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Title: The Thing About You Baby
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Lauren/Puck (past)
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Lauren moves on.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Glee or Michael Franti and Spearhead.
A/N: This is OC heavy as I tried to flesh out the AV Club.
A/N2: The song used is “Shake it” by Michael Franti and Spearhead, you can find it here.
The Thing About You Baby:
Lauren slowed as she approached the AV Club’s door. She straightened to her full height and told herself that they would be lost without her, that she hadn’t actually abandoned them for Glee club and the promise of Puck. She was still the president. Why did she feel so hesitant?
She deflated.
She dropped her bag and crossed her arms as she stared at the closed door. They’d lost three members to graduation last year and she hadn’t done any recruiting. Instead she’d put the final nail in the coffin that was her relationship with Puck. It’d been heading downhill all summer, they’d both known it. At least Puck had the decency to act surprised when she broke it off and she hadn’t had to lay down all the reasons why, all the truths about their relationship that Lauren wasn’t sure she was ready to face.
Like his cheating with woman twice his age so his pool cleaning business didn’t go under.
Like his constant need to point out how large she was.
Like her need for control.
Like the scary way he responded when she pushed for control.
Like the way she was worried she’d spiral into abusing him and he’d eat it up.
Lauren shook her head. It was over, it was in the past. So in the past that when she had walked past Puck on the way to AV Club he had looked right through her, he’d gone back to not seeing her. It stung. Much that same way it stung that in all their preaching about how they were family the Glee members didn’t push to spend time together over the summer. None of them even knew where Quinn had gone off too. Puck had always shrugged off her questions with a reassurance that they’d see her next school year. She’d barely seen any of them other than Puck during the summer. Now she and Puck were broken up and she’d taken that to mean she wouldn’t be welcome in Glee. She’d made her excuses to him, said some harsh things about losing, but after having a taste of what it could be like to be one of the girls she wasn’t going to have them kick her out. She wasn’t going to be shoved aside and cast under the label of outsider. More than one of them had made it clear throughout last school year that she wasn’t their ideal member. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of this year fighting with them under the faux pretense that it was somehow a friendship.
Lauren took a deep breath and grabbed her bag. She was still a bad ass. No one fucked with her. She could still walk in that door and be the best president AV Club had ever had, even if she’d gotten distracted last year. She was almost there when Alex came out, loaded down with camera equipment.
“Jacob?” she asked.
Alex shrugged, his dark eyes swinging up to meet hers, “You back?”
“Why, you miss me?”
“Jacob tried to take over,” Alex told her flatly.
She almost pointed out that Artie was the vice-president, but Artie barely showed up, barely acknowledged them when he was so entrenched in Glee drama. Instead she asked, “Jamie?”
If she had Jamie on her side then the others would fall in line. Yolanda and Tom were pretty laid back. Jamie would be the one in need of convincing.
Alex frowned, “You know Jacob insists on calling him by his first name.”
“Jamie hates being called Curt,” Lauren frowned.
“You’d hate it too if there were only two in the whole school and the jocks refuses to tell the difference.”
Lauren took in Alex’s eye rolling and shrugged, “Can’t expect them to know how to spell.”
This earned her another eye roll.
“How bad?” she asked.
“It’s the first day of school, what do you expect?”
“How bad?” she insisted.
“He’s down to his gym shorts and a hoodie.”
Lauren frowned and nodded. Jamie was going to be in a foul mood.
“At least they did away with the glorified hall monitors,” Alex grumbled, “Maybe Kurt will actually take some of his own teasing this year instead of it all getting dumped on Jamie.”
Lauren glared as she reminded, “It got so bad for him he left.”
“And then he came back to hall monitors that announced he was the gay kid walking down the hall and the jocks still insisted on not knowing the difference.”
“There’s sticking up for your friend and then there’s hating someone for something they don’t even know about,” she pointed out.
“You think Kurt would even care that someone else is taking some of his teasing just because they share a name?”
Lauren thought about it a moment and then nodded her head, “Yeah, I think he would.”
Alex frowned at that.
“He would,” Lauren insisted. She might not know Kurt all that well, but she could see him being upset about Jamie getting slammed and slushied because they shared a name. He’d probably think it was awful that Jamie had started going by his middle name in hopes that some of the teasing would ease.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Alex decided as he began to walk away.
Lauren indicated the camera equipment.
“Jacob wants to interview some teachers,” Alex shrugged, “Yolanda and Tom are sick of him already. He walks all over Mouse and he's scared of Jamie, so my turn…”
“Mouse?” Lauren questioned.
“Cause she’s so quiet,” Alex explained before he walked away.
This left Lauren to contemplate the door again. Her club, she reminded herself as she let herself in. Four heads turned to take her in. Yolanda and Tom went back to the dance moves they’d been working on in a cleared area. The two were always preparing for a ballroom competition, they’d been partners since they were five. Tom was medium height for a boy, short red hair and tended towards jeans and baggy yet geeky t-shirts. Yolanda had dark black curls that were generally hidden under a hat if she could get away with it. She was almost the same height as Tom, maybe only an inch shorter and she layered until she practically drowned in her clothes. Part of Lauren suspected Yolanda was thin, due to her heart shaped face, but it was impossible to tell with the skirt on top of the pants with three or four tops. Mouse had to be the petite, pale, blonde working on a nearby computer. Her white and tan dress made her seem washed out and even without being quiet she could understand how the girl would be called Mouse, she was tiny. She might just clear five feet, but Lauren somehow doubted it. She had hazel eyes that looked at her startled before swinging back to the computer she was stationed at.
Lauren turned her attention to Jamie, she’d learn about her new member soon enough. Jamie was slouched, spread out over two seats. He had his hoodie pulled tight around his face, arms crossed over his chest. He glanced at her, but then turned his head to look up at the ceiling. She wished the hoodie was down, that it’d let his shoulder length dark hair fall back. Instead she took in the way his pale legs stretched out past the too-short gym shorts and dangled over the chair he had them resting on.
“You back?” Jamie asked the ceiling.
Lauren dropped her bag, crossed her arms and glared, “You could ask me that.”
Jamie’s head slowly turned to her and she wasn’t sure what to make of the disappointment in his eyes, “You done with your boy toy?”
“Be nice,” Yolanda chided.
“Why?” Jamie asked, “She left us to flounder with Jacob Ben Isarel so she could run off with Puckerman.”
“It was Puck, what do you expect?” Tom countered.
At least she had Tom and Yolanda on her side.
“Guess I overestimated you,” Jamie continued.
She was not going to show how much his words stung.
“You done?” she demanded.
Mouse cringed.
Jamie sat up slowly. Their eyes met. The last thing she wanted was to spend her last year at McKinley fighting with Jamie, not when she should be showing him the ropes, making sure he was prepared to take over after she graduated.
“Where’s your make-up?” she pushed, “School’s over you can wear it now, or did you stop doing that while I was away?”
“Ben Isarel’s rule,” Jamie informed her, “No make-up on boys. I think the black lipstick scared him.”
“I thought it was the eyeliner,” Tom teased.
“Thought you were a young man,” Lauren challenged.
A slow smile spread Jamie face, she grinned back. Mouse glanced at the two of them, then swung her eyes swiftly back to her computer.
“I’m in charge and I say make-up on young men is hot,” Lauren told him.
Jamie laughed, tilted his head towards Mouse and said, “She’s in charge. You’re good.”
“Hi,” Lauren offered.
Mouse waved hesitantly before she turned back to the computer.
“Mouse is cool, bit shy, but you should see the work she does,” Jamie tried to explain.
“And she’s got a crazy set of pipe on her if you can get her to sing,” Tom added.
Lauren bit back the question about Mouse joining New Directions. She wasn’t involved with that anymore and they’d quickly replace her anyway.
“A/V Club and…” Lauren prodded.
Mouse said something, but Lauren couldn’t catch it.
“Drama,” Yolanda filled in. That explained everything then. The drama kids couldn’t stand the glee kids because the glee kids got the auditorium and they had to use the one at the middle school. It had no acoustics. The glee kids acted like they didn’t even realize the school had a drama club.
“I won’t say anything,” Lauren promised, “Besides they’re back to not realizing I exist.”
Jamie frowned. Lauren shrugged. Tom put Yolanda into a slight dip and Mouse typed on the computer. They settled into quiet, the only sound was the steady tap of the keyboard from Mouse. Lauren frowned. Where to start?
“Who are we obsessing over?”
“Michael Franti!” Tom told her.
“And Spearhead!” Yolanda finished.
Jamie pushed his hood back and shook his head at the two of them. They grinned back. Jamie nodded before he leaned his head back to take in Mouse and told her, “Shake it.”
A moment later the song started and Yolanda and Tom were singing offkey, but happily, with each other. Jamie swung his legs around, spilled his way out of the chair and stalked towards her, taking over the song as he told her, “ Shake it, shake it mama you the one for me. I’m realizing you the only one that’s meant to be. And when I wake up in the morning, all I wanna is the sun that is shining on you next to me. You got a little broken nail, got a hair out of place, got a little bit of extra bit right around the waist, with all them things I never ever hesitate, cause the thing about you baby is the smile on your face.”
She laughed. He looked serious, but the words had been fun and there was that mischievous sparkle in his eyes. He held out a hand. She smirked. He knew he couldn’t dance. She glanced around. Mouse was dancing slightly in her seat, not singing. Yolanda and Tom were dancing, it looked complicated, but the singing was just off. Jamie could carry a tune, but she knew the moment she took his hand the dancing would be bad. Still, they were hers. Who needed New Directions?
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Lauren/Puck (past)
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Lauren moves on.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Glee or Michael Franti and Spearhead.
A/N: This is OC heavy as I tried to flesh out the AV Club.
A/N2: The song used is “Shake it” by Michael Franti and Spearhead, you can find it here.
The Thing About You Baby:
Lauren slowed as she approached the AV Club’s door. She straightened to her full height and told herself that they would be lost without her, that she hadn’t actually abandoned them for Glee club and the promise of Puck. She was still the president. Why did she feel so hesitant?
She deflated.
She dropped her bag and crossed her arms as she stared at the closed door. They’d lost three members to graduation last year and she hadn’t done any recruiting. Instead she’d put the final nail in the coffin that was her relationship with Puck. It’d been heading downhill all summer, they’d both known it. At least Puck had the decency to act surprised when she broke it off and she hadn’t had to lay down all the reasons why, all the truths about their relationship that Lauren wasn’t sure she was ready to face.
Like his cheating with woman twice his age so his pool cleaning business didn’t go under.
Like his constant need to point out how large she was.
Like her need for control.
Like the scary way he responded when she pushed for control.
Like the way she was worried she’d spiral into abusing him and he’d eat it up.
Lauren shook her head. It was over, it was in the past. So in the past that when she had walked past Puck on the way to AV Club he had looked right through her, he’d gone back to not seeing her. It stung. Much that same way it stung that in all their preaching about how they were family the Glee members didn’t push to spend time together over the summer. None of them even knew where Quinn had gone off too. Puck had always shrugged off her questions with a reassurance that they’d see her next school year. She’d barely seen any of them other than Puck during the summer. Now she and Puck were broken up and she’d taken that to mean she wouldn’t be welcome in Glee. She’d made her excuses to him, said some harsh things about losing, but after having a taste of what it could be like to be one of the girls she wasn’t going to have them kick her out. She wasn’t going to be shoved aside and cast under the label of outsider. More than one of them had made it clear throughout last school year that she wasn’t their ideal member. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of this year fighting with them under the faux pretense that it was somehow a friendship.
Lauren took a deep breath and grabbed her bag. She was still a bad ass. No one fucked with her. She could still walk in that door and be the best president AV Club had ever had, even if she’d gotten distracted last year. She was almost there when Alex came out, loaded down with camera equipment.
“Jacob?” she asked.
Alex shrugged, his dark eyes swinging up to meet hers, “You back?”
“Why, you miss me?”
“Jacob tried to take over,” Alex told her flatly.
She almost pointed out that Artie was the vice-president, but Artie barely showed up, barely acknowledged them when he was so entrenched in Glee drama. Instead she asked, “Jamie?”
If she had Jamie on her side then the others would fall in line. Yolanda and Tom were pretty laid back. Jamie would be the one in need of convincing.
Alex frowned, “You know Jacob insists on calling him by his first name.”
“Jamie hates being called Curt,” Lauren frowned.
“You’d hate it too if there were only two in the whole school and the jocks refuses to tell the difference.”
Lauren took in Alex’s eye rolling and shrugged, “Can’t expect them to know how to spell.”
This earned her another eye roll.
“How bad?” she asked.
“It’s the first day of school, what do you expect?”
“How bad?” she insisted.
“He’s down to his gym shorts and a hoodie.”
Lauren frowned and nodded. Jamie was going to be in a foul mood.
“At least they did away with the glorified hall monitors,” Alex grumbled, “Maybe Kurt will actually take some of his own teasing this year instead of it all getting dumped on Jamie.”
Lauren glared as she reminded, “It got so bad for him he left.”
“And then he came back to hall monitors that announced he was the gay kid walking down the hall and the jocks still insisted on not knowing the difference.”
“There’s sticking up for your friend and then there’s hating someone for something they don’t even know about,” she pointed out.
“You think Kurt would even care that someone else is taking some of his teasing just because they share a name?”
Lauren thought about it a moment and then nodded her head, “Yeah, I think he would.”
Alex frowned at that.
“He would,” Lauren insisted. She might not know Kurt all that well, but she could see him being upset about Jamie getting slammed and slushied because they shared a name. He’d probably think it was awful that Jamie had started going by his middle name in hopes that some of the teasing would ease.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Alex decided as he began to walk away.
Lauren indicated the camera equipment.
“Jacob wants to interview some teachers,” Alex shrugged, “Yolanda and Tom are sick of him already. He walks all over Mouse and he's scared of Jamie, so my turn…”
“Mouse?” Lauren questioned.
“Cause she’s so quiet,” Alex explained before he walked away.
This left Lauren to contemplate the door again. Her club, she reminded herself as she let herself in. Four heads turned to take her in. Yolanda and Tom went back to the dance moves they’d been working on in a cleared area. The two were always preparing for a ballroom competition, they’d been partners since they were five. Tom was medium height for a boy, short red hair and tended towards jeans and baggy yet geeky t-shirts. Yolanda had dark black curls that were generally hidden under a hat if she could get away with it. She was almost the same height as Tom, maybe only an inch shorter and she layered until she practically drowned in her clothes. Part of Lauren suspected Yolanda was thin, due to her heart shaped face, but it was impossible to tell with the skirt on top of the pants with three or four tops. Mouse had to be the petite, pale, blonde working on a nearby computer. Her white and tan dress made her seem washed out and even without being quiet she could understand how the girl would be called Mouse, she was tiny. She might just clear five feet, but Lauren somehow doubted it. She had hazel eyes that looked at her startled before swinging back to the computer she was stationed at.
Lauren turned her attention to Jamie, she’d learn about her new member soon enough. Jamie was slouched, spread out over two seats. He had his hoodie pulled tight around his face, arms crossed over his chest. He glanced at her, but then turned his head to look up at the ceiling. She wished the hoodie was down, that it’d let his shoulder length dark hair fall back. Instead she took in the way his pale legs stretched out past the too-short gym shorts and dangled over the chair he had them resting on.
“You back?” Jamie asked the ceiling.
Lauren dropped her bag, crossed her arms and glared, “You could ask me that.”
Jamie’s head slowly turned to her and she wasn’t sure what to make of the disappointment in his eyes, “You done with your boy toy?”
“Be nice,” Yolanda chided.
“Why?” Jamie asked, “She left us to flounder with Jacob Ben Isarel so she could run off with Puckerman.”
“It was Puck, what do you expect?” Tom countered.
At least she had Tom and Yolanda on her side.
“Guess I overestimated you,” Jamie continued.
She was not going to show how much his words stung.
“You done?” she demanded.
Mouse cringed.
Jamie sat up slowly. Their eyes met. The last thing she wanted was to spend her last year at McKinley fighting with Jamie, not when she should be showing him the ropes, making sure he was prepared to take over after she graduated.
“Where’s your make-up?” she pushed, “School’s over you can wear it now, or did you stop doing that while I was away?”
“Ben Isarel’s rule,” Jamie informed her, “No make-up on boys. I think the black lipstick scared him.”
“I thought it was the eyeliner,” Tom teased.
“Thought you were a young man,” Lauren challenged.
A slow smile spread Jamie face, she grinned back. Mouse glanced at the two of them, then swung her eyes swiftly back to her computer.
“I’m in charge and I say make-up on young men is hot,” Lauren told him.
Jamie laughed, tilted his head towards Mouse and said, “She’s in charge. You’re good.”
“Hi,” Lauren offered.
Mouse waved hesitantly before she turned back to the computer.
“Mouse is cool, bit shy, but you should see the work she does,” Jamie tried to explain.
“And she’s got a crazy set of pipe on her if you can get her to sing,” Tom added.
Lauren bit back the question about Mouse joining New Directions. She wasn’t involved with that anymore and they’d quickly replace her anyway.
“A/V Club and…” Lauren prodded.
Mouse said something, but Lauren couldn’t catch it.
“Drama,” Yolanda filled in. That explained everything then. The drama kids couldn’t stand the glee kids because the glee kids got the auditorium and they had to use the one at the middle school. It had no acoustics. The glee kids acted like they didn’t even realize the school had a drama club.
“I won’t say anything,” Lauren promised, “Besides they’re back to not realizing I exist.”
Jamie frowned. Lauren shrugged. Tom put Yolanda into a slight dip and Mouse typed on the computer. They settled into quiet, the only sound was the steady tap of the keyboard from Mouse. Lauren frowned. Where to start?
“Who are we obsessing over?”
“Michael Franti!” Tom told her.
“And Spearhead!” Yolanda finished.
Jamie pushed his hood back and shook his head at the two of them. They grinned back. Jamie nodded before he leaned his head back to take in Mouse and told her, “Shake it.”
A moment later the song started and Yolanda and Tom were singing offkey, but happily, with each other. Jamie swung his legs around, spilled his way out of the chair and stalked towards her, taking over the song as he told her, “ Shake it, shake it mama you the one for me. I’m realizing you the only one that’s meant to be. And when I wake up in the morning, all I wanna is the sun that is shining on you next to me. You got a little broken nail, got a hair out of place, got a little bit of extra bit right around the waist, with all them things I never ever hesitate, cause the thing about you baby is the smile on your face.”
She laughed. He looked serious, but the words had been fun and there was that mischievous sparkle in his eyes. He held out a hand. She smirked. He knew he couldn’t dance. She glanced around. Mouse was dancing slightly in her seat, not singing. Yolanda and Tom were dancing, it looked complicated, but the singing was just off. Jamie could carry a tune, but she knew the moment she took his hand the dancing would be bad. Still, they were hers. Who needed New Directions?
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