Wednesday: Jesse

Jesse St James was, in a word, pissed (an inelegant turn of phrase, but an expressive one). He'd transferred to this back-end-of-nowhere school, where no one truly understood, let alone appreciated, his talent, taken the time to "befriend" the extremely annoying (but frighteningly talented) Rachel Berry and charm her into spending time with him, made her his "girlfriend" over the protest of every sane part of him. (Though, he had to admit, she did grow on one, and could be amazingly sweet, very cute in a strange way, and astonishingly passionate, even if she stopped him cold at first base.) He'd joined their little Glee Club and after weeks of the endless drama (and the whining from lesser talents about "not getting solos" and the prima donna behavior of, well, their prima donna- which he had to admit, he encouraged almost without thinking, since it kept the group fractured and resentful, creating a flaw he could leverage if it was needed later), he was astonished to recognize that they really posed a threat to Vocal Adrenaline... but they did.

Their harmonies were tight, and while their dance moves and choregraphy were not as polished was VA's... they had something VA didn't. Something he couldn't define. It was partly that they all kept coming back, week after week, even though they knew it just kept them all on the last rung of the social scale. Even though so many of them had to know that as long as Rachel and Finn (and, modestly, he himself) were there and ready to perform, the lesser lights didn't stand a chance of getting a moment in the spotlight for themselves, no matter how good they were.

And those lesser lights were surprisingly talented. He'd nearly fallen out of his chair in shock when he'd heard the usually shrewish Hummel sing one afternoon, he and Mercedes just messing around at the piano before practice, and realized they had a counter-tenor- one with a pretty astonishing range- until he'd realized that Schuester had no idea what to do with him and just tended to use him to fill in the soprano line when Rachel sang lead, and that the Glee coach had barely even paid attention to the boy's lower range.

He'd had a bad moment when Kurt and Mercedes had joined the Cheerios, especially when Schuester had approached them after the performance during "Madonna week" (and thank GOD that was over, and his finely-tuned ears were no longer under assault). But all Schuester had done was scold them for their disloyalty and slink off when they stood up to him.

The man was... well. He seemed determined to try to beat Vocal Adrenaline by following their chosen model: one star vocalist and a backup group, surrounded by a flashy stage show. After spending even a short time with them, Jesse felt sure that as long as they were trying to beat VA at their own game, that threat would never fully materialize. Now, if Schuester had looked at their little rag-tag group, and decided to use their strengths and downplay their seeming weaknesses (their dozen voices to VA's score and more, the lack of support from the school forcing them to do more with less, but also ensuring that they'd never be able to compete with VA on volume or showmanship). If - when -Schuester could wrap his head around that and really use the diverse voices at his command, then they'd be a force to be reckoned with.

The point was, he thought angrily as he dodged away from a group of red-jacketed thugs, he'd come here, he'd given up the top of the social ladder to join the socially retarded, bottom-of-the-barrel Glee club here at McKinley. He'd given up being the king of his school to come here and risk slushie attacks ruining his perfect curls, administered by cavemen who would be pumping his gas or asking him if he wanted fries with that (if he ate fast food, which he didn't) in three years, and, at least as far as she knew, it had all been for Rachel. He'd left everything behind for her, as far as she knew. And what had she done? When the club was in crisis, when one of their own had been missing, in trouble, had she called him, her actual boyfriend? The man who had giving up everything for her?

No. She'd turned to Finn. Again. She'd never even thought of him. The whole stupid Glee club had ended up called in like the freakin' cavalry. Except for Jesse. He'd come in to school after a weekend of rehearsals with VA -he'd told Rachel he was on a college visit, out of town for the weekend, but still,she could have called, prepared him for all of this. Should have called him and cried on his shoulder (so to speak) while he put her on speaker while he was in video chat with his teammates.

She should have let him know, at least, that walking into school Monday morning would be like walking into a war zone - on the losing side. Since Monday he'd been slushied twice and threatened by several behemoths with very little evidence of any knowledge of personal grooming.

Threatened. At Carmel, the jocks avoided him, some of them intimately aware of just how hard - and fast-he could kick after all those years of dance training (can't play football/hockey/basketball/whatever without functioning knees, can you, boys?), and that the school would back their star. Anyone could field a football team (well, anyone except for McKinley, apparently) but Vocal Adrenaline was Carmel's golden goose, and their star performer was undisputed king of the corridors.

He was Jesse St. James, he thought angrily, even as he manufactured a smile for her and kissed her good morning, one eye keeping a wary watch over her shoulder for more of the jocks who seemed to make her a favored target for their icy missiles. He should be ruling over Carmel High, not dodging dousings with frozen corn syrup. Keeping that smile firmly in place to hide his simmering fury, he asked her, "So what's the word on Kurt?"

That was all it took to set her off on an indignant and long-winded rant, delivered in a stage-whisper, even as she linked her arm through his and started off down the hallway. He forced himself to try to pay attention to her rambling instead of watching her bounce as they walked down the hallway (anger did something to her walk that he had to admit did something to his hormones).

"Principal Figgins says that the lawyers have told him that the video Coach Sylvester took of the attack in the choir room can't be used since the cameras were there in an unofficial capacity and the recordings aren't admissible in a court of law, which makes it Kurt's word against theirs. It's ridiculous!" She huffed angrily, shaking her head and finally pausing for breath. She went on and on about "the gay panic defense" and he tuned her out until she mentioned that after the disappointing reaction of the administration on Monday, Kurt would definitely be transferring from McKinley... to Carmel.

"Wait, what?" he asked in shock. "Carmel? Why?"

"His father's aunt? Lives over there?" Rachel shook her head; she hadn't really paid attention to much beyond the possibility that her nearest rival at McKinley would now be attending the school with the rival show choir- Jesse's former team, at that. "I don't know. The point is that he's going to join Vocal Adrenaline, he won't be able to resist it. He's too much a performer to really stay out of the competition. I know I wouldn't be able to. And that's going to be really bad for our group morale, even if he's just doing backup vocals." She looked up at him finally, and realized he was glowering at her, and stopped in her tracks. "Is this a problem for you Jesse?" she asked sharply.