Return to Sender, Damaged in Transit
...
Quinn arranges the things on her dressing table as Finn sits on the bed behind her. He'd given her a ride home and since Judy nearly always works late on school days, she'd asked him to stay a little longer. There's still a slight tension between them and every now and then she looks at him in her mirror and he gives her his usual goofy half-smile without any words being exchanged.
"How was your day?" she asks, finally deciding to break the silence.
"Good. Mostly. I mean I totally fell asleep during Spanish today and I think Mr. Schue saw but he didn't tell me off...that was really cool," he shrugs, "I kinda wish that they hadn't run out of chocolate milk for lunch though. How about you?"
"Fine," she says flatly, "I had a brownie today." She's not really sure what else to tell him.
"Sweet," she sees his reflection grin, "it's cool how you don't have to worry about what you eat and all that other crazy stuff Coach Sylvester made you do –" Her eyes shoot him a warning "– I mean not that you're fat, you're really pretty Quinn...and brave for quitting the Cheerios but uh – yeah never mind." He smiles again and she smiles back, if only a little stiffly.
"So have you picked a song to tryout with yet?" she asks, drawing imaginary circles on the surface of the table.
"No. I'm not singing in front of that douche. All he's gonna do is tell me I suck but using more...words." Finn angrily flops onto her bed and she hears him sigh loudly.
"Well I have, do you want to know what song?"
"You're actually going to be a part of this thing?" In the mirror, she sees that he's leaning up on his elbows, his brow furrowed at her.
"Yes," she says turning around to face him, "I think it's worth a shot, to get to do more than sway in the background. Plus we'll have someone else's opinion – someone who isn't Mr. Schuester."
"Yeah, someone who's a jerk."
She notices he is getting defensive and she doesn't like it. "Why is this such a big deal to you?"
"Because you're like...taking his side," he argues. Now he's positively glaring at her.
She takes in a deep breath as the anger begins to build inside her as well. "His side? Rachel's going to sing too you know."
"That's different; she's Rachel and she like lives for solos. You're my girlfriend and you're supposed to have my back."
She raises both her eyebrows and looks at him incredulously. She wants to hit him. Really, really hard. "Oh like you had mine during prom?" She knows she's making the situation worse by baiting him, but she can't – won't – stop herself.
"Quinn I said I was sorry about that, like a million times, what more do you want me to do?" he asks throwing up his arms.
"I don't know, maybe take my side for once and not hers because like you said I'm your girlfriend," she says hatefully, raising her voice to match his.
"This isn't even about Rachel!"
"Like hell it isn't." She swivels back around to face her dressing table. "You know, I hope she picks Jesse – at least he knows what he wants," she says softly, slowly regaining control of her voice.
"Whatever. I'll see you later when you're not being all Scary Quinn." He gets up and leaves, slamming the door to her bedroom.
The New Directions are terrible. Even a whole year hasn't been enough time for them to improve. They still can't dance. Apparently giving solos to the best singer 'isn't fair' and turns everyone in the club into whining children so now Jesse has to sit through audition after audition, each one only serving to justify his opinion that they still can't sing either. Their so called 'male lead' is an insult to performance in general but, by nothing short of a miracle, he's not got the balls to sing in front of a real judge of talent.
When Jesse's pen runs out of ink (so much for shading in his cat) and he is forced to actually listen to Santana, halfway through he's prepared to jam it into his ears and tear his own eardrums. But after being asked to leave UCLA, this is the closest he is going to get to redeeming himself and getting his parents off his back about going to college in Ohio so whatever, he can deal. If only he could've learnt to sleep with his eyes open – why wasn't there a college class about that? He would've at least considered showing up.
He tells Santana what her performance lacks and she swears she'll 'go all Lima Heights adjacent' on him. Much like the New Directions, who never really take any new directions, Santana too is in limbo, using the same threats he's heard from her countless times before. It's woeful.
There's a slight pause as Kurt sets up and Jesse sees Schuester rapidly scribbling something he must deem acceptable about the Latina. "This is a waste of your time and mine and theirs," says Jesse, deciding to just cut to the chase.
The older man's jaw clenches and he continues writing. "Look Jesse, I know it's not the Vocal Adrenaline way but this is how we do things here and it's worked for us before."
"Sorry, but you don't have the hardware to prove that."
"Well – that was last year, now we're stronger and our wins at Sectionals and Regionals are proof enough."
The slight hesitation is enough to tell Jesse that as much as Schuester tries to deny it, he agrees with him.
Kurt clears his throat, interrupting their conversation. He gets two notes in before Jesse stops bothering to even pretend like he's paying attention. Kurt will never be able to sing on a real stage because of the simple fact that no one writes or was ever going to write something for his voice. So really, this is an even bigger lost cause.
The only thing that's not predictable about Hummel is that after getting his feedback (where Jesse promptly tells him exactly what he thinks) he doesn't stomp his foot or slap him.
Jesse rounds on Mr. Schuester again as Mercedes drags her way through another clichéd and lacklustre song choice. "Sectionals are child's play and might I remind you that a tie is not a win. At Nationals, Rachel is the only one who even stands a chance."
"I know Rachel is talented and of course she will perform. But we're a family and there are no favourite children."
Jesse resists the urge to laugh. The idea that any of these people actually care about each other is delusion even for Schuester's standards but he decides to play along anyway. "That's good because when you lose, and you will lose, you can all hold hands and offer each other words of comfort."
He sinks back in his chair as Mercedes walks, no – plods – off stage. He's kind of mildly interested in hearing what Quinn has been hiding from him because, as much as he refuses to admit it, something about her intrigues him. He's never heard her sing a solo before and doubts that her voice is anything more than subpar but she'd break the dismal monotony of the day and at least her insults would go beyond telling him to get a new haircut. Perhaps he'd call her Quinnie just to push her buttons and then take credit for coaxing out a marginally better performance.
"Okay looks like we're almost done here, Rachel's up last," says Mr. Schuester as he stretches out his arms.
Jesse frowns in confusion. "Are you sure?"
"There were only four people on the signup sheet this morning." He hands Jesse the clipboard and it confirms there are in fact only four names.
He pushes all his thoughts out of his mind when he sees Rachel walk on stage looking right at him. The other reason he has endured this most unpleasant of tortures. He gives her a confident smile, knowing without doubt that she will get the solo. He'll make sure of it. When she tells him that she's not singing to anyone in particular, he still knows she is going to be fantastic - even if it does get that little bit harder for him to keep smiling. But he's a good enough actor to hide that and truthfully, he hadn't expected her to start talking to him so quickly after the egging anyway; he supposes that with girls like Rachel, who need to be indulged, things take time. As she prepares to sing, he leans over to Schuester.
"You know, I think you're kind of right about being a family – I understand that parents feel the need to live vicariously through their children in order gloss over their own inadequacies."
...
Author's Note: Thanks for all the lovely reviews everyone, it always makes me happy to know that people are enjoying what I'm writing. Sorry for the lack of St. Fabray interaction in this chapter, but I promise there will be a lot of it coming up very shortly. I'll also try and post the next chapter sooner since this one was a little on the short side. Please do leave reviews and let me know what you think and if you like where I'm going with this :)