Never asked to feel your halo (Faberry)

Prologue

A/N: NOT MY STORY. I found this gem of a fanfic on the internet and I immediately fell in love with it so I wanted to share it on here. Hope you enjoy the story as much as I did.

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"Hey, what's that you're doing there?"

Lucy jumped as Seb Ober, hands down the most popular boy in the whole of seventh grade, stopped by her desk to make conversation. This had never happened before. God Bless the scientist who invented Proactiv. Sending up another little prayer that the apple she'd had for lunch had left none of its green skin in her braces, she wedged her glasses back onto her nose and looked up from her drawing to reply to his pleasant question.

The friendly smile twisted into a cruel smirk and her sinking heart distracted her long enough for the moment needed to snatch her makeshift sketch pad away. She lunged for it, because that was private and he had no right, already knowing she'd be too slow to grab it back.

"Hey, look!" Seb, tall for his thirteen years, held the book over his head as he hopped out of her reach and addressed the teacher-less class. "Caboosey thinks she's an artist now!"

"What?"

"Let me see?"

"Who drew this? It's actually pretty okay."

"Who's it supposed to be?"

The drawing was passed from hand to hand for everyone to gawp at and Lucy went so red it felt like someone had lit a fire in her mouth. She felt the familiar need to burst into tears sting her eyes and her lips trembled as she weakly begged, "Please give it back."

She was ignored, as usual, and the picture continued its route across the room.

"Wait, that looks like . . ."

"Oh God, is it . . .? Oh, my God."

As recognition dawned on many students, the girls mainly, laughter broke out around Lucy and she prayed with every bit of belief in God she had that she would just die on the spot, before . . .

"Hey, Shan, Caboosey drew a picture of you!"

. . . that happened.

The drawing quickly made its way into Shannon Sarsons' hands after that and as she stared down at the detailed sketch of herself in absolute horror, Lucy's prayers were answered: she died. But unfortunately death by mortification wasn't anywhere near literal enough.

As she chanced a look up and saw the disgusted confusion on the face of Belleview's head cheerleader, she had a feeling Death by Shannon would be.

"What is this?"

"It doesn't mean anything," she hated that her voice sounded so small, so guilty. "We're doing life drawing in art class and you were in my line of sight. I was just practising, that's all."

"And, what, every time you look at me you see me surrounded by all these little hearts, do you?" Shannon sneered, causing the class to break into laughter all over again. "God, you are such a freak of nature! Why can't you do us all a favour and just cease to exist, Lucy Caboosey!"

'I wish I could,' she thought miserably as the taunts continued and the threat of tears became a reality, running hot trails of shame down her still burning cheeks.

". . . also he's the Quarterback, which is apparently a very big deal, although as you know sports aren't really my thing and I can't imagine why throwing air-filled pig skin around a field would appeal to someone clearly as sensitive as Finn is, but I do appreciate that the social standing his position offers him may prove quite beneficial to the Glee Club—"

"Baby girl."

Rachel paused to suck in a breath at the familiar cue from her Daddy. It didn't slow her down for long though.

"—now that he has pledged his allegiance to both his football team and us, despite receiving what I understand was some fairly painful peer pressure administered by his team-mates via several paintball guns, which I think is so brave, don't you think it's brave, Daddy? Dad?"

"I told you we should have gone with a lesbian birth mother just to be on the safe side," Hiram Berry whispered in his husband's ear.

"Oh, hush," Leroy whispered back with a grin. "Our little girl has her first straight crush; I think it's cute."

"I'll remind you of that when she comes home at sixteen to announce she's carrying this Finn character's baby or worse!"

Leroy started to roll his eyes reprovingly at Hiram's far-fetched imagination but then it hit him too. His little girl wanted to date a teenaged boy, and a Quarterback no less. He had been as gay as he was now when he'd been the Quarterback at McKinley all those moons ago and even he'd slept with more than a couple of girls because it was expected of him.

"This is suddenly less funny."

Hiram gave him a smug smile before saying in a rush, "Dibs on not taking her to the Family Wellness clinic!"

"Damn!" Leroy murmured.

"What are you two whispering about when you're supposed to be listening to me?"

The men guiltily jerked apart and sat up straighter when they saw their daughter had turned from the washing up in the sink, sudsy hands planted firmly on her hips.

"Nothing, Baby Girl."

"We're listening, Sweetpea."

After levelling first one of them and then the other with a suspicious glare, she was happy that she had their full attention again and turned back to her after-dinner chore.

"So, as I was saying, Finn's bravery only proves that he is the perfect leading man for me, and you should hear him sing . . ." They could sense her sudden frown as she hesitated. "Well, anyway, it blends very nicely with my voice and with a little vocal training from me, I'm more than confident that he'll soon be even better than his raw talent allows for right now. And he has such a commanding stage presence! I think it's because he's so tall, did I tell you how tall he is? Really, it's perfect and totally cements our chemistry, it's like he's the yin to my yang and . . ."

"Baby Girl."

Rachel sucked in another giant lungful of breath before picking up where she'd left off. ". . . and if on-stage chemistry isn't a sign from God then . . ."

Behind her, the two men shared an eye roll this time. Their little girl's first crush was going to be hard to take, for so many, many reasons.