her as a challenge because she should want to be with him because of their social statuses. But she didn't.
Honestly, if Kurt was being honest, he would rather Rachel be with Puck over any other guy in school, because they were all jerks and players. None of them deserved her. But, he was only saying that because he didn't know if Puck deserved her or not. Puck was going to have to make it known whether or not he was worth his best friend's affection and he was going to have to work to win her over. And Rachel was going to need to get to know him.
If Puck just came out of nowhere and wooed her though, doing everything it took to make Rachel's heart melt, it was a lost cause and she would fall too fast, only to be disappointed by her high expectations not having been reached.
And Kurt didn't want to have to deal with another heartbreak that Rachel was being forced to go through.
Rachel couldn't stop sneaking little looks at Puck during her dirt period class. It was just too hard for her to believe that a guy like that would go and defend somebody like her to girls like Quinn and Kitty.
Sure, Sam was an attractive teenage male with a high social status due to his football position and he definitely was always defending Rachel when she needed it, especially from the girls like Quinn and Kitty. But that was a completely different story. After all, she and Sam had been best friends since they were little.
She didn't even know Noah Puckerman. She didn't know the first thing about him. So why was he defending her?
Was it because she was roommates with his sister? Because as close as he seemed with his sister, he didn't seem like he was very protective of her. He didn't act as half as over protective and controlling as Sam did, and he was actually related to Brittany by blood. Besides, it wasn't like he knew how close Brittany and Rachel had become. And if he did, what reason did he have to defending her?
This entire thing was extremely confusing and she didn't know what she was supposed to make of it. At all.
"Hey-Rachel, do you think you could help me out with something?" Puck asked after the bell had rung to dismiss them. She turned head head, studying him slightly, before sighing.
"What's up?" She asked, putting her books back into her backpack.
"I'm thinking about trying out for the Glee Club. I like music and I need an outlet here that isn't going to involve tossing kids into trash cans, you know?" He asked, reaching out and taking her backpack from her. "Let me carry this for you. I'll walk you to your next class," He offered with a smile.
"I have a free period. I'm heading to the music building, to work on something for Glee, actually. We have to figure out a set list. Um, if you want, I could help you with an audition piece-unless you have a class," She said, eyes growing wide. "My next class isn't until ten, though, so you could stop in wherever," She added, following him from the room.
"I don't have class until then, either. Mind if I hang around and bug you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow playfully.
"Um, no-that's fine. We could use a few more male voices in the club, actually. And I'm always looking for ways to help better the club..."She trailed off, smiling to herself at what a relief it would be to have somebody else there to help her deal with Jesse's presence-his first class wasn't until after lunch and she knew that he always hung around the club until then.
Their classes were set up on almost a college-like schedule and Jesse always had a light load of classes, taking exactly what he would need to graduate with the music and drama electives that would be needed for a future career in musical theater. When he wasn't in class, he was in the music building, hanging out in the Glee choir room. That had been wonderful back when they'd been dating, but since the break-up, he'd taken to driving Rachel insane whenever he caught her alone in the room.
Besides, a guy like Puck? That would do wonders for her when it came to Jesse, who was easily made jealous and-despite the confident air he tried to show off-very self conscious, always comparing himself to the guy next to him. And he had nothing on Noah Puckerman, who was about twice his height and three times his body mass when it came to muscle.
"So, you and my sister are pretty close," Puck said as they walked across the bright campus from the Literature building.
"Yeah-she's really nice. We have a lot in common. I managed to convince her to join the Glee club. Her audition is today. If you'd like, I could arrange for your audition to be around the same time, so that you can immediately get started with the work," She offered, a bright tone to her voice.
"Sure-hey, I actually had another question for you, that was a little more serious." He said, lowering his voice.
"What's that?" She bit her bottom lip, suddenly worried. She wasn't sure why, but she was worried.
"Well, this might seem kind of weird, considering what Brittany has told you about me, but I'm pretty into my religion. I know there's a church for the Catholics and Christians and what-not other religions but...is there a synagogue here? I like going to Temple," He admitted.
"You do ?" Rachel asked, eyes growing wide. "Oh, that is absolutely wonderful! I'll take you with me when I go! There isn't one on campus, but there is one close by. Samuel was going to drive me this year because I haven't gotten my license yet, but if you have yours, that would be absolutely wonderful. Then we wouldn't have to bother him!" She asked cheerfully.
"Hpw'd you get there before Sam got his?" He asked.
"Oh, my ex-boyfriend could drive. He'd take me every week. Before that, I used to just call a taxi," Rachel said happily. "Oh, and there is a wonderful store just a little while further that has some amazing kosher options for food, if you and Mike stock up on snacks in your room," She said, already planning how they could spend their Saturdays.
Maybe she was assuming too much, but she was just too excited to have a fellow Jew on campus who wasn't that creep Jacob Ben Israel.
"Hey, I'll take you-doesn't matter if Mike and I keep shit in our room or not. Can't let my fellow Jew go hungry, can I?" He asked with a half smile, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "So, ex-boyfriend, huh? What did he do to lose a girl like you?" He asked with a smirk.
"He broke up with me," She whispered, lowering her gaze as they walked.
"Well, then I guess I won't have to deal with him coming after me. He's an idiot, I hope you know that. No guy should break up with a girl like you-you're too...good for that. He was probably a dick that wasn't worth your time anyways," Puck said.
Rachel found herself smiling as she looked up at him, shooting him a curious look as he gazed ahead, squinting against the sunlight.