Something - Quinn Fabray

Chapter 11

Ryan sat down at the piano, running his hands over the keys. Mr. Schue had decided to go with his original idea of funking VA out with their own performance. He had instructed some of the other glee guys to go over to Carmel and leave notes on the VA members' cars, telling them to show up at the McKinley auditorium on Friday afternoon. It was now Thursday afternoon, and the glee club had just finished fixing up their funk number. After working out some rudimentary choreography they'd decided that they'd improvise tomorrow, since the whole point was to do the complete opposite of Vocal Adrenaline's robotic style.

Ryan hadn't been able to concentrate though. Fortunately he didn't have any solos for this song, since the focus was mainly on Mercedes' and Kurt's voices, and none of the other kids had noticed. Mr. Schue had agreed with his assessment that his style and voice wasn't particularly suited to funk.

He'd really messed up yesterday. He knew that. He was furious with everyone, with his dads for not caring, with his team for treating him like garbage, with Kurt and Mercedes for telling everyone about Shelby, with St. James and the rest of Vocal Adrenaline for ambushing him in the parking lot. The only person he wasn't mad at was Shelby, and of course, he had ended up venting at her. He shouldn't have yelled at Shelby. Everything had just been building up the whole day, and she just wouldn't stop pushing, she didn't get that he didn't want to talk, he just wanted to forget the egging had ever happened. Now she probably never wanted to see him again after what he'd said.

"Are you okay?" A voice shook Ryan out of his depressed musings. He looked up and saw Quinn coming toward him.

"Yes...no...maybe," he flubbed, trying to dispel any trace of sadness from his face.

"Pick one of the above," Quinn joked. Ryan gave a small smile. "Look, you know we're really sorry about yesterday, right? We – at least I – didn't think you'd actually leave us for VA."

Ryan smiled at her gratefully. "Well, thank you. You should probably sit," he said, getting up and dragging a chair next to the piano. Hopefully she was sincere about what she said. He knew the others would get right back to ignoring him until they needed his voice again.

Quinn sat down on the offered chair, studying him as he sat back down on the piano bench. He was wearing a red argyle sweater today, hair slightly mussed as though someone had run a hand through it. He was sort of cute, if he'd just wear something other than those granny-sweaters. Secretly she'd always admired how confident he was, even though everybody didn't really like him. Since joining glee she had seen how the others ignored and belittled him until they needed him to sing. She'd had a taste of being invisible since she'd gotten pregnant and she didn't know how he did it every day for years now without falling apart. She certainly knew she'd never throw another slushy again. But after spending some time with him in glee and that time in the doctor's office when he'd gotten laryngitis, she could see the sadness lying beneath the mask of almost-arrogant overconfidence.

"Do you need to talk?"

Ryan looked at her curiously. "Are you offering just to be nice? You don't need to do that, you know. I know nobody likes to listen when I talk."

Quinn winced at that. It was true, whenever he was talking in glee half the group seemed to tune him out. "No, I just wanted to help. You said I could talk to you if I need someone to talk to, so I thought I'd return the favor since you look like you need someone now. I thought you might need a friend."

Ryan looked at her morosely. "I messed up, Quinn. I messed up really bad." He sighed, turning his gaze back to the piano keys. "My m – Shelby came over to Mr. Hummel's garage yesterday. Apparently Mr. Schue gave her a call. She saw this," he gestured at his black eye, "and she just kept asking if I was ok, and who did it, and I just wanted her to back off, and I yelled at her."