Something - Quinn Fabray

Chapter 73

"So, what do you think?" Mike asked Ryan the next day in an empty classroom. He had just finished a runthrough of Cool from West Side Story. Tina had encouraged him to audition for the part of Riff, and he'd agreed, wanting to be known as more than just a dancer. He wanted to be a singer too, and he'd asked Tina to work on his audition with him. Now he wanted Ryan's opinion, since Ryan was hands down the best singer he knew.

"I think it was great," Ryan said, smiling. "You've definitely improved a lot since you first joined glee."

Mike grinned. "Any pointers?"

Ryan nodded. "Your diction slurs a tiny bit in some of the parts, here, give me your sheets." He took the sheet music from Mike, taking out a pen and jotting down a few notes. "Have you tried singing it with the dance?"

"Yeah, a few times," Mike replied, looking over Ryan's notes.

"You should practice that," Ryan advised. "It's harder to concentrate on the music when you have to think about dancing. Although it might be different for you, seeing as how dancing seems to be second nature to you already. I'm sure you'll nail your audition."

"Thanks Ryan," Mike smiled. Ryan nodded again as Mike turned to pick up his things. He glanced curiously at his friend. "Are you okay? You seem a little down."

"Hmm?" Ryan looked a little surprised, before giving Mike a small smile. "Oh, yes, I'm alright. Just a bit of a hard conversation with my father last night."

"Ah," Mike nodded. "Yeah, those can be hard. My dad's on my case about my grades right now, there's a Chemistry test result coming out today that he's been bugging me about. He kind of wants me to be a doctor or something." His father's plans for him weren't exactly aligned with Mike's own interests, but he could cross that bridge later. He didn't want a conventional career, but he didn't want to disappoint his father either.

Ryan shrugged. "It's just something from my past that came up a little unexpectedly."

"About your adopted dads?"

"Partly, I suppose."

Mike nodded, sensing that Ryan didn't really want to talk about it. "Okay. I should get going, I wanted to meet Tina before History. Did you see the sign-up sheet for the new glee club yet?"

That brought a smile to Ryan's face. "Yes, I did. And aside from you, Tina, Brittany, and Santana, there are two other names. That's two more than New Directions had, anyways."

"Do you know who signed up?"

"I think Ryder's the freshman I talked to when I was posting the sheet," Ryan answered. "I'm not familiar with Marley Rose though. I think Quinn's still working on getting her cousin to audition. That's about it, but it'll bring us to eight members, nine if we can get Kitty. That's still way more than what Mr. Schue had two years ago."

"Right," Mike nodded. "I guess we'll pick up more members as we go along."

"Exactly," Ryan grinned. "Now, you should go, you don't want to keep Tina waiting."

..

Quinn took Ryan home that afternoon after school, looking forward to spending some time with him. For once, there wasn't anyone in her house. Her mom and her aunt were busy looking at furniture again, and her uncle was off at work while Kitty had Cheerios. She loved her mom, but she needed her space too, and Kitty had a nasty habit of barging into her room unannounced.

Right now she was lying back on her bed reading something for Geography while Ryan sat at the end of the bed answering a math sheet. After a few minutes of companionable silence, she looked up, arching her eyebrow as she found Ryan staring at her. "What?"