Whistle For The Choir (4/?)
Name: Whistle For The Choir
Author: iamsamflynn
Spoilers: A Very Glee Christmas.
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn.
Length: 5000+
Rating: up to R.
Summary: They meet Hiram Berry for the first time at the hospital, and Puck explains that this all started with a badly scheduled date.
A/N: Operation Fabgay is underway.
The colour of Rachel's bedroom wall is far from unfamiliar.
To Puck, anyway. And to Kurt. Mercedes? Well, she's never been there, and she seems a little uncomfortable with how obviously at home the two boys are in the room. Blaine just sits a little curiously in the corner, eyeing up the laptop that's been left open on the desk, itunes displayed on the screen with an absurdly high time totalled at the bottom of it. Kurt is standing by the open closet, humming to himself while he flicks through the shirts on the racks like he's looking for something in particular - Mercedes doesn't know why he would be looking for anything in Rachel Berry's closet, but he's content there so she can't fault him. Puck is just staring absently at the window, arms crossed over his chest and fingers drumming on his bicep while he sits on the girl's bed.
Mercedes has the desk chair, and she's damned uncomfortable in it - it's a cozy chair, no doubt about it, but this is Rachel Berry's room. And she can tell, too, because it's like everything has this perfect place and there's not a single thing out of line. It's kind of like being in Miss Pillsbury's office (or whatever her surname is now, she doesn't really know) - sickeningly perfect, except not really, because there's personal touches all over the place.
Rachel herself left the room ten minutes ago saying something about her dads and pizza. She returns now with the latter.
She passes one to Kurt - who, in a moment of humility, drops to take a seat on the floor near Mercedes, readying himself to share - another pizza box to Blaine, who looks away from the laptop to receive it. Then the girl drops into the free space on her bed beside Puck, and they share the last pizza like old friends. Which, really, Mercedes has kind of figured out they are.
"Double bacon cheeseburger," Puck grumbles, and Mercedes looks at him oddly, because he's staring at his pizza in awe and Rachel's stealing a slice of it right beneath his gaze. "Aw, Rach, you spoil me."
"Spoil you?" the girl replies in a laugh. "Like hell. You're my excuse. I'm spoiling myself."
"You're both Jewish, isn't there something against bacon there?" Mercedes asks, more than a little confused while Kurt passes her his pizza box. They've been sharing their pizzas since their friendship started. Then she looks directly at Rachel. "Aren't you, like, hardcore vegan?"
The Broadway diva shrugs. "I cheat sometimes," is her explanation. "Contrary to what I'm told by 'Scott Pilgrim Versus The World', there is no vegan police, and I'm not going to lose my awesome Vegan super powers if I indulge every once in a while."
"Also," Puck puts in flatly, "bacon is really good."
They ignore any further confusion from her and go back to splitting their pizza, and Mercedes stares at them for another few moments before Kurt taps her on the knee and reminds her she has a pizza of her own to dig in to.
"Rach, I know we weren't 'friends' before, but why was it that when I came over for that makeover you didn't show me your closet?" Kurt asks in the silence, earning a raised eyebrow from the girl in question. He shrugs. "Curiosity. It never really struck me before today, but you actually have some really nice things in there. I've been known to give you the scathing comments about your fashion, but you could have proven me wrong every other day for the last year and a half."
Rachel just takes another bite of her pizza, glances at Puck beside her and shrugs.
"Kurt, how many times did you wear the latest designer brand to school, only to have it stained bright in corn syrup before lunch?" she asks a little dully, and he frowns at the thought. Concession, Mercedes thinks as she looks over his pinched expression and his short nod. "There's no point in wearing nice things to school if they're just going to wind up wrecked. The stuff I wear to school? Cheap. Might not look the best, but it gets the job done. And wearing different clothes to school wasn't going to change anything, really, because I'd still be a loser from the Glee club with an insufferable personality. Who I am there, and who I am here, don't have to meet. So people can sit there and tell me how 'unfashionable' I am, and it goes over my head, because they don't know me."
It's all very resigned and matter-of-fact, and not for the first time Mercedes is struck by some sense of regret. Other than taking all the solos in glee club and being prone to overdramatic tendencies, there's really no excuse for the way that Rachel has been treated. For sure, the girl has made mistakes, but she's never been mean - not to Mercedes, not ever. And really, then, where did the dislike ever spring from.
"Sheep," Rachel drawls from the bed, her vacant gaze stuck on Mercedes. Said intended shivers a little at the look.
"What?"
"You were a sheep," Rachel says again, like it explains everything, like she's in Mercedes's head. "That's what you're wondering. I was hated - bottom of the social heap, second only to Jewfro, and as far as anyone else cared, I was okay with that. Your natural inclination by that standard? Follow suit. Because if you could hate me too, then you would be better than me."
Mercedes shudders, the pizza in her mouth turning to the taste of cardboard, because it's a totally true but totally tasteless explanation. And more than that, apparently Rachel does have a sixth sense, because she picked the thought right out of her head.
Creepy.
"It's okay, Mercedes, I don't mind," Rachel continues with a smile. "People are people, and people change. You cleaned me up on Monday. So I don't mind."
She's struck by the realisation that Rachel's intensity is deterrent. Sure, she's a little bit weird in the head (aren't they all?), and a little anal-retentive, and quite obviously obsessive-compulsive in a lot of ways. But when she's not at school or in Glee, and she's not warding off attacks from all sides, Rachel's not even half as overbearing or obnoxious as she is in it. In fact, she's actually pretty cool. Sure, she's scarily organised, and a little socially defunct, but she's kind of funny in a quirky way, and she can hold some pretty good conversation. More than that, it's pretty evident she holds few grudges, and she's pretty damned easy to please - although, by the looks of it, Puck tries a lot harder than he generally has to.
And really, the longer Mercedes sits at the desk in her room - watching as Blaine drags up some Katy Perry song from the vast itunes library and starts dancing around the room with Kurt, or refereeing Puck and Blaine's arm wrestle, or putting in her own opinions to Kurt's dissection of Rachel's wardrobe - the more she wants to befriend Rachel Berry. Being privy to the conversations of said Broadway diva and the people who are already her friends is giving her a hell of a lot of insight on the girl, on her relationships, and it's certainly spurring the thought.
"So what's the game plan, Rach?" Puck asks at one point, and he's tearing pages out of a spare notebook so he can scrunch them up and play basketball with the small trash can beside the desk, across the room from him. From a glance at Kurt, Mercedes figures he doesn't know what 'game' Puck's referencing, but Rachel's all-too-polite answer kind of indicates that she definitely does.
"Oh, I don't know, Noah? Specifics? To which game are you referring?" the girl says, but it's too sweet with the accompanying smile to be anything but jokingly constructed. Puck just smirks.
"Quinn Fabray."
There's an odd silence and an exchange of unsure glances between Kurt and Mercedes, but Rachel just turns to Puck with a flourish and a smirk, and links her fingers to crack her knuckles. Blaine winces at the sound - simultaneous, because Kurt does too.
"There is no game plan," Rachel says after a moment, spreading her hands a little - a gesture of innocence, all too obviously staged. "Not for tomorrow, anyway. She'll be expecting it tomorrow."
"Suspense," Puck says with an approving nod. "Let her sweat. And get comfortable again. And then - attack."
"You're attacking Quinn?" Kurt asks, voice filled with confusion and a little concern. Rachel just shakes her head while Puck grins, his mind wandering away somewhere or other. Mercedes just watches it all unfold with narrowed eyes and curiosity and warning - these two will not be messing with Quinn. Rachel might be a bit cool and totally worth befriending, but Quinn was totally there first. And Mercedes is nothing if not loyal.
"No," Rachel says simply. "Not attacking. I believe the correct term is-"
"Wooing," Puck says for her, nodding to himself absently, and Rachel copies the motion.
"Wooing."
"Seducing works too."
"Probably."
"...Ensnaring?"
"...Too far, Noah. Too far."
"No, wait, what?" Mercedes interrupts quickly, and she coughs a little because her confusion has sent her voice right up in pitch which sounds kind of awkward. There's a certain exasperation with the situation - Puck would naturally be involved in any such scheme. Sure, there was a rumour at school today that Rachel had been caught making out in the choir room with Santana Lopez, but it didn't strike Mercedes even for a second as plausible Rachel Berry behaviour, and neither does this. Knowing that Rachel is involved - well, that's where the whole thing gets weird, and Mercedes thinks she must be tripping. "You are going to seduce Quinn Fabray. You, Rachel Berry, are going to seduce Quinn Fabray?"
Rachel just narrows her eyes - not at Mercedes, not at anyone, more just at some small part of the idea. She looks fierce, in a way. Determined. "I was issued with a challenge in the throes of Spanish class today, and I fully intend to commit!" and, well, that definitely sounds like something Rachel Berry would say, even if it is in regards to the seduction of a girl. "The gauntlet has been thrown!"
"It certainly helps that Fabray's been topping your girl crush list since eighth grade," Kurt puts in mildly, cocking his head to the side and tapping his chin idly. Mercedes just gapes, because Kurt seems so accepting of this entire situation - she didn't even know Rachel swung that way until today! Rachel doesn't deny it - even for a moment - just gives Kurt this guilty smile and bites her lip a little. "Can I help pick your outfits? You're dropping the argyle now, I presume - having had the entire school warded off of you."
And Rachel just nods, skipping over to the closet while Kurt picks himself up off the ground and moves to assist her. Mercedes is still running all of this insanity through her mind, because she might not have said a single bad word to Rachel since Sectionals, but she still never thought she'd be sitting in the girl's bedroom with Noah Puckerman and Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson while the lot of them manufacture plans to turn Quinn Fabray gay.
But then Kurt pulls a slinky black dress from the closet and announces that "this would go great with your stitches, Rach!" and Rachel starts giggling, toying with the Star Of David hanging around her neck while Puck shouts out stupid ideas for this plot of theirs and Blaine noisily counters all of them across the room, and Mercedes realises this isn't so bad. In fact, it's kind of funny. Not-so-covert operations, she figures, with humour in mind, and maybe she's a little curious about what Rachel can do to Quinn and how far this will go. Because the plan isn't to hurt Quinn, and in a way it sounds like Quinn knows all about it, and really, what could it hurt?
So by the end of the night she's in on it, and Kurt's picked out an outfit for Rachel for every day of the next three weeks, and Blaine has successfully shot down every one of Puck's terrible 'romantic ideas' (Mercedes has the suspicion that Puck made at least half of them up with the intention of having them denied). Somehow, amidst all the planning for 'Operation Fabgay' - as Puck so eloquently dubs it - Rachel manages to shove a thin stack of sheet music off on her and Puck and asks them to "please, please consider it, because it's a pretty cool song and I'm sure you two could make it awesome, and yes there's a guy at school who plays the harmonica", and they have a potential number for Glee tomorrow. And more than that, she's realised that Rachel Berry is actually really cool to hang out with, and she's probably been terribly unfair to the girl - even though Rachel has acted pretty insufferable, and admits it - and she'd like to be Rachel's friend and fix this.
So when they're all forwarding out through the door at the end of the night, Mercedes hangs back for a moment and looks to Rachel more than a little bashfully.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry, Rachel. I haven't treated you that well over the years, and the way you have acted in school isn't any kind of excuse for that. But after tonight - I mean, you're pretty cool," she says, and she doesn't think she's ever been this unsure of her words before. It's not that she doesn't mean them, it's just that she doesn't know if she's saying this right. "What I - what I mean to say is," she says, taking a breath to steady herself and just get it out already, because Rachel's looking at her in a little bit of astonishment. "I-I'm sorry for every bad thing I've ever said, and I'd really, really like to be your friend if - if you could forgive me...?"
Rachel just stares at her for a few minutes, blinks twice, and maybe 'I want to be your friend' is a little grade-school, but it's out there now and she can't take it back. It's the sentiment that counts, right? But then Rachel smiles widely - happy and gentle all at the same time - and Mercedes knows she's got this right.
"I'd like that," she says. "If you can forgive my behaviour too."
And then Mercedes smiles and nods, and Rachel promises to give her a lift to school in the morning, and Mercedes hugs her, and it's such a great feeling, because she just knows Rachel's going to be a good friend to her - one of the best - and today's taken a turn for the better. She walks happily out the door, off to Kurt's car, and hops in the back seat so he can give her a lift home, asking "what was that about? You're friends now? Finally," and Mercedes just laughs to herself in the back of the car when he starts spouting off shopping plans for the weekend and Blaine starts messing with the radio. She shuffles the sheet music in her hands - she'll be practicing it on repeat for the rest of the night because it's just so fitting - and she's excited that she'll be rocking out in glee with Puck tomorrow afternoon while Phase One commences.
And really, Phase One is just as exciting as the Glee number - if not way more than.
Phase one, of course, has few details and hardly any action (nor interaction, more rather) involved. Nonetheless, Mercedes is absolutely certain - within three minutes of Rachel Berry stepping foot on McKinley soil - that Phase One of Operation Fabgay is going to be just as funny as the rest of it. And it's not Quinn's reaction that begins it, because she hasn't even seen Quinn yet - it's the rest of the student body. They exit the girl's car like any normal day, but the walk up to the steps is practically stolen from some comedic chick flick, where the hot girl walks up the stairs turning heads and spurring gasps all around. Rachel steps through the double doors with a sway of her hips and a smirk, and Mercedes loyally at her side, and right on cue Azimio is practically drooling to their left for Rachel Berry to shove her bag off to while Puck turns up out of nowhere to sling an arm around her shoulder. And just like that, Puck and Rachel steal every ounce of awe from the school, and start their stride down the hallway - Mercedes gaining the same looks they do merely by her glad association and Azimio Adams walking dazedly along in their wake, lugging Rachel's bag and staring at her ass.
"Rach?" Mercedes hazards with a grin, watching one of the footballers walk right into his girlfriend's open locker door when he turns his head too far looking at them - and it's so ridiculously cliché, but it's still goddamned funny. "Kurt picked good." And really, he did, because Rachel was seriously working the whole shorts-shirt-and-over shirt thing. "Only thing you're missing is your hat."
"I've thought about this whole thing," Rachel tells her while they turn a corner and make for the stairs. Mercedes wonders if this means she's wimping out, but Rachel still has that weird smirk on her face that no one had seen before yesterday. "And I'm only wearing that hat when I'm wooing."
"Isn't this all part of the 'wooing' plan," Puck asks a little dryly, glancing with a quirked eyebrow at Azimio behind them, who follows them dutifully up the stairs. "You have a lap dog. Nice. What did I tell you years ago, Rach? You could have boys begging at your feet."
"Instead I impose my crazy," Rachel replies idly. "And no. It might be part of the big plan, but today isn't about wooing." Her smirk get a little more pronounced as they approach her locker, sights setting on the three Cheerios huddled to the side of the hallway in conversation. "Today is about torture."
And Mercedes can only smirk as Rachel leaves Puck's arm to open her locker and Puck nabs her bag back off Azimio, sending the boy off with a slap to the back of the head. It's not this interaction that catches her, though - it's the three Cheerios a little a ways down the hall. Brittany stares off into space - characteristic, really, that's just Brittany for you. Quinn, unfortunately, is facing the other direction. Santana - well, she's the first to notice - stands up suddenly straighter, jaw dropping for a few moments.
"Oh, hot damn," floats across the hall, and it's a little staccato, but straight to the point. Classic Santana. Rachel might not see it, because she's getting thing out of her locker with her gaze forced forward and that smirk on her face, but Santana's flushing bright red - almost as bad as her uniform - and Mercedes has never seen that before."Legs."
Puck snorts a little beside her, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like "at least it's in English this time". Quinn, finally, turns around, obviously curious as to what's drawn her friend's attention. Her gaze, Mercedes notes, snaps to Rachel like she's got some kind of automatic lock-on, and Puck coughs out a laugh and a quiet "shift," that Mercedes doesn't understand until Rachel follows the direction flawlessly - shifts her weight oh-so-slowly from one foot to the other, skin sliding against skin.
Reaction is immediate.
Santana practically chokes. Mercedes doesn't notice it until Puck nudges her and turns the other way, but he chuckles out a "check out Fabray's ears," while he does, and that's when she sees it. A flush, barely there at all - tips of her ears going pink, and then she seems to grit her teeth, setting her jaw, and inside Mercedes is kind of cackling. Rachel shuts her locker a little louder and a little more sudden than usual, and Mercedes has to look away and cover her mouth to mask the laughter when Santana jumps and Quinn whirls back around, ears burning now. But Puck and Rachel are like a well-oiled machine - and Mercedes would probably find it at the least a little disconcerting that they're so good at this thing they're doing if it wasn't so damned funny - and turning the other way would not for a second be saving Quinn Fabray. So she follows her two friends as they take the steps across the hallway.
"Hey guys," Rachel says, twirling a bit of her hair around her finger innocently enough, but Mercedes knows better. "Britt, I was just wondering if you wanted a ride tonight."
And if that isn't one of the most ambiguous statements in the history of ambiguous statements, Mercedes doesn't know what is. She has to give the girl some kudos - just the right amount of exaggeration to bring attention to the word without making it seem totally intentional. Still, the intended effect is made. Santana looks like she'd about to start drooling. Quinn just forces herself to stare at the locker beside her, ears going a deeper shade of red. Puck and Mercedes exchange a glance when Brittany smiles lightly, dropping her eyes to Rachel from the ceiling.
"Oh. Rach. Hi. You look hot today," the blonde girl says, and it always sounds sweet rather than sleazy coming from Brittany - she says it absently, like it's a fact rather than an opinion, but with this innate sense of appreciation that Rachel seems to just smile at. "Dance, right? Yeah - I mean, please. A lift would be great. After Glee?"
"Sure thing," Rachel says lightly. "See you later Britt, girls."
And then she walks off - leaving Brittany to smile at the ceiling again, and Santana dazed and staring into empty space, and Quinn glaring at the wall - with Puck's arm back around her and Mercedes at her side with a fist-bump and a shared smirk.
"It's all about the teasing," Rachel tells her, like it's some kind of inside joke, and Mercedes recognises it as a Celibacy club slogan, so it's certainly not lost on her. Puck just laughs to himself, dropping both girls at their homerooms and going off on his own for the rest of the day.
That is just the beginning, of course - Phase One consists of a full-day visual assault, very little of it involving direct contact. Mostly, Rachel just does little things - puts herself on show, in a sense - without ever actually speaking directly to Quinn. In fact, despite a little exaggeration here and there, few of Rachel's actions are particularly unusual or staged - she twirls her hair around her fingers or toys with her pens in class, or throws around coy smiles and light words with the rest of the glee clubbers, or sips a little too sensually on a slushy at lunch, and god forbid anyone even dips into the pile of well-placed words and actions that is gym class - but essentially, Phase One is seemingly a success. Quinn Fabray is seen throughout the majority of her day with a flush of some capacity to her ears, or her face, or her neck, and a stiff jaw and a forced stare in any direction that doesn't hold Rachel Berry.
In Glee, after school, Rachel does nothing to attract attention - and the lack of vocalisation or movement - well that's what gets it for her. Santana takes the seat directly beside her and spends the entire meet with her eyes locked on the girl to her right, and it's a little bit creepy - this complete one-eighty that Santana's done, so Rachel must be a damned good kisser, and Phase One must be pretty freaking effective. Quinn sits at the complete opposite end of the room, but Mercedes catches her looking over a few times - wouldn't be noticeable if she wasn't looking, but she is, and it makes her smirk.
Puck offers her a fist-bump while Artie sings out in front of them all, like he knows exactly what she's thinking. Really, he's a kind of decent guy and she's coming to realise that. Sure, he's had his moments in the past where she's thought it - Puck could be nice, and sweet, and show this strong sense of integrity - but then he would revert to harsh words and womanizing, and those moments would be gone. Around Rachel - and now, maybe, around her - he still drops the comments and the pick-up lines, but it's more funny than anything else. And she knows he'd do anything for Rachel - anything at all - even if she doesn't know why that is or how exactly she knows that.
But she likes this Puck, who offers her fist bumps, and helps to taunt Quinn Fabray, and laughs at Santana Lopez's libido. Rachel's Puck. Noah. And so, she's kind of excited to sing with him, and when Artie finishes his song to a round of applause they both stand together and make their way down to the front of the club. Finn isn't here - quite possibly he's been pulled out of Glee, but no one has really bothered so far to make sure - and everyone else is loose and happy and relaxed, and Santana is making moon eyes at Rachel while Quinn scoffs in the corner, and Puck picks up a guitar and Sam sits back in his seat with a harmonica (which is weird, but given his lips not a shocker, and hey, Rachel was right, someone did play it), but it's absolutely perfect.
"So we were supposed to express ourselves," Mercedes hazards, and not for the first time in the last few days, she's a little unsure of her words. "And..."
"It might not be ourselves that we're expressing," Puck says for her, putting up that faux-uncaring 'I'm-king-shit' tone of voice that everyone is kind of used to while he says something that probably shouldn't make as much sense as it does. Normalcy is grand. "But we are expressing something. That we're feeling, and that we hope is happening, or will happen, or whatever."
Mister Schuester purses his lips a little at the breach of subject, but nods anyway. Curiosity probably getting the best of him, Mercedes thinks. But she's thankful, because she actually really wants to do this - declare it, really. And she wants people to listen, because she really feels this song. Feels like it will all get better.
Puck starts to play - light, individual notes plucked, Rachel beaming from her seat. Artie steals up a bass guitar, quickly recognising the song and coming in at the right time, flawlessly followed by Sam on the harmonica, and before Puck even starts singing the first verse (it was going to be her until they realised those lyrics? Well, to him they had a lot more relevance and a lot more regret) it's pretty obvious that this is going to be good. One of the band boys - no one knows their names, but they should probably find out - gets over to the drums for his cue, and Puck starts singing with practiced ease.
"How many of you people out there
have been hurt in some kind of love affair?
And how many times do you swear that you'll never love again?"
They split the song, and considering they only practiced through it in the morning, and again at lunch, and only Sam came to help them, it's sounding pretty damned good. Some of the club are dancing along in their seats, all smiling, all getting to understand, and then Mercedes moves forward to pull Rachel out of her chair and dance along with them out on the floor, and Brittany is the next one up to join them.
"You can turn the clock to zero, honey -
I'll sell the stock, we'll spend all the money,
We're starting up a brand new day.
Turn the clock all the way back -
I wonder if she'll take me back -
I'm thinking in a brand new way."
Everyone slowly moves to join them on the floor, joining into the impromptu 'dancing' session like they do in this club, like they do when they sing and they mean it. Mercedes and Puck sing their lead, and Sam plays his harmonica like a pro, and the rest of them supply backing in all the right places while Brittany gives Rachel a spin and they giggle along like old friends. The song isn't about lost love or anything - sometimes lyrics are a little misleading, so the sentiment is kind of understandable. It's about letting go, moving on, starting again, ignoring all the bad things and focussing on the good, possibility, reformation - a brand new day - exactly what Mercedes wants, what Puck is hoping for, what Rachel needs.
And the club - well, by the end of it Mercedes thinks they get it. She thinks they understand. McKinley's Glee club has had its drama, and more than a fair share of it to be honest. But they can all move past it, and move past the words and the insults, the slushies and the heartbreak. They can look for the good in each other instead of the bad and start again - like she's going to do, is doing, with Rachel. And their friendships and relationships - they aren't going to be like they are now - existent only when convenient, pragmatic, all talk. They need to be real. And this is the chance for them all to do that. The wide smiles on her friends' faces and the hugs that are going around make her think that they have to get it. They have to understand. There's no way they can't.
And she exchanges this wide grin with Puck, because he thinks so too, and this was just so awesome, and Mister Schue thinks so too because he has this brilliant, wide smile on his face and this glistening in his eyes while he tells them a simple "that was... amazing, guys" that speaks volumes.
And really, it was, because she and Puck? They make Sting sound good.
/-\
Turn the clock to zero, sister -
You'll never know how much I missed her.
Starting up a brand new day.
Turn the clock to zero, boss -
The river's wide, we'll swim across.
Started up a brand new day
Author: iamsamflynn
Spoilers: A Very Glee Christmas.
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn.
Length: 5000+
Rating: up to R.
Summary: They meet Hiram Berry for the first time at the hospital, and Puck explains that this all started with a badly scheduled date.
A/N: Operation Fabgay is underway.
The colour of Rachel's bedroom wall is far from unfamiliar.
To Puck, anyway. And to Kurt. Mercedes? Well, she's never been there, and she seems a little uncomfortable with how obviously at home the two boys are in the room. Blaine just sits a little curiously in the corner, eyeing up the laptop that's been left open on the desk, itunes displayed on the screen with an absurdly high time totalled at the bottom of it. Kurt is standing by the open closet, humming to himself while he flicks through the shirts on the racks like he's looking for something in particular - Mercedes doesn't know why he would be looking for anything in Rachel Berry's closet, but he's content there so she can't fault him. Puck is just staring absently at the window, arms crossed over his chest and fingers drumming on his bicep while he sits on the girl's bed.
Mercedes has the desk chair, and she's damned uncomfortable in it - it's a cozy chair, no doubt about it, but this is Rachel Berry's room. And she can tell, too, because it's like everything has this perfect place and there's not a single thing out of line. It's kind of like being in Miss Pillsbury's office (or whatever her surname is now, she doesn't really know) - sickeningly perfect, except not really, because there's personal touches all over the place.
Rachel herself left the room ten minutes ago saying something about her dads and pizza. She returns now with the latter.
She passes one to Kurt - who, in a moment of humility, drops to take a seat on the floor near Mercedes, readying himself to share - another pizza box to Blaine, who looks away from the laptop to receive it. Then the girl drops into the free space on her bed beside Puck, and they share the last pizza like old friends. Which, really, Mercedes has kind of figured out they are.
"Double bacon cheeseburger," Puck grumbles, and Mercedes looks at him oddly, because he's staring at his pizza in awe and Rachel's stealing a slice of it right beneath his gaze. "Aw, Rach, you spoil me."
"Spoil you?" the girl replies in a laugh. "Like hell. You're my excuse. I'm spoiling myself."
"You're both Jewish, isn't there something against bacon there?" Mercedes asks, more than a little confused while Kurt passes her his pizza box. They've been sharing their pizzas since their friendship started. Then she looks directly at Rachel. "Aren't you, like, hardcore vegan?"
The Broadway diva shrugs. "I cheat sometimes," is her explanation. "Contrary to what I'm told by 'Scott Pilgrim Versus The World', there is no vegan police, and I'm not going to lose my awesome Vegan super powers if I indulge every once in a while."
"Also," Puck puts in flatly, "bacon is really good."
They ignore any further confusion from her and go back to splitting their pizza, and Mercedes stares at them for another few moments before Kurt taps her on the knee and reminds her she has a pizza of her own to dig in to.
"Rach, I know we weren't 'friends' before, but why was it that when I came over for that makeover you didn't show me your closet?" Kurt asks in the silence, earning a raised eyebrow from the girl in question. He shrugs. "Curiosity. It never really struck me before today, but you actually have some really nice things in there. I've been known to give you the scathing comments about your fashion, but you could have proven me wrong every other day for the last year and a half."
Rachel just takes another bite of her pizza, glances at Puck beside her and shrugs.
"Kurt, how many times did you wear the latest designer brand to school, only to have it stained bright in corn syrup before lunch?" she asks a little dully, and he frowns at the thought. Concession, Mercedes thinks as she looks over his pinched expression and his short nod. "There's no point in wearing nice things to school if they're just going to wind up wrecked. The stuff I wear to school? Cheap. Might not look the best, but it gets the job done. And wearing different clothes to school wasn't going to change anything, really, because I'd still be a loser from the Glee club with an insufferable personality. Who I am there, and who I am here, don't have to meet. So people can sit there and tell me how 'unfashionable' I am, and it goes over my head, because they don't know me."
It's all very resigned and matter-of-fact, and not for the first time Mercedes is struck by some sense of regret. Other than taking all the solos in glee club and being prone to overdramatic tendencies, there's really no excuse for the way that Rachel has been treated. For sure, the girl has made mistakes, but she's never been mean - not to Mercedes, not ever. And really, then, where did the dislike ever spring from.
"Sheep," Rachel drawls from the bed, her vacant gaze stuck on Mercedes. Said intended shivers a little at the look.
"What?"
"You were a sheep," Rachel says again, like it explains everything, like she's in Mercedes's head. "That's what you're wondering. I was hated - bottom of the social heap, second only to Jewfro, and as far as anyone else cared, I was okay with that. Your natural inclination by that standard? Follow suit. Because if you could hate me too, then you would be better than me."
Mercedes shudders, the pizza in her mouth turning to the taste of cardboard, because it's a totally true but totally tasteless explanation. And more than that, apparently Rachel does have a sixth sense, because she picked the thought right out of her head.
Creepy.
"It's okay, Mercedes, I don't mind," Rachel continues with a smile. "People are people, and people change. You cleaned me up on Monday. So I don't mind."
She's struck by the realisation that Rachel's intensity is deterrent. Sure, she's a little bit weird in the head (aren't they all?), and a little anal-retentive, and quite obviously obsessive-compulsive in a lot of ways. But when she's not at school or in Glee, and she's not warding off attacks from all sides, Rachel's not even half as overbearing or obnoxious as she is in it. In fact, she's actually pretty cool. Sure, she's scarily organised, and a little socially defunct, but she's kind of funny in a quirky way, and she can hold some pretty good conversation. More than that, it's pretty evident she holds few grudges, and she's pretty damned easy to please - although, by the looks of it, Puck tries a lot harder than he generally has to.
And really, the longer Mercedes sits at the desk in her room - watching as Blaine drags up some Katy Perry song from the vast itunes library and starts dancing around the room with Kurt, or refereeing Puck and Blaine's arm wrestle, or putting in her own opinions to Kurt's dissection of Rachel's wardrobe - the more she wants to befriend Rachel Berry. Being privy to the conversations of said Broadway diva and the people who are already her friends is giving her a hell of a lot of insight on the girl, on her relationships, and it's certainly spurring the thought.
"So what's the game plan, Rach?" Puck asks at one point, and he's tearing pages out of a spare notebook so he can scrunch them up and play basketball with the small trash can beside the desk, across the room from him. From a glance at Kurt, Mercedes figures he doesn't know what 'game' Puck's referencing, but Rachel's all-too-polite answer kind of indicates that she definitely does.
"Oh, I don't know, Noah? Specifics? To which game are you referring?" the girl says, but it's too sweet with the accompanying smile to be anything but jokingly constructed. Puck just smirks.
"Quinn Fabray."
There's an odd silence and an exchange of unsure glances between Kurt and Mercedes, but Rachel just turns to Puck with a flourish and a smirk, and links her fingers to crack her knuckles. Blaine winces at the sound - simultaneous, because Kurt does too.
"There is no game plan," Rachel says after a moment, spreading her hands a little - a gesture of innocence, all too obviously staged. "Not for tomorrow, anyway. She'll be expecting it tomorrow."
"Suspense," Puck says with an approving nod. "Let her sweat. And get comfortable again. And then - attack."
"You're attacking Quinn?" Kurt asks, voice filled with confusion and a little concern. Rachel just shakes her head while Puck grins, his mind wandering away somewhere or other. Mercedes just watches it all unfold with narrowed eyes and curiosity and warning - these two will not be messing with Quinn. Rachel might be a bit cool and totally worth befriending, but Quinn was totally there first. And Mercedes is nothing if not loyal.
"No," Rachel says simply. "Not attacking. I believe the correct term is-"
"Wooing," Puck says for her, nodding to himself absently, and Rachel copies the motion.
"Wooing."
"Seducing works too."
"Probably."
"...Ensnaring?"
"...Too far, Noah. Too far."
"No, wait, what?" Mercedes interrupts quickly, and she coughs a little because her confusion has sent her voice right up in pitch which sounds kind of awkward. There's a certain exasperation with the situation - Puck would naturally be involved in any such scheme. Sure, there was a rumour at school today that Rachel had been caught making out in the choir room with Santana Lopez, but it didn't strike Mercedes even for a second as plausible Rachel Berry behaviour, and neither does this. Knowing that Rachel is involved - well, that's where the whole thing gets weird, and Mercedes thinks she must be tripping. "You are going to seduce Quinn Fabray. You, Rachel Berry, are going to seduce Quinn Fabray?"
Rachel just narrows her eyes - not at Mercedes, not at anyone, more just at some small part of the idea. She looks fierce, in a way. Determined. "I was issued with a challenge in the throes of Spanish class today, and I fully intend to commit!" and, well, that definitely sounds like something Rachel Berry would say, even if it is in regards to the seduction of a girl. "The gauntlet has been thrown!"
"It certainly helps that Fabray's been topping your girl crush list since eighth grade," Kurt puts in mildly, cocking his head to the side and tapping his chin idly. Mercedes just gapes, because Kurt seems so accepting of this entire situation - she didn't even know Rachel swung that way until today! Rachel doesn't deny it - even for a moment - just gives Kurt this guilty smile and bites her lip a little. "Can I help pick your outfits? You're dropping the argyle now, I presume - having had the entire school warded off of you."
And Rachel just nods, skipping over to the closet while Kurt picks himself up off the ground and moves to assist her. Mercedes is still running all of this insanity through her mind, because she might not have said a single bad word to Rachel since Sectionals, but she still never thought she'd be sitting in the girl's bedroom with Noah Puckerman and Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson while the lot of them manufacture plans to turn Quinn Fabray gay.
But then Kurt pulls a slinky black dress from the closet and announces that "this would go great with your stitches, Rach!" and Rachel starts giggling, toying with the Star Of David hanging around her neck while Puck shouts out stupid ideas for this plot of theirs and Blaine noisily counters all of them across the room, and Mercedes realises this isn't so bad. In fact, it's kind of funny. Not-so-covert operations, she figures, with humour in mind, and maybe she's a little curious about what Rachel can do to Quinn and how far this will go. Because the plan isn't to hurt Quinn, and in a way it sounds like Quinn knows all about it, and really, what could it hurt?
So by the end of the night she's in on it, and Kurt's picked out an outfit for Rachel for every day of the next three weeks, and Blaine has successfully shot down every one of Puck's terrible 'romantic ideas' (Mercedes has the suspicion that Puck made at least half of them up with the intention of having them denied). Somehow, amidst all the planning for 'Operation Fabgay' - as Puck so eloquently dubs it - Rachel manages to shove a thin stack of sheet music off on her and Puck and asks them to "please, please consider it, because it's a pretty cool song and I'm sure you two could make it awesome, and yes there's a guy at school who plays the harmonica", and they have a potential number for Glee tomorrow. And more than that, she's realised that Rachel Berry is actually really cool to hang out with, and she's probably been terribly unfair to the girl - even though Rachel has acted pretty insufferable, and admits it - and she'd like to be Rachel's friend and fix this.
So when they're all forwarding out through the door at the end of the night, Mercedes hangs back for a moment and looks to Rachel more than a little bashfully.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry, Rachel. I haven't treated you that well over the years, and the way you have acted in school isn't any kind of excuse for that. But after tonight - I mean, you're pretty cool," she says, and she doesn't think she's ever been this unsure of her words before. It's not that she doesn't mean them, it's just that she doesn't know if she's saying this right. "What I - what I mean to say is," she says, taking a breath to steady herself and just get it out already, because Rachel's looking at her in a little bit of astonishment. "I-I'm sorry for every bad thing I've ever said, and I'd really, really like to be your friend if - if you could forgive me...?"
Rachel just stares at her for a few minutes, blinks twice, and maybe 'I want to be your friend' is a little grade-school, but it's out there now and she can't take it back. It's the sentiment that counts, right? But then Rachel smiles widely - happy and gentle all at the same time - and Mercedes knows she's got this right.
"I'd like that," she says. "If you can forgive my behaviour too."
And then Mercedes smiles and nods, and Rachel promises to give her a lift to school in the morning, and Mercedes hugs her, and it's such a great feeling, because she just knows Rachel's going to be a good friend to her - one of the best - and today's taken a turn for the better. She walks happily out the door, off to Kurt's car, and hops in the back seat so he can give her a lift home, asking "what was that about? You're friends now? Finally," and Mercedes just laughs to herself in the back of the car when he starts spouting off shopping plans for the weekend and Blaine starts messing with the radio. She shuffles the sheet music in her hands - she'll be practicing it on repeat for the rest of the night because it's just so fitting - and she's excited that she'll be rocking out in glee with Puck tomorrow afternoon while Phase One commences.
And really, Phase One is just as exciting as the Glee number - if not way more than.
Phase one, of course, has few details and hardly any action (nor interaction, more rather) involved. Nonetheless, Mercedes is absolutely certain - within three minutes of Rachel Berry stepping foot on McKinley soil - that Phase One of Operation Fabgay is going to be just as funny as the rest of it. And it's not Quinn's reaction that begins it, because she hasn't even seen Quinn yet - it's the rest of the student body. They exit the girl's car like any normal day, but the walk up to the steps is practically stolen from some comedic chick flick, where the hot girl walks up the stairs turning heads and spurring gasps all around. Rachel steps through the double doors with a sway of her hips and a smirk, and Mercedes loyally at her side, and right on cue Azimio is practically drooling to their left for Rachel Berry to shove her bag off to while Puck turns up out of nowhere to sling an arm around her shoulder. And just like that, Puck and Rachel steal every ounce of awe from the school, and start their stride down the hallway - Mercedes gaining the same looks they do merely by her glad association and Azimio Adams walking dazedly along in their wake, lugging Rachel's bag and staring at her ass.
"Rach?" Mercedes hazards with a grin, watching one of the footballers walk right into his girlfriend's open locker door when he turns his head too far looking at them - and it's so ridiculously cliché, but it's still goddamned funny. "Kurt picked good." And really, he did, because Rachel was seriously working the whole shorts-shirt-and-over shirt thing. "Only thing you're missing is your hat."
"I've thought about this whole thing," Rachel tells her while they turn a corner and make for the stairs. Mercedes wonders if this means she's wimping out, but Rachel still has that weird smirk on her face that no one had seen before yesterday. "And I'm only wearing that hat when I'm wooing."
"Isn't this all part of the 'wooing' plan," Puck asks a little dryly, glancing with a quirked eyebrow at Azimio behind them, who follows them dutifully up the stairs. "You have a lap dog. Nice. What did I tell you years ago, Rach? You could have boys begging at your feet."
"Instead I impose my crazy," Rachel replies idly. "And no. It might be part of the big plan, but today isn't about wooing." Her smirk get a little more pronounced as they approach her locker, sights setting on the three Cheerios huddled to the side of the hallway in conversation. "Today is about torture."
And Mercedes can only smirk as Rachel leaves Puck's arm to open her locker and Puck nabs her bag back off Azimio, sending the boy off with a slap to the back of the head. It's not this interaction that catches her, though - it's the three Cheerios a little a ways down the hall. Brittany stares off into space - characteristic, really, that's just Brittany for you. Quinn, unfortunately, is facing the other direction. Santana - well, she's the first to notice - stands up suddenly straighter, jaw dropping for a few moments.
"Oh, hot damn," floats across the hall, and it's a little staccato, but straight to the point. Classic Santana. Rachel might not see it, because she's getting thing out of her locker with her gaze forced forward and that smirk on her face, but Santana's flushing bright red - almost as bad as her uniform - and Mercedes has never seen that before."Legs."
Puck snorts a little beside her, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like "at least it's in English this time". Quinn, finally, turns around, obviously curious as to what's drawn her friend's attention. Her gaze, Mercedes notes, snaps to Rachel like she's got some kind of automatic lock-on, and Puck coughs out a laugh and a quiet "shift," that Mercedes doesn't understand until Rachel follows the direction flawlessly - shifts her weight oh-so-slowly from one foot to the other, skin sliding against skin.
Reaction is immediate.
Santana practically chokes. Mercedes doesn't notice it until Puck nudges her and turns the other way, but he chuckles out a "check out Fabray's ears," while he does, and that's when she sees it. A flush, barely there at all - tips of her ears going pink, and then she seems to grit her teeth, setting her jaw, and inside Mercedes is kind of cackling. Rachel shuts her locker a little louder and a little more sudden than usual, and Mercedes has to look away and cover her mouth to mask the laughter when Santana jumps and Quinn whirls back around, ears burning now. But Puck and Rachel are like a well-oiled machine - and Mercedes would probably find it at the least a little disconcerting that they're so good at this thing they're doing if it wasn't so damned funny - and turning the other way would not for a second be saving Quinn Fabray. So she follows her two friends as they take the steps across the hallway.
"Hey guys," Rachel says, twirling a bit of her hair around her finger innocently enough, but Mercedes knows better. "Britt, I was just wondering if you wanted a ride tonight."
And if that isn't one of the most ambiguous statements in the history of ambiguous statements, Mercedes doesn't know what is. She has to give the girl some kudos - just the right amount of exaggeration to bring attention to the word without making it seem totally intentional. Still, the intended effect is made. Santana looks like she'd about to start drooling. Quinn just forces herself to stare at the locker beside her, ears going a deeper shade of red. Puck and Mercedes exchange a glance when Brittany smiles lightly, dropping her eyes to Rachel from the ceiling.
"Oh. Rach. Hi. You look hot today," the blonde girl says, and it always sounds sweet rather than sleazy coming from Brittany - she says it absently, like it's a fact rather than an opinion, but with this innate sense of appreciation that Rachel seems to just smile at. "Dance, right? Yeah - I mean, please. A lift would be great. After Glee?"
"Sure thing," Rachel says lightly. "See you later Britt, girls."
And then she walks off - leaving Brittany to smile at the ceiling again, and Santana dazed and staring into empty space, and Quinn glaring at the wall - with Puck's arm back around her and Mercedes at her side with a fist-bump and a shared smirk.
"It's all about the teasing," Rachel tells her, like it's some kind of inside joke, and Mercedes recognises it as a Celibacy club slogan, so it's certainly not lost on her. Puck just laughs to himself, dropping both girls at their homerooms and going off on his own for the rest of the day.
That is just the beginning, of course - Phase One consists of a full-day visual assault, very little of it involving direct contact. Mostly, Rachel just does little things - puts herself on show, in a sense - without ever actually speaking directly to Quinn. In fact, despite a little exaggeration here and there, few of Rachel's actions are particularly unusual or staged - she twirls her hair around her fingers or toys with her pens in class, or throws around coy smiles and light words with the rest of the glee clubbers, or sips a little too sensually on a slushy at lunch, and god forbid anyone even dips into the pile of well-placed words and actions that is gym class - but essentially, Phase One is seemingly a success. Quinn Fabray is seen throughout the majority of her day with a flush of some capacity to her ears, or her face, or her neck, and a stiff jaw and a forced stare in any direction that doesn't hold Rachel Berry.
In Glee, after school, Rachel does nothing to attract attention - and the lack of vocalisation or movement - well that's what gets it for her. Santana takes the seat directly beside her and spends the entire meet with her eyes locked on the girl to her right, and it's a little bit creepy - this complete one-eighty that Santana's done, so Rachel must be a damned good kisser, and Phase One must be pretty freaking effective. Quinn sits at the complete opposite end of the room, but Mercedes catches her looking over a few times - wouldn't be noticeable if she wasn't looking, but she is, and it makes her smirk.
Puck offers her a fist-bump while Artie sings out in front of them all, like he knows exactly what she's thinking. Really, he's a kind of decent guy and she's coming to realise that. Sure, he's had his moments in the past where she's thought it - Puck could be nice, and sweet, and show this strong sense of integrity - but then he would revert to harsh words and womanizing, and those moments would be gone. Around Rachel - and now, maybe, around her - he still drops the comments and the pick-up lines, but it's more funny than anything else. And she knows he'd do anything for Rachel - anything at all - even if she doesn't know why that is or how exactly she knows that.
But she likes this Puck, who offers her fist bumps, and helps to taunt Quinn Fabray, and laughs at Santana Lopez's libido. Rachel's Puck. Noah. And so, she's kind of excited to sing with him, and when Artie finishes his song to a round of applause they both stand together and make their way down to the front of the club. Finn isn't here - quite possibly he's been pulled out of Glee, but no one has really bothered so far to make sure - and everyone else is loose and happy and relaxed, and Santana is making moon eyes at Rachel while Quinn scoffs in the corner, and Puck picks up a guitar and Sam sits back in his seat with a harmonica (which is weird, but given his lips not a shocker, and hey, Rachel was right, someone did play it), but it's absolutely perfect.
"So we were supposed to express ourselves," Mercedes hazards, and not for the first time in the last few days, she's a little unsure of her words. "And..."
"It might not be ourselves that we're expressing," Puck says for her, putting up that faux-uncaring 'I'm-king-shit' tone of voice that everyone is kind of used to while he says something that probably shouldn't make as much sense as it does. Normalcy is grand. "But we are expressing something. That we're feeling, and that we hope is happening, or will happen, or whatever."
Mister Schuester purses his lips a little at the breach of subject, but nods anyway. Curiosity probably getting the best of him, Mercedes thinks. But she's thankful, because she actually really wants to do this - declare it, really. And she wants people to listen, because she really feels this song. Feels like it will all get better.
Puck starts to play - light, individual notes plucked, Rachel beaming from her seat. Artie steals up a bass guitar, quickly recognising the song and coming in at the right time, flawlessly followed by Sam on the harmonica, and before Puck even starts singing the first verse (it was going to be her until they realised those lyrics? Well, to him they had a lot more relevance and a lot more regret) it's pretty obvious that this is going to be good. One of the band boys - no one knows their names, but they should probably find out - gets over to the drums for his cue, and Puck starts singing with practiced ease.
"How many of you people out there
have been hurt in some kind of love affair?
And how many times do you swear that you'll never love again?"
They split the song, and considering they only practiced through it in the morning, and again at lunch, and only Sam came to help them, it's sounding pretty damned good. Some of the club are dancing along in their seats, all smiling, all getting to understand, and then Mercedes moves forward to pull Rachel out of her chair and dance along with them out on the floor, and Brittany is the next one up to join them.
"You can turn the clock to zero, honey -
I'll sell the stock, we'll spend all the money,
We're starting up a brand new day.
Turn the clock all the way back -
I wonder if she'll take me back -
I'm thinking in a brand new way."
Everyone slowly moves to join them on the floor, joining into the impromptu 'dancing' session like they do in this club, like they do when they sing and they mean it. Mercedes and Puck sing their lead, and Sam plays his harmonica like a pro, and the rest of them supply backing in all the right places while Brittany gives Rachel a spin and they giggle along like old friends. The song isn't about lost love or anything - sometimes lyrics are a little misleading, so the sentiment is kind of understandable. It's about letting go, moving on, starting again, ignoring all the bad things and focussing on the good, possibility, reformation - a brand new day - exactly what Mercedes wants, what Puck is hoping for, what Rachel needs.
And the club - well, by the end of it Mercedes thinks they get it. She thinks they understand. McKinley's Glee club has had its drama, and more than a fair share of it to be honest. But they can all move past it, and move past the words and the insults, the slushies and the heartbreak. They can look for the good in each other instead of the bad and start again - like she's going to do, is doing, with Rachel. And their friendships and relationships - they aren't going to be like they are now - existent only when convenient, pragmatic, all talk. They need to be real. And this is the chance for them all to do that. The wide smiles on her friends' faces and the hugs that are going around make her think that they have to get it. They have to understand. There's no way they can't.
And she exchanges this wide grin with Puck, because he thinks so too, and this was just so awesome, and Mister Schue thinks so too because he has this brilliant, wide smile on his face and this glistening in his eyes while he tells them a simple "that was... amazing, guys" that speaks volumes.
And really, it was, because she and Puck? They make Sting sound good.
/-\
Turn the clock to zero, sister -
You'll never know how much I missed her.
Starting up a brand new day.
Turn the clock to zero, boss -
The river's wide, we'll swim across.
Started up a brand new day