Based off my friend Leah's prompt: "someone write me a samchel au where they were fandom friends before he came to mckinley"

Happy birthday, you insanely talented person you. I started this at like 1 this afternoon, so I'm sorry for any boring bits.

Sam's never been the kind of guy to hide who he is.

Does that mean that at his old school, he got a few strange looks? Sure. High school was all about image. And he wasn't completely immune to it, either; the first day he moved to Lima that summer, he started researching how to bleach his hair to look cooler. He's not invincible to it all.

But that doesn't mean that he's going to turn into a mindless drone just because he wants to be noticed, for once. He was who he was. His love of all things Star Wars and Star Trek and Avatar and Game of Thrones and superheroes wasn't going to go away, and he wasn't going to pretend either. And not just because he might be really bad at acting anything other than authentic. (His kid siblings teased him about it all the time. The fact that they inherited the non-ability didn't even occur to them.)

So, he started looking for a middle ground. And even though Lima seems like the set for an outdated nineties movie, the Internet did exist here. Sam didn't even think twice about checking out the message boards from a flyer he saw at the grocery store down the street, stars and multiple exclamation points included.

(He had no idea who this BerryEnthusiastic94 girl was, but she was ... well. She made an intense flyer.)

ATTENTION LIMA YOUTHS: NEW ONLINE FANDOM FORUM!

Are you passionate about your interests? Are you willing to share, exchange, and recommend new interests to a young connoisseur? Can you speak a language that was created by a passionate group of fans to fit a language of one of your favorite characters? Then you have found the right place!

Please check out the link below, or e-mail the forum mod at BerryEnthusiastic94 at aol dot com! You will be replied to within 24 hours.

From: SuperEvans

To: BerryEnthusiastic94

Subject: Message Board

Hi. I saw your flyer at Ray's Market this morning and I thought I'd check it out. I'm new in town, but it'd be cool to talk to some people before school starts up. (Oh, I'm in high school, I don't know if that's a problem.)

-Sam

PS - If you have any other copies of the flyer, you might want to post them up there. Some people drew some stuff on yours... I tried to block it out with a sharpy, but there was only so much I could do. Sorry.

From: BerryEnthusiastic94

To: SuperEvans

Subject: Re: Message Board

Sam-

Thank you for contacting me! I normally take classes during the summer, but I wanted to rest my voice and self-teach for the last month. I've been wanting to do this for a while now, as community discussions are extremely important and I don't use the Internet very much (not counting research and my daily vocal videos to get my name out there.)

In an attached document I've sent you the sign-in page and any other information you might need. The board is pretty sparse right now, because the friends that I've managed to get to join are more interested in talking about high school gossip, but fresh blood is always appreciated!

(We're all in high school, by the way. You don't have to worry about an age gap. Are you going to McKinley?)

I hope to talk to you soon!

Sincerely,

Rachel (BerryEnthusiastic94)

PS - Thank you for telling me, and Sharpie-ing. I'm not that surprised. I'll probably just let bygones be bygones and wait until school starts and post something there.

Sam's playing Halo when he gets the reply a few hours later.

He can't help but raise his eyebrows at the entire thing. But it's... interesting. She definitely doesn't talk like the girls at his old school, that's for sure. Maybe McKinley is filled with a bunch of insanely smart dictionary types? He's not sure how well he'd fit in at a place like that. Sam tosses his phone back on his bed and decides not to worry too much about it. He still had another month to get into the groove of this place, and maybe she was just different.

He shuts down his XBox and boots his older computer to sign in. After a few minutes of waiting for everything to pop up, he clicks the link she sent him and browses through what she has set up so far. It's pretty extensive. Things are organized by movie and book and series. There's an entire section about news articles, and she even has a video game section. He wonders what video games she plays.

She is right about the other members, though. An entire topic that the mod started on trying to get local teens to join the site has been off-roaded by two other people who keep talking about people at McKinley. You can see, in between messages, that the Rachel girl keeps trying to redirect back on-topic, but she's completely ignored. He opens a new link to make a profile, but keeps that open for later. He might chime in. Help out. He can tell that those two (a Kurt and Mercedes) probably don't mean any harm, but when they seem to be the only people talking on here, Sam could see why it might be frustrating.

Less than three minutes after he signs in as SuperEvans, he gets a message.

Rachel: You made it! :) :) Hello, welcome to the boards.

Sam smiles a little and replies. The annoying semi-glare of the monitor makes him have to work a little harder for it, but a few minutes later he sends something.

Sam: Yeah, thanks for the help. Is there a waiting period for new members or?

Rachel: No, not at all. Feel free to chime in any time!

Sam: Sounds good.

A few minutes later, he's giving suggestions about maybe having video game tournaments or writing a guest article for the newspaper to get the word out. The other two don't say anything, but Rachel posts a long reply and before he knows it, he's online for the rest of the night talking about a Wonder Woman franchise and how Steve Rogers is a hero with or without the uniform. Kurt and Mercedes signed off hours ago, and it's after midnight before he realizes.

Rachel: I have to hit the hay, as it were.

Rachel: It was nice meeting you. :)

Yeah, it really was.

Sam: Talk to you tomorrow?

Rachel: Of course! I mean, who else will teach you how wrong you are about Pepper Potts?

Sam: I'm not saying she's bad, I'm just saying you're not giving Jane Foster enough credit.

Rachel: We'll get into it tomorrow. Sweet dreams.

Sam rolls his eyes, but he still can't shake that smile on his face when he goes to sleep.

You'd think it'd be a short conversation, but somehow it takes them a week to choose who's right over the proposed "Who would be better at taking over the world: Pepper Potts or Jane Foster?" They only referenced the movies because Rachel still hadn't read the comics yet, but when Sam joked that she obviously was biased about the leading man, What, are cynical brunette millionaires your type?, she replied with a I don't know, I quite like the blonde with the heart of gold and intelligence that no one else appreciates. (She doesn't even know what he looks like, but something about that makes him smirk a little.)

Sam: Have you started A Song of Ice and Fire yet?

Rachel: You just told me about that series yesterday, give me some time to collect the right materials, please.

Rachel: :P

Sam: Wow, someone's not being berry enthusiastic today...

Rachel: Hilarious.

Sam: I thought so.

She doesn't reply for a few minutes, and he thinks he might've made a misstep (which, why does he care? They barely even know each oth-)

Rachel: Would you be interested in maybe video chatting with me?

His brain short circuits for a split second.

Rachel: Not that talking with you like this hasn't been lovely, you're quite the conversationalist. But I'm... it feels strange not talking to someone without hand gestures and vocal emphasis and from what I can tell, you're not some sort of internet scheme.

Sam: Or I'm a very good one.

Rachel: Either way, would you?

Sam: Um, gimme a sec.

He looks around, and suddenly casual looks messy and messy looks horrible. He throws a few shirts in the hamper before deciding to just clean the area the camera will see, and maybe angle the monitor around so it looks a little more cinematic. (Rachel would appreciate that, right?)

Usernames are sent, minutes go by, and the video connects.

"Hello? Hello, Sam, are you there?" He hears the voice before he sees her face. It's clearer than he expected, but also textured too. He didn't know what he thought her voice would sound like, but it was probably exactly like and completely different from what it actually was.

"Um, yeah. Yeah, it's me. I still don't see you yet."

"Oh! Sorry, that's my fault. I think I have to mess with the setting and-"

Sam hears the sound of clicking and a few seconds later, a box pops up and a tiny brunette pops up and waves.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Crap, she's a lot hotter than he was prepared for.

"You're gorgeous."

"What?"

Crap crap crap."I just meant - not in a creepy stranger guy way, just... you don't look like I thought you would." Smooth. "I mean, not that I didn't think you would look good, because I did. And I do. Think that. That you look good I mean."

Rachel blushes prettily. "You're fine, Sam. I know what you mean."

Good. "So. Hi."

"We did that part already." She looks like she's trying not to laugh at his stumbling, and he can't blame her. What is with him today?

"Right, of course." So.

They're silent for a few seconds, until Rachel makes the first move.

"So... I'll talk about Avatar if you'll talk about RENT?"

Any awkwardness instantly goes away.

Rachel was right about video chatting being better. He didn't even know how much he was missing until now, but yeah. Text just doesn't compare.

Sam never imagined that someone could pace their room that much, but Rachel has it down to an art form. He can't even bring himself to minimize the video chat to browse the internet when she's trying to prove a point on how Nicole Kidman is severely underrated in Moulin Rouge or how he needs to start showing his kid brother and sister Marvel and DC pre-lack of a PR filter now if he ever wants to instill 'proper values'. (He gives her a few titles and suddenly she's an expert.)

Her eyes are intense in a way that he's never seen before. She just locks onto you like a target and starts talking and talking and it takes everything you've got to just absorb it all. But in a good way. He's never met anyone so passionate before. Just days after he first met her, she was asking him about his interests and almost the next day was battling him on almost everything. Sam felt bad for a little bit, that she was just researching stuff he liked, so he also watched a few things she recommended. He's never been into the musical thing before, but he can see the appeal when she talks about it. Her cheeks flush and her eyes sparkle and he can almost see how much she loves it.

... shit.

She's halfway through a monologue about the mistake that was the Eragon book-to-movie transition when he realizes it.

He likes her. Doesn't he?

He does.

"Are you okay, Samuel?" she teases, before getting closer to her monitor when he doesn't say anything immediately after. "I was only fifty percent kidding about us cosplaying as Thor and Jane."

He shakes his head. "No, it's nothing."

She purses her lips, and her hands almost instinctively reach her hips and when did he start noticing that kind of thing with her? They've only been talking for like two and a half weeks, and on video for half of that, so why-

"I know we only really talk about interests, Sam, but you can talk to me about whatever you want. It's... I mean, personal stuff. Besides the education of your siblings, I mean." And the thing is, she's being completely honest. He's never met someone as genuine as her.

He thinks about the football tryouts yesterday, and all the times he used to get thrown into the dumpster before he got big enough to defend himself, and could he risk it on a two-weeks girl he barely even knew?

(He'd risk everything. What did that mean for him? For this year?)

"Can we talk later?"

It's not even six. They've been talking almost all day every day since they first did and why didn't he notice that before?

She frowns, and he instantly wants to take it back but he can't.

"I'm not trying to blow you off, promise. I just..." He has no idea, to be honest. "School is starting soon, and I want to get a hold on everything." That's partly true.

"Yeah... yeah, of course. I understand." Her smile is back, but it's not as wide or as vivid and he wants to swallow back the last three minutes.

They say their goodbyes, and Sam signs out of Skype. He doesn't open it again for another week.

He's at Ray's for the second time since he's been in this city when he sees two familiar faces walking down the aisle just a ways in front of him.

Sam doesn't know that it's them and not just other gossiping teens, but his gut's never lied to him before so he makes a 180 and walks around in the other direction. (He has no reason to hide from them. They probably wouldn't even recognize him, and even if they did it'd just be that guy who they saw talking nerdy a few times before they realized they could just text each other. But still.)

He's about to turn out of the bread aisle and into frozen when he hears a voice.

"Is that who I think it is?"

"If you think we're seeing the obviously fake blonde you know who's been gabbing about for weeks, then I think you're right, Mercedes."

Too late. He considers pretending he doesn't hear them, but that seems pretty lame so he turns back around and meets Rachel's ... friends? For the first time. Unlike Rachel, they used profile pictures for their icons so when he gets closer he can ID them pretty fast. He's not exactly sure what to say. They've never met face to face before, and well... it's not like he talked to them in the first place. More like he and Rach talked around them. "Uh, hey."

Both of their eyes scan up and down his body and he keeps his head up under the scrutiny. Kurt raises his eyebrow and turns in a little with Mercedes to whisper something (Rachel wasn't kidding, seriously- I know right?) before he turns back and gives Sam a smile that's a little more friendly.

"What can we do you for?"

He kicks the floor slightly, before remembering he's not eight and gets to the point. "Have you two seen Rachel lately?"

They look at each other, and he sighs. Kurt turns back and smirks. "From what we heard, you weren't really talking anymore."

"It's only been a week."

"Sure," Mercedes replies. She's not convinced, it seems. She turns in as if she's going to start whispering to Kurt again.

"Okay, look. I want to talk to Rachel, but... I mean, it seems ridiculous to try to talk to her online when we live in the same city and go to the same school. Can you just... can you tell her to message me?"

Kurt shakes his head. "No, no, no; we're not your messengers." His head jaunts up. "However, there is a party tonight. At Puckerman's. Mercedes can message you on that weird site-"

"It's not weird."

Kurt looks back at him for a second. "Fine, whatever. The completely not weird site that only has two members. She'll give you the party dish."

"And I want to go to this party because?"

Mercedes rolls her eyes. "Rachel will be there. Obviously."

Those two weren't kidding, Sam thinks as he enters this Puckerman guy's house. It doesn't seem like Rachel's scene, but he doesn't really know her so maybe he was wrong. (He's been wrong about a lot of things lately.) The music is so loud that it's almost pumping through him, and he's pretty sure one hour in that everyone in the front room of this party is already drunk. He feels weirdly young around all this beer, so he decides to just go get some water from the fridge.

"Hey, new guy!" He's almost tackled by some mohawked guy he remembers from the football tryouts and remembers why that name Mercedes gave him was so familiar. Puck wraps his arm around Sam's neck and tries to pull him back to the party, but he manages to get out of his hold and hide away in the kitchen.

Why exactly did he come to this thing again? If he was where he wanted to be, Sam'd be in his living room with his family watching a movie. Maybe this time he could finally convince them to watch Captain America again? He sighs and pops his shoulders. He's always prided himself on being honest, and if he's being honest?

He's only here because he'd been told Rachel would be here. No question.

It would have been easier to just try and message her, but that didn't feel right to him. After a week of silence, and only knowing her for twice as much as that, just sending her a quick "Hello" seemed like a douche thing to do. He didn't know why, though.

And then he turns around back into the living room, and he sees her for the first time. Face to face.

They're surrounded by people, and Rachel has never looked so small. Her hair is falling down her back, and she excuse me and pardon me's her way through a sea of other teenagers who are holding onto their red cups like their lives depend on it. Just in front of her he can see Kurt and Mercedes and another girl with some cool blue stripes in her hair holding hands with this tall guy who also looks familiar. He only looks at them for a second though before he darts back to her.

It takes him less than a minute to walk across the room and right next to her. She almost runs into his chest, so he takes a step back so she doesn't fall.

Rachel's eyes dart up, and ...

Woah.

She's right there. They live in the same town, he always knew that, but it's one thing knowing that and then to have her be - she's right here.

"Hi."

Rachel bites her lip. "Hi, Sam." Her eyes are looking him so intently, he knows he can't mess this up.

He's not exactly sure what to say. But he has to say something.

"I'm sorry."

She takes a step forward, before shaking her head and moving back. "For what?"

"You know what." Rachel bites her lip and her eyes dart away, and he's confused. "I mean... you know what... right?"

People are staring at them, but just barely, so Rachel takes a step a little closer to get off their radar.

"I mean..."

She nods. "Yeah. I know for what." Rachel's eyes dart around at all the people around them, and back at him, and he feels like hugest asshole. He takes one step, then two towards her, and they're close enough that he can stand over her a little. It doesn't feel weird though. It feels... right. Cheesy, but true.

"Sam, you don't-"

"Please, Rach. Just... can I talk?"

She nods, warily.

"I... I just moved here a month ago." He knows people are eavesdropping, and he knows he's probably putting his 'popularity' at line, but he really doesn't care. Rachel is worth whatever they do to people around here who don't know their place. "And I had this plan, this really solid plan. It involved buying some new Chucks, and wearing a cool letterman jacket I just got yesterday even though I haven't even played here yet so I don't know why I got it yet... that's not the point."

By this point she's smiling a little, and she's so ... just, he has to keep going or else he'll lose his momentum.

"But you're so... you're loud. And stubborn. And obsessed. And fixating. And talented. And brave. And - so many other words that you probably know better than I do because you know you're more eloquent than I am but..." He lays it out there. "I like you, Rachel. I think you're one of the most incredible people I've ever met. And the coolest. I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. It was really lame of me to just ignore you because I didn't know how to change my plan. I'd like to think I'm not a guy who treats people bad, and I've done a good job of that so far. You didn't deserve that, and I don't care what any of these idiots around us thin-"

Rachel stands on her tip toes and he inhales slightly. She smiles. "I forgive you. For now. You talk too much," she teases.

And then she kisses him. And it's the cosmos and the galaxy and the universe and everything and nothing and most things.

He hears someone hooting for a second, but then Rachel bites his lip and he kind of forgets his own name.

She pulls back, and her face is completely red (and so is his, probably) when she hears some of her friends clapping behind them.

"Hi."

Sam laughs a little. "We did that part already."

Rachel nods to herself. "Right, of course." She looks back up and they can't help but laugh.

Sam looks around, and has never felt more done with a party in his entire life.

"Wanna go to the park down the street instead?"

She looks behind him and gestures toward the door with her head, and it's kind of the cutest thing he's ever seen and wow he's a sap.

It's not that dark outside, so they decide to just walk instead of take his car that's still parked just out front.

It's not the coolest of towns, but Sam's pretty sure that sunsets are awesome everywhere. He feels Rachel's hand slip into his, and he looks over and she's smiling at him and something clicks into place.

"So..." He starts. "If you could date any Avenger, which one would it be?"

"Hmm..." She pretends to think about it, before turning towards him. "Guess."

Easy. "Thor."

Rachel laughs. "Actually, no. Just because I like him more than Tony doesn't mean I'd date him out of them all."

"Well, not Hawkeye, he's too serious for you I think. Black Widow?"

Rachel thinks about it. "Definitely a contender, but no. She's not who I was thinking."

Sam's drawing a blank. "Bruce Banner?"

"Steve Rogers. Obviously."

Obviously? "I thought you liked blonde guys with the gold heart and intelligence or something like that?" If Rachel can tell he sounds slightly disappointed, she doesn't say anything about it. Instead, she stops walking for a second and squeezes his hand.

"Maybe I like the strong, loyal types who know when it's time to stand up for the little guy." She shrugs. "Besides, I think he'd appreciate my voice."

Sam stops. "Voice? Wait, you sing?"

Rachel won't stop laughing no matter how many times he asks her why.