Glee fic: "Show Face" (3/?)
Title: Show Face (part 3)
Pairing: Jesse/Rachel
Rating: R (this chapter)
Word count: 3,657
Summary: This is the story of how Rachel manages to turn Jesse from the Phantom of the Opera into Raoul, and completely without intention. Jesse is dumbfounded.
From Sectionals to Journey (and beyond): this is Glee, from Jesse's point of view.
part one
part two
Life is far from sunny when the laugh is over, and the joke’s on you
He doesn’t intend to see Rachel ever again. He thinks he couldn’t take it: he misses her, he realizes, admitting it only to himself. He allows this. He misses her a little, but the lack of appetite and inability to concentrate cannot be attributed to this.
Still, for the first time in his entire life, Jesse fakes sick. His uncle doesn’t bother to check his forehead or question the lack of any symptoms. Jesse spends his empty days rehearsing Bohemian Rhapsody with the mp3 backing track Miss Corcoran emailed him, and searching frantically for a place to stay within Carmel’s school district. His parents aren’t due back from Bali till June.
Eventually he wears them down and gains permission to stay in their house alone. The next week, he’s back at Carmel without even a word to Rachel. He doesn’t know how much she knows about his part in the whole thing, but he doesn’t want to stick around for the lecture - or worse, to see the expression he knows she will wear: confused and hurt and sort of dazed, like a kicked puppy that doesn’t know what it’s done wrong, and is still stunned from the blow.
How do you think I’m gonna get along without you when you’re gone?
The choice is not his own: Andrea informs him he will be coming with them to funkify New Directions. “You’re the only one who can do Freddy justice,” she says with a coy smile. She’s right, but that isn’t the reason. Still, he’s not stupid enough to try and argue.
“Jesse?” Rachel looks stunned, and he can’t believe she didn’t expect this, after he hasn’t been at school for a whole week. But then it’s Rachel, and she sees the good in people. “What are you doing up there with them?”
Playing my part, he doesn’t say. Playing the role expected of me by my team, by yours - look at them. Even your naïve little band of misfits were smart enough to see this coming. Why are you surprised?
Singing Another One Bites the Dust, Jesse stares out over the top of Rachel’s head, unable to meet her eyes. He lets Andrea rub herself up against him like a cat in heat, feeling sick inside, and he doesn’t look into Rachel’s wounded eyes until the rest of them have turned away. This way they cannot see the regret in his face and doubt his loyalty.
She just stares at him, clearly hurt but still proud, like she’s silently reprimanding him for his betrayal. Her steady gaze makes him feel like when he was small, and he was told by his parents or his nanny or (worst of all) his instructors that they were “very disappointed” in him. He sets his jaw, automatically on the defence - she doesn’t understand - but as he turns away, he knows she does. She is still disappointed. She would have refused, she would have told them that it was unnecessary and cruel. She would have been stronger.
Funkification is a dangerous practise. It all gets out of control before he even realizes what’s happening. The plan had been to egg the McKinley’s entrance and a select few cars (Mr. Schuester’s and Kurt Hummel’s, and a few randoms: Jesse is thankful Rachel doesn’t have a car), and then, in the parking lot, Andrea grabs his arm to stop him from throwing the first egg.
“Wait,” she says, and smiles. “I have a better idea.” She pulls his cell phone out of his own pocket and presses it into his palm. “Call your ex-girlfriend.”
He has to carefully consider his response. You don’t run away from a bear: you play dead. He gives her a mildly incredulous stare. “Not really thinking big, are you? She’s just one girl. There isn’t much damage.”
“There’ll be plenty of damage,” Anna says slowly, stepping forward, looking at him so knowingly that it’s infuriating.
“She’s their star,” Jason adds. “Their not-so-secret weapon.”
“Don’t tell me you’re worried,” Jesse taunts, a challenge he hopes they can’t ignore.
“We are worried.” Anna puts a hand on his arm like she’s trying to comfort him, but the feeling he gets is very different. Her grip is tight. “We’re worried about you, Jesse.”
“It’ll be team bonding,” Sara offers cheerfully. “We could use some of that. You haven’t really been around much.”
“Special assignment from Miss Corcoran,” he says defensively. “You know that.”
“Of course. But it sucks how you haven’t even been at any rehearsals, or any parties.”
“I went on Spring Break with you,” he protests, but he stops trying to defend himself after that. They’re silent, watching him. At some point they’d formed a semi-circle, looking nonchalant, but he knows better. They are alert. They are circling wolves. Once they followed him; they were the closest he had to equals, their hair glossy and their bodies toned, their voices always as ready to sing as to tear someone to pieces. Once they were the perfect back-up, on the stage and off. Now there is dissent in the ranks. The choice is mutiny or sabotage, and Jesse’s fingers shake as he dials Rachel’s number. He tries to appreciate the drama of the moment, but it’s ruined by the delight on her face as she runs toward him, her hair flying out in ribbons behind her. She looks beautiful, and he can see even from far away that she is filled with hope.
He flinches at the first crack of the egg hitting her head. He watches her realization and then quiet acceptance. She just curls her arms over her face and hunches her back, like a turtle retreating into its shell until the attack is over. His heartbeat is painful, like it’s literally smacking his ribcage, like the harder they hit her the harder it pounds. He hardens his expression: he has come this far. To show remorse would be to shed blood in the water.
“Are you with us or not?”
He can feel the weight of their expectations, their murmured encouragements grating on him as Rachel stands, fists clenched but back straight and chin up, defiant as ever. She waits for him to throw the last egg. It sits in his palm, smooth and round and warm with his body heat.
“I loved you,” he says, because it’s the closest he can get to an apology in front of them. Because even though it’s a lie - feelings don’t fade just by turning one’s back, and he’s only realizing now how much he does care for her, this brilliant, sweet, talented girl starved of affection and yet bursting with confidence and optimism.
Is that love, if he can still break her heart, and in front of all her worst enemies, making a show of her pain? Love is meant to be the most powerful force in the known universe, if music and film and theatre are to be believed. (And Jesse can’t consider that they aren’t.) It’s meant to conquer all, to be stronger even than death.
So is it his love for her that is so weak, or Jesse himself?
You’re a coward, St. James, he tells himself as he washes the egg off his hands. It repeats itself in his head like a mantra all the rest of the day, as Michael thumps him on the back in congratulations; as Lauren flirts with him in the car as he’s driving her home; as Miss Corcoran roars her disapproval at each and every one of them the next day. Jesse supposes she was informed by Mr. Schuester.
“They’re no competition and you know it,” she shouts, her eyes like steel as she stares at him. Only at him, he could swear, maybe because he got to know Rachel and knows, like Miss Corcoran must, that she is fragile and naive and didn’t deserve this. “What are you all so afraid of that you had to do this? Funkification is one thing. I don’t ever want to see something like this again, or I swear to Stephen Sondheim not a single one of you will perform at Nationals.”
Jesse isn’t sure if the threat has any weight - consecutive National titles mean something to Miss Corcoran, but maybe her daughter means more - but it’s sufficient to chasten the others.
“You will each of you write an individual letter of apology to Rachel Berry,” Miss Corcoran informs them, and no one dares say a word of protest.
Vocal Adrenaline is to Carmel what the Cheerios are to McKinley: hierarchies are subjective, and Jesse had been at the top of everything until Miss Corcoran’s special assignment. He remembers how it felt to strut the halls of Carmel with girls fluttering their eyelashes and boys thumping his shoulder and even teachers smiling brightly when he passed. He’s seen Cheerios do far worse to far better people for far less payoff - he’s back at the top, Carmel’s king once again, and from the way some of the girls are looking at him at they file out of the auditorium, poised to have a new queen any day now.
But he sees Rachel’s large, tremulous eyes in his head, her voice telling him to break it like you broke my heart - he appreciated the drama, it was a line worthy of a tragedy - and yet her eyes, soft and wide, hoping against her better judgment that he would have a Henry Higgins epiphany and toss it aside. That perhaps he’d grown so accustomed to her face that he was going to give up years of work just for her knee-socks and animal sweaters and the way she scrunches up her nose when she laughs too hard.
He writes this in his letter, taking care to write in smooth, slow cursive, using all the right words and yet, when he’s done, he tears it into shreds. She won’t feel an ounce of pity, having worked just as hard and gotten nothing and still kept going, still singing in the face of Slushies and insults and (now) eggs. She’d lived her whole school life in that position. She wouldn’t understand his inability to do the same.
He writes another one, telling her he isn’t as strong as her, that wishes he didn’t need external validation of his talent, or need people to like him, but it’s just as bad. It will seem like he’s trying to flatter her into forgiveness.
He even writes a third filled with awful things, telling her she was a fool for trusting him, telling her she deserved the eggs and that she would always be a loser, that her little club would be crushed at Regionals. His rationale is that perhaps it would be a backwards sort of kindness to make himself even easier for her to hate: then she won’t ever wonder what if, or realize the truth - that what he’d done was terrible, but that he’d acted like a scared little boy, and hated himself for it.
In the end, his letter is brief and concise.
Rachel,
I did it all to further my career. I was wrong. But I know you will understand, at least. The drive, the pure and raw determination to make it, no matter what gets in your way. It’s what will make us stars.
I’m sorry for what I did to you. I hope you can hate me half as much as I hate myself: that hate will help you at Regionals. Give us everything you’ve got.
With love,
- Jesse St. James
He hesitates, and then he crosses out with love. She won’t want to see that. Instead, he writes sincerely, and then slips it into an envelope with a gold star sticker to seal it shut.
Jesse resolved, writing that letter, to tell Rachel no more lies. He wanted to write that he wishes he could do it over again, that he would do it differently, but the sad thing is he knows he wouldn’t. He regrets it, he curses that egg and his pathetic need for acceptance and the day Miss Corcoran told him she had a favour to ask. But if put in that moment again, in the face of his insecurities and the palpable pressure of Vocal Adrenaline’s expectations, he thinks he would crush that egg on her forehead over and over again. He thinks of it like an instinct. A star must be loved; a star must be accepted; a star must be appreciated. His star instincts took over while his jaw clenched and his throat closed up. He would forever play second fiddle to Finn Hudson if he stayed, and Jesse St. James is second to no one. Especially not to someone who Jesse can out-sing on his worst day. What gives Finn the edge is his looks, stature, and that dumbfounded expression always on his face, like he’s forever baffled by what’s going on around him but is doing his best to keep up. Jesse does not understand the appeal, but then, he’s not a girl. Or Mr. Schuester, whose doting can only be explained by a desperate desire to relive his glory days through Finn.
The next day at rehearsal, Miss Corcoran says - to the entire choir - right before they start on Bohemian Rhapsody: “Kyle, I want you to take the lead starting after never been born at all.”
There is a moment of silence, in which everyone around Jesse is perfectly still. They are, like him, stunned. Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse sees a few of them glancing at him uncertainly. He hears somebody shift their footing. Kyle’s mouth is agape.
“Positions, people!” Miss Corcoran bellows, and they scurry to obey. Jesse is still standing there a moment longer than everyone else, staring her down. She meets his eyes, her expression stony. What does she think she’s doing, undermining him in front of all of them - now, of all times, when his grip on the reins is still tenuous.
It feels bizarre to take Kyle's place in the choreography, orienting himself around someone else. Predictably, Kyle doesn’t come even close to measuring up to Jesse, much less to Freddy Mercury. There is no anger in his voice, no bitterness, no outrage. Jesse is disgusted.
Miss Corcoran tears into him when they finish. “Seriously? Kyle, that was more pathetic than your attempt at a Jonas Brothers hairstyle! Your lover stoned you and spit in your eye! You should be furious, you should be so pissed you’re seeing red in the spotlights! Do you know what I’m getting from you? She ate the last piece of pizza. Run it again! Give me rage!”
Kyle is so focused on hitting the notes that come easy to Jesse, he loses the fire. By their third repeat, Miss Corcoran is forced to give Jesse his entire solo back. It's no surprise, but Jesse is still indignant at having lost it in the first place. Miss Corcoran has never before let her personal feelings affect her directing.
Rachel doesn’t respond to his letter.
Restless hearts sleep alone tonight, sending all my love along the wire
Jesse watches New Directions from the wings. Mr. Schuester is a fool, he thinks, putting together a set a week before the competition. Talent only goes so far: Vocal Adrenaline has been rehearsing Bohemian Rhapsody since Christmas. Rachel sings like she’s splitting at the seams with emotion, the way she always does, her glowing face tilted up to Finn’s like he holds the meaning of the universe. She’s looking at him like she’d looked at Jesse just weeks ago. His stomach twists unpleasantly.
A hand lands on his shoulder firmly: Miss Corcoran. (He knows by the weight of her expectations.) She watches with him, silent - he realizes she probably thinks she’s being comforting. Only when the last note has faded does she lean close, her hair brushing the nape of his neck, her flowery perfume invading his nose. Above the thunderous applause, she says into his ear, “Tonight isn’t about her. It’s about you, Jesse. It’s all you.”
No, he thinks, listening to the rhythmic clicking of her high heels as she walks away. It’s about you.
But he performs perfectly anyway. He needs to satisfy her, or it will all have been for nothing. And they win, of course they win. When Ms Sylvester makes the announcement, for just a few moments, it is like any other victory. He is jubilant, wanting to scream with joy and even relief. It is not unexpected, but it's satisfying nonetheless, and he feels his usual rush of adrenaline and triumph, and he catches Miss Corcoran in his arms to hug her. In that moment, she is no longer the woman who has disappointed him. She’s his director again, his idol, and she made him a star. In a way she’s somehow maternal, but she also beautiful and sexy and powerful and brutally honest with a tongue sharp enough to rival his own.
Then he lets her go, and sees the pride in her face, and remembers that it’s not for Vocal Adrenaline, or even for him. He turns away.
Of course they’d won. So what? (Andrea would have told him to get his head checked, because if there’s one thing that matters to Jesse St. James, it’s winning. But the trophy feels cold in his hands.)
He smiles anyway, knowing somebody's taking pictures. This will make the local newspaper, and appearances are everything. He gives them all his blinding show smile.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Rachel, her expression crushed.
Kyle, whose parents are as absent as Jesse’s, invites them all back to his house for a victory party, and Jesse goes, because he needs to stay on top if he’s going to keep his scholarship. He quickly realizes, once there, that staying on top means being on top of somebody now that he’s broken up with Rachel. An hour and nine shots of vodka after arriving, someone smelling of rum and perfume sneaks up behind him and starts biting his earlobe. He turns in her arms: it’s Sara. He could have sworn she’d been dating Nathan, and maybe she still is, because Nathan is watching them with murder in his eyes.
This is what it means to be the star here. Not just the opportunity or the privilege, but the obligation to fuck over your friends. Hadn’t Santana Lopez stolen her fair share of boyfriends? Jesse leans down and kisses Sara; her mouth tastes of rum and something fruity and sweet. It’s cloying and awful. She leads him out of the kitchen and pushes him against the wall in the hallway, dropping to her knees so suddenly at first he thinks she’s fallen down (until she undoes the button on his jeans). “You were amazing tonight,” she mumbles, and then pulls down his zipper with her teeth. Bass thrums through the walls and floor, but his senses are dulled by the haze of alcohol. He can hardly heard the music, and it takes her a couple minutes to even get him fully hard. He thrusts forward when she slides her mouth over him, and she almost gags, putting her hands on his hips to hold him in place.
He can feel himself slipping back into old patterns, the easy comfort of a life of focusing on only himself. This is what he used to like best - a girl on her knees, no obligation from him, and the walls vibrating with their celebrations.
He drops his head back against the wall, closing his eyes, but that’s a mistake, because all he sees is Rachel’s face as he held that first-place trophy. “Rachel,” he says, his voice little more than a whisper, but from the way Sara’s hands tighten on his hips, he’s sure that she heard. She doesn’t stop, though he sort of wishes she would, because Rachel’s name is still sitting on his tongue, rattling around his mouth, like a song insisting on being sung. He clenches his jaw, trying to pretend he doesn’t feel the sudden sting of tears behind his eyelids. He swallows any noise threatening to escape when he comes. All he’s thinking, when Sara tucks him back into his pants, stands up and wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, is that Rachel would be disgusted by the idea of swallowing.
She’s still standing there, he can feel it, so he opens his eyes to look at her. She laughs, wiping a finger under his eye. He sees a tear glistening on her fingertip and can’t meet her eyes. “I didn’t know I was that good,” she says, still smirking. He thuds his head back against the wall against, closing his eyes and sucking in deep breaths through gritted teeth. He can’t cry here, and he has no response to her taunt. He’s not even sure he could clearly speak right now. He wants to punch a hole in the wall or break something. He wants to throw himself to the ground and scream like he’s four again and being refused a second piece of cake.
He ignores her until she leaves.
When he stumbles back into the main room, Nathan is sitting in the armchair in the corner, looking morose, hunched over a drink. Sara is doing shots. They wouldn’t have lasted anyway.
Jesse figures everyone is drunk enough that they won’t notice him missing. He crashes upstairs in the master bedroom, because it’s the first room he finds and the bed is enormous and plush. He doesn’t cry - lying on his back, he keeps up the deep breathing and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes until the tears are reflexive instead of emotional. He sleeps deeper than he has in weeks.
Pairing: Jesse/Rachel
Rating: R (this chapter)
Word count: 3,657
Summary: This is the story of how Rachel manages to turn Jesse from the Phantom of the Opera into Raoul, and completely without intention. Jesse is dumbfounded.
From Sectionals to Journey (and beyond): this is Glee, from Jesse's point of view.
part one
part two
Life is far from sunny when the laugh is over, and the joke’s on you
He doesn’t intend to see Rachel ever again. He thinks he couldn’t take it: he misses her, he realizes, admitting it only to himself. He allows this. He misses her a little, but the lack of appetite and inability to concentrate cannot be attributed to this.
Still, for the first time in his entire life, Jesse fakes sick. His uncle doesn’t bother to check his forehead or question the lack of any symptoms. Jesse spends his empty days rehearsing Bohemian Rhapsody with the mp3 backing track Miss Corcoran emailed him, and searching frantically for a place to stay within Carmel’s school district. His parents aren’t due back from Bali till June.
Eventually he wears them down and gains permission to stay in their house alone. The next week, he’s back at Carmel without even a word to Rachel. He doesn’t know how much she knows about his part in the whole thing, but he doesn’t want to stick around for the lecture - or worse, to see the expression he knows she will wear: confused and hurt and sort of dazed, like a kicked puppy that doesn’t know what it’s done wrong, and is still stunned from the blow.
How do you think I’m gonna get along without you when you’re gone?
The choice is not his own: Andrea informs him he will be coming with them to funkify New Directions. “You’re the only one who can do Freddy justice,” she says with a coy smile. She’s right, but that isn’t the reason. Still, he’s not stupid enough to try and argue.
“Jesse?” Rachel looks stunned, and he can’t believe she didn’t expect this, after he hasn’t been at school for a whole week. But then it’s Rachel, and she sees the good in people. “What are you doing up there with them?”
Playing my part, he doesn’t say. Playing the role expected of me by my team, by yours - look at them. Even your naïve little band of misfits were smart enough to see this coming. Why are you surprised?
Singing Another One Bites the Dust, Jesse stares out over the top of Rachel’s head, unable to meet her eyes. He lets Andrea rub herself up against him like a cat in heat, feeling sick inside, and he doesn’t look into Rachel’s wounded eyes until the rest of them have turned away. This way they cannot see the regret in his face and doubt his loyalty.
She just stares at him, clearly hurt but still proud, like she’s silently reprimanding him for his betrayal. Her steady gaze makes him feel like when he was small, and he was told by his parents or his nanny or (worst of all) his instructors that they were “very disappointed” in him. He sets his jaw, automatically on the defence - she doesn’t understand - but as he turns away, he knows she does. She is still disappointed. She would have refused, she would have told them that it was unnecessary and cruel. She would have been stronger.
Funkification is a dangerous practise. It all gets out of control before he even realizes what’s happening. The plan had been to egg the McKinley’s entrance and a select few cars (Mr. Schuester’s and Kurt Hummel’s, and a few randoms: Jesse is thankful Rachel doesn’t have a car), and then, in the parking lot, Andrea grabs his arm to stop him from throwing the first egg.
“Wait,” she says, and smiles. “I have a better idea.” She pulls his cell phone out of his own pocket and presses it into his palm. “Call your ex-girlfriend.”
He has to carefully consider his response. You don’t run away from a bear: you play dead. He gives her a mildly incredulous stare. “Not really thinking big, are you? She’s just one girl. There isn’t much damage.”
“There’ll be plenty of damage,” Anna says slowly, stepping forward, looking at him so knowingly that it’s infuriating.
“She’s their star,” Jason adds. “Their not-so-secret weapon.”
“Don’t tell me you’re worried,” Jesse taunts, a challenge he hopes they can’t ignore.
“We are worried.” Anna puts a hand on his arm like she’s trying to comfort him, but the feeling he gets is very different. Her grip is tight. “We’re worried about you, Jesse.”
“It’ll be team bonding,” Sara offers cheerfully. “We could use some of that. You haven’t really been around much.”
“Special assignment from Miss Corcoran,” he says defensively. “You know that.”
“Of course. But it sucks how you haven’t even been at any rehearsals, or any parties.”
“I went on Spring Break with you,” he protests, but he stops trying to defend himself after that. They’re silent, watching him. At some point they’d formed a semi-circle, looking nonchalant, but he knows better. They are alert. They are circling wolves. Once they followed him; they were the closest he had to equals, their hair glossy and their bodies toned, their voices always as ready to sing as to tear someone to pieces. Once they were the perfect back-up, on the stage and off. Now there is dissent in the ranks. The choice is mutiny or sabotage, and Jesse’s fingers shake as he dials Rachel’s number. He tries to appreciate the drama of the moment, but it’s ruined by the delight on her face as she runs toward him, her hair flying out in ribbons behind her. She looks beautiful, and he can see even from far away that she is filled with hope.
He flinches at the first crack of the egg hitting her head. He watches her realization and then quiet acceptance. She just curls her arms over her face and hunches her back, like a turtle retreating into its shell until the attack is over. His heartbeat is painful, like it’s literally smacking his ribcage, like the harder they hit her the harder it pounds. He hardens his expression: he has come this far. To show remorse would be to shed blood in the water.
“Are you with us or not?”
He can feel the weight of their expectations, their murmured encouragements grating on him as Rachel stands, fists clenched but back straight and chin up, defiant as ever. She waits for him to throw the last egg. It sits in his palm, smooth and round and warm with his body heat.
“I loved you,” he says, because it’s the closest he can get to an apology in front of them. Because even though it’s a lie - feelings don’t fade just by turning one’s back, and he’s only realizing now how much he does care for her, this brilliant, sweet, talented girl starved of affection and yet bursting with confidence and optimism.
Is that love, if he can still break her heart, and in front of all her worst enemies, making a show of her pain? Love is meant to be the most powerful force in the known universe, if music and film and theatre are to be believed. (And Jesse can’t consider that they aren’t.) It’s meant to conquer all, to be stronger even than death.
So is it his love for her that is so weak, or Jesse himself?
You’re a coward, St. James, he tells himself as he washes the egg off his hands. It repeats itself in his head like a mantra all the rest of the day, as Michael thumps him on the back in congratulations; as Lauren flirts with him in the car as he’s driving her home; as Miss Corcoran roars her disapproval at each and every one of them the next day. Jesse supposes she was informed by Mr. Schuester.
“They’re no competition and you know it,” she shouts, her eyes like steel as she stares at him. Only at him, he could swear, maybe because he got to know Rachel and knows, like Miss Corcoran must, that she is fragile and naive and didn’t deserve this. “What are you all so afraid of that you had to do this? Funkification is one thing. I don’t ever want to see something like this again, or I swear to Stephen Sondheim not a single one of you will perform at Nationals.”
Jesse isn’t sure if the threat has any weight - consecutive National titles mean something to Miss Corcoran, but maybe her daughter means more - but it’s sufficient to chasten the others.
“You will each of you write an individual letter of apology to Rachel Berry,” Miss Corcoran informs them, and no one dares say a word of protest.
Vocal Adrenaline is to Carmel what the Cheerios are to McKinley: hierarchies are subjective, and Jesse had been at the top of everything until Miss Corcoran’s special assignment. He remembers how it felt to strut the halls of Carmel with girls fluttering their eyelashes and boys thumping his shoulder and even teachers smiling brightly when he passed. He’s seen Cheerios do far worse to far better people for far less payoff - he’s back at the top, Carmel’s king once again, and from the way some of the girls are looking at him at they file out of the auditorium, poised to have a new queen any day now.
But he sees Rachel’s large, tremulous eyes in his head, her voice telling him to break it like you broke my heart - he appreciated the drama, it was a line worthy of a tragedy - and yet her eyes, soft and wide, hoping against her better judgment that he would have a Henry Higgins epiphany and toss it aside. That perhaps he’d grown so accustomed to her face that he was going to give up years of work just for her knee-socks and animal sweaters and the way she scrunches up her nose when she laughs too hard.
He writes this in his letter, taking care to write in smooth, slow cursive, using all the right words and yet, when he’s done, he tears it into shreds. She won’t feel an ounce of pity, having worked just as hard and gotten nothing and still kept going, still singing in the face of Slushies and insults and (now) eggs. She’d lived her whole school life in that position. She wouldn’t understand his inability to do the same.
He writes another one, telling her he isn’t as strong as her, that wishes he didn’t need external validation of his talent, or need people to like him, but it’s just as bad. It will seem like he’s trying to flatter her into forgiveness.
He even writes a third filled with awful things, telling her she was a fool for trusting him, telling her she deserved the eggs and that she would always be a loser, that her little club would be crushed at Regionals. His rationale is that perhaps it would be a backwards sort of kindness to make himself even easier for her to hate: then she won’t ever wonder what if, or realize the truth - that what he’d done was terrible, but that he’d acted like a scared little boy, and hated himself for it.
In the end, his letter is brief and concise.
Rachel,
I did it all to further my career. I was wrong. But I know you will understand, at least. The drive, the pure and raw determination to make it, no matter what gets in your way. It’s what will make us stars.
I’m sorry for what I did to you. I hope you can hate me half as much as I hate myself: that hate will help you at Regionals. Give us everything you’ve got.
With love,
- Jesse St. James
He hesitates, and then he crosses out with love. She won’t want to see that. Instead, he writes sincerely, and then slips it into an envelope with a gold star sticker to seal it shut.
Jesse resolved, writing that letter, to tell Rachel no more lies. He wanted to write that he wishes he could do it over again, that he would do it differently, but the sad thing is he knows he wouldn’t. He regrets it, he curses that egg and his pathetic need for acceptance and the day Miss Corcoran told him she had a favour to ask. But if put in that moment again, in the face of his insecurities and the palpable pressure of Vocal Adrenaline’s expectations, he thinks he would crush that egg on her forehead over and over again. He thinks of it like an instinct. A star must be loved; a star must be accepted; a star must be appreciated. His star instincts took over while his jaw clenched and his throat closed up. He would forever play second fiddle to Finn Hudson if he stayed, and Jesse St. James is second to no one. Especially not to someone who Jesse can out-sing on his worst day. What gives Finn the edge is his looks, stature, and that dumbfounded expression always on his face, like he’s forever baffled by what’s going on around him but is doing his best to keep up. Jesse does not understand the appeal, but then, he’s not a girl. Or Mr. Schuester, whose doting can only be explained by a desperate desire to relive his glory days through Finn.
The next day at rehearsal, Miss Corcoran says - to the entire choir - right before they start on Bohemian Rhapsody: “Kyle, I want you to take the lead starting after never been born at all.”
There is a moment of silence, in which everyone around Jesse is perfectly still. They are, like him, stunned. Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse sees a few of them glancing at him uncertainly. He hears somebody shift their footing. Kyle’s mouth is agape.
“Positions, people!” Miss Corcoran bellows, and they scurry to obey. Jesse is still standing there a moment longer than everyone else, staring her down. She meets his eyes, her expression stony. What does she think she’s doing, undermining him in front of all of them - now, of all times, when his grip on the reins is still tenuous.
It feels bizarre to take Kyle's place in the choreography, orienting himself around someone else. Predictably, Kyle doesn’t come even close to measuring up to Jesse, much less to Freddy Mercury. There is no anger in his voice, no bitterness, no outrage. Jesse is disgusted.
Miss Corcoran tears into him when they finish. “Seriously? Kyle, that was more pathetic than your attempt at a Jonas Brothers hairstyle! Your lover stoned you and spit in your eye! You should be furious, you should be so pissed you’re seeing red in the spotlights! Do you know what I’m getting from you? She ate the last piece of pizza. Run it again! Give me rage!”
Kyle is so focused on hitting the notes that come easy to Jesse, he loses the fire. By their third repeat, Miss Corcoran is forced to give Jesse his entire solo back. It's no surprise, but Jesse is still indignant at having lost it in the first place. Miss Corcoran has never before let her personal feelings affect her directing.
Rachel doesn’t respond to his letter.
Restless hearts sleep alone tonight, sending all my love along the wire
Jesse watches New Directions from the wings. Mr. Schuester is a fool, he thinks, putting together a set a week before the competition. Talent only goes so far: Vocal Adrenaline has been rehearsing Bohemian Rhapsody since Christmas. Rachel sings like she’s splitting at the seams with emotion, the way she always does, her glowing face tilted up to Finn’s like he holds the meaning of the universe. She’s looking at him like she’d looked at Jesse just weeks ago. His stomach twists unpleasantly.
A hand lands on his shoulder firmly: Miss Corcoran. (He knows by the weight of her expectations.) She watches with him, silent - he realizes she probably thinks she’s being comforting. Only when the last note has faded does she lean close, her hair brushing the nape of his neck, her flowery perfume invading his nose. Above the thunderous applause, she says into his ear, “Tonight isn’t about her. It’s about you, Jesse. It’s all you.”
No, he thinks, listening to the rhythmic clicking of her high heels as she walks away. It’s about you.
But he performs perfectly anyway. He needs to satisfy her, or it will all have been for nothing. And they win, of course they win. When Ms Sylvester makes the announcement, for just a few moments, it is like any other victory. He is jubilant, wanting to scream with joy and even relief. It is not unexpected, but it's satisfying nonetheless, and he feels his usual rush of adrenaline and triumph, and he catches Miss Corcoran in his arms to hug her. In that moment, she is no longer the woman who has disappointed him. She’s his director again, his idol, and she made him a star. In a way she’s somehow maternal, but she also beautiful and sexy and powerful and brutally honest with a tongue sharp enough to rival his own.
Then he lets her go, and sees the pride in her face, and remembers that it’s not for Vocal Adrenaline, or even for him. He turns away.
Of course they’d won. So what? (Andrea would have told him to get his head checked, because if there’s one thing that matters to Jesse St. James, it’s winning. But the trophy feels cold in his hands.)
He smiles anyway, knowing somebody's taking pictures. This will make the local newspaper, and appearances are everything. He gives them all his blinding show smile.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Rachel, her expression crushed.
Kyle, whose parents are as absent as Jesse’s, invites them all back to his house for a victory party, and Jesse goes, because he needs to stay on top if he’s going to keep his scholarship. He quickly realizes, once there, that staying on top means being on top of somebody now that he’s broken up with Rachel. An hour and nine shots of vodka after arriving, someone smelling of rum and perfume sneaks up behind him and starts biting his earlobe. He turns in her arms: it’s Sara. He could have sworn she’d been dating Nathan, and maybe she still is, because Nathan is watching them with murder in his eyes.
This is what it means to be the star here. Not just the opportunity or the privilege, but the obligation to fuck over your friends. Hadn’t Santana Lopez stolen her fair share of boyfriends? Jesse leans down and kisses Sara; her mouth tastes of rum and something fruity and sweet. It’s cloying and awful. She leads him out of the kitchen and pushes him against the wall in the hallway, dropping to her knees so suddenly at first he thinks she’s fallen down (until she undoes the button on his jeans). “You were amazing tonight,” she mumbles, and then pulls down his zipper with her teeth. Bass thrums through the walls and floor, but his senses are dulled by the haze of alcohol. He can hardly heard the music, and it takes her a couple minutes to even get him fully hard. He thrusts forward when she slides her mouth over him, and she almost gags, putting her hands on his hips to hold him in place.
He can feel himself slipping back into old patterns, the easy comfort of a life of focusing on only himself. This is what he used to like best - a girl on her knees, no obligation from him, and the walls vibrating with their celebrations.
He drops his head back against the wall, closing his eyes, but that’s a mistake, because all he sees is Rachel’s face as he held that first-place trophy. “Rachel,” he says, his voice little more than a whisper, but from the way Sara’s hands tighten on his hips, he’s sure that she heard. She doesn’t stop, though he sort of wishes she would, because Rachel’s name is still sitting on his tongue, rattling around his mouth, like a song insisting on being sung. He clenches his jaw, trying to pretend he doesn’t feel the sudden sting of tears behind his eyelids. He swallows any noise threatening to escape when he comes. All he’s thinking, when Sara tucks him back into his pants, stands up and wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, is that Rachel would be disgusted by the idea of swallowing.
She’s still standing there, he can feel it, so he opens his eyes to look at her. She laughs, wiping a finger under his eye. He sees a tear glistening on her fingertip and can’t meet her eyes. “I didn’t know I was that good,” she says, still smirking. He thuds his head back against the wall against, closing his eyes and sucking in deep breaths through gritted teeth. He can’t cry here, and he has no response to her taunt. He’s not even sure he could clearly speak right now. He wants to punch a hole in the wall or break something. He wants to throw himself to the ground and scream like he’s four again and being refused a second piece of cake.
He ignores her until she leaves.
When he stumbles back into the main room, Nathan is sitting in the armchair in the corner, looking morose, hunched over a drink. Sara is doing shots. They wouldn’t have lasted anyway.
Jesse figures everyone is drunk enough that they won’t notice him missing. He crashes upstairs in the master bedroom, because it’s the first room he finds and the bed is enormous and plush. He doesn’t cry - lying on his back, he keeps up the deep breathing and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes until the tears are reflexive instead of emotional. He sleeps deeper than he has in weeks.