Glee -- Third Time Lucky 2: These Kinds of Dreams
Title: Third Time Lucky
Chapter: 2. These Kinds of Dreams
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Karofsky/Kurt
Rating: R (…or F, for "Full of F-Bombs")
Word Count: 7,434
Warnings: language; underaged drinking; language; sporadic angststorms; language; talk of a religious nature; major spoilers through 2.11; sorta-spoilers through 2.15 ("Sexy")
Summary: Somehow the dead heat of summer gives rise to the mother(fucker) of all second chances. The road to redemption is paved with fights, phone calls, false starts, and more than a few jokes at the expense of the lovable Finn Hudson.
Author's Note: Hey, check this out: A FOUR-CLAUSE NOTE! I want to promise that this isn't going to be a habit, but that would probably end up making me a lying ho, and I have enough problems as it is.
1. As far as the writing goes, yes, it's all done, so it's just a matter of editing and updating. \o/ As far as the editing and updating goes, I am flying by the seat of my pants. And my pants are on fire. (That's a common side-effect of being a lying ho.)
2. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone reading this so far! :D I'm not usually in "live" fandoms - I tend to be so late to the party that everyone is already passed out amongst the empty pizza boxes - but you guys are all totally awesome, and I'm so excited that you're excited. ♥
3. One of the things I meant to put into the first-chapter note was that I would be very remiss (and slightly insane) not to acknowledge the influence of the kurtofsky_ims on this fic - and since KIMS is genius, I am proud to do so. I think I wrote in a small homage somewhere, but I don't actually remember what it is, presumably because I am a failure. A failure who has had both too much caffeine and not nearly enough. XD
4. Californication, if you would like it for reference.
CHAPTER 2: THESE KINDS OF DREAMS
“Mmmm.” Mercedes has a tendency to hum during the first few sips of iced coffee. Kurt always imagines that she’s curling her toes inside her shoes. “So what’s new since the last time nothing was new?”
“This and that,” Kurt says. He pokes at a particularly large ice cube with the end of his straw. “I just filled out an application next door.”
“At Play Faire?” Mercedes asks.
“Why do you look like you’re having horrifying mental images?” Kurt asks. “They let you wear whatever you want under the aprons, and it’s so small that there won’t be much inventory to get confused about.”
Mercedes gives him a look. “Kurt, you do realize that selling kids’ toys means selling toys to kids.”
Kurt pops the straw into the corner of his mouth and sucks delicately. “I don’t see what you mean.”
“All I’m saying is that Play Faire employees probably aren’t encouraged to beat some discipline into their customers.”
“I would never beat discipline into a child,” Kurt says. “I would just put the fear of God into him and let the discipline sneak in while he was crying.” He pauses. “Okay, now I do see what you mean.”
“My cousin Jason is going to be over tomorrow,” Mercedes says. “Come by for a couple hours, and I can show you how to negotiate with somebody who thinks Santa’s real and doesn’t understand words with four syllables.”
Kurt considers. “So pretty much Brittany.”
Mercedes laughs. “Yeah, except small and hyper instead of practically stoned.”
“I… can’t,” Kurt says, cringing even as he gets the word out. “That’s the other thing I was hoping to talk to you about. I sort of… need a song that a normal guy would like.”
Mercedes, bless her beautiful, capacious heart, sits back and sips her drink, watching him but not judging yet. “I don’t think I’m the best person to help you there.”
“Well, you dated Puck for a while,” Kurt says, managing not to make a face. “What did he listen to?”
“The sound of his own voice, mostly,” Mercedes says. “Why don’t you ask Finn? Is this something for the Warblers? He’d probably still help you, you know. Finn’s competitive, but he cares about you more.”
“He also owes me for saving him from the Wrath of Carole yesterday,” Kurt says. He stirs the ice around with his straw, vacillating. “Just… I kind of don’t want Finn to know about it.”
Mercedes’s worried frown is downright adorable. “Kurt, what is this about?”
He takes a deep breath and prepares to get deservedly bitch-slapped. “It’s about Karofsky.”
Kurt thinks that this week has had far more than its share of long, meaningful pauses. The current specimen is enhanced by a slow eyebrow-raise. “Okay, Kurt, I’m sorry, but why in the hell do you need a song for Karofsky? I figure you probably don’t need me to remind you that this is the guy who drove you fifty miles away and kind of ruined both our lives. Please tell me he has a smokin’ gay brother with the same last name.”
Kurt shakes his head slowly. “He doesn’t need one. I didn’t-I wasn’t totally honest with you. With anyone, really, except Blaine, because-”
Kurt loves Mercedes Jones. He loves her as much as an outlandishly gay boy could ever possibly love a gorgeous, powerful young diva, because she isn’t offended that he held back-she moves on to the implications: “What happened, Kurt?”
“Karofsky kissed me.” His voice wavers a little, but he irons it out by force. “It was-I mean, it happened in the locker room, and nobody saw or knew about it, but I told Blaine, and then Blaine tried to confront him about it, and then he said he’d kill me if word got out, and you know the part about trying to get him expelled-”
“Yeah,” Mercedes cuts in gently, leaning across the table to grab his hand and squeeze it. “The part I don’t get is why you’re gonna serenade the guy you hate, even if he is in the closet or whatever. Kurt, I know-all right, I don’t know. But I can guess that you feel like you’re connected to him because you’re both gay, so you’ve both had to deal with a lot of the same stuff, but having that in common doesn’t make any of what he did to you okay.”
“He’s terrified,” Kurt says. “Fear makes people do horrible things.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Mercedes says. “How do you know he’ll even-”
“We’ve been talking,” Kurt says. “I ran into him in the park, and we just-had a conversation. It went really well.”
Mercedes uses her Skeptical Eyebrows.
“Okay,” Kurt says; “it was pretty craptastic, and it ended with him storming off in a huff, but then we had another yesterday, and I kind of… invited him over.”
Mercedes uses her What the Fuck Is Wrong with You Kurt Hummel Eyebrows.
“You mean you kind of invited him over,” she says, “so that the guy who kind of forced you to change schools can kind of see your bedroom?”
“Of course it sounds amazingly stupid when you put it like that,” Kurt manages.
“Kurt…” Mercedes begins.
“I know,” he says. “But what if-let’s just entertain the hypothetical possibility here-what if he just needs somebody to let him in? What if just a little bit of kindness and acceptance makes a difference? Wouldn’t it be worth the risk?”
“As much as I am sincerely glad you’re trying to find the best in people,” Mercedes says, “I just don’t think there’s much to dig up in Dave Karof-”
“OhmyGod, he’s here,” Kurt whispers furiously. When all of this started, he developed a habit of always taking the seat where he could see the door, and it’s a total head-trip that it’s actually paying off now. “I can’t keep looking at him,” he tells Mercedes in an undertone. “Do you have-”
Mercedes is already getting out her hand mirror and pretending to play with her hair. Kurt focuses intently on his drink, tipping it back and forth, trying not to make it obvious that he’s watching Mercedes’s reactions like a hawk.
No. Not quite like that. Kurt’s never been the predator in his life.
“Okay, he stopped by the door,” Mercedes says in a voice that would sound placid and ordinary to anyone who didn’t know her well. “He’s got some kind of note-he looks kinda pissed. He’s looking around… yeah, he definitely sees you. He doesn’t look scared, Kurt; he looks angry. Are you sure you don’t want to just… leave?”
“Relax,” Kurt says, and it comes out a whole lot calmer than he feels. “He doesn’t have anything to prove to us.”
Mercedes gives him one last look that clearly says I really, sincerely hope you’re right as she snaps her mirror shut. “Good, ’cause he’s coming over.”
Kurt meant what he said. That doesn’t prevent his heart from clenching tightly and then stuttering so fast that he almost chokes on his drink.
He feigns surprise as he looks up, Karofsky’s shadow falling across their table, and feels his cheeks hollow as he sucks on the straw. Karofsky’s face changes just a little-too little for Kurt to nail down what emotion that was.
“Hi,” Kurt says. “I didn’t take you for a coffee man. I was thinking more blood of virgins and righteous sweat.”
“Kurt,” Mercedes says warningly.
Karofsky glances between the two of them, fist curling tighter around a scrap of white paper. Obviously Kurt assumed that he’d have big hands, but he’d never really looked at them until now, possibly because previous experience instructed him to duck whenever he was in their range.
“My mom’s sick,” Karofsky says, and his voice is tight, low, flat, and slightly harsh-defensive. “She wanted me to get her something, but I can never read her fucking chicken scratches.”
A young mother with a four-year-old gives Karofsky a dirty look. He ignores her.
Kurt shrugs, puts his drink down on the table, and holds out a hand. “Can I see?”
He notices-why does he notice?-that Karofsky’s careful not to touch Kurt’s skin in the process of dropping the paper into his open palm.
Kurt assesses the damage. It appears that Karofsky’s mother actually paid attention in the fourth grade when they were learning cursive.
“She wants a low-fat caramel latte,” Kurt translates. He pauses. The look on Karofsky’s face will be hilarious later, but right now Kurt kind of feels sorry for him. “Why don’t you give me the money, and I’ll place the order?”
There’s a five-dollar bill in front of him in the time it takes Kurt to blink.
He blinks again. “Right.”
Karofsky loiters, looking sourly at the table of stirrers and add-ons, while Kurt places the order and then moves over near him to wait. He watches Kurt tap one foot to the elevator music.
“Is it a compulsion, or what?”
Kurt smiles. “Something like that.”
Karofsky leans back against the table and pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He shifts the toe of one shoe back and forth in time, then the other, then both at once. Then he stops and glances back towards the wide front window of the store. “I’m dead meat if anybody I know’s out there. The only thing gayer than getting a caramel whatever latte is getting one for your mom.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Kurt asks. “What’s she got?”
“Migraine.”
Kurt wrinkles his nose. “I think I’ve heard that caffeine makes them worse.”
Karofsky glances at him. “You going to argue with a woman with a migraine?”
Kurt smiles. “I do sometimes miss the ‘Testosterone Only’ sign my dad used to have up in our kitchen. But he’s so happy it’s hard to want anything about the old life back.” Karofsky opens his mouth, but Kurt beats him to the punch. “Say anything about my defective testosterone, and you’re getting low-fat caramel latte burns all down your chest.”
Karofsky shakes his head. “You are scary as fuck sometimes, Hummel.”
“…you know, I think that makes up for the testosterone comment you didn’t make.”
Karofsky rolls his eyes, but before he can return fire, a barista slaps a cup down on the countertop.
“Skinny caramel latte for Stef?”
Kurt collects the cup and hands it off to Karofsky, who is frowning at him again. “That’s not your name.”
“Nope,” Kurt says. “It’s Lady GaGa’s.”
Karofsky’s frown deepens, but that might be partly the thought of returning to the Realm of the Migraine Mom. “Hummel, you are weird as hell.”
“Thanks,” Kurt says. “See you tomorrow.”
Karofsky departs in peace, and Kurt returns to the table and settles across from Mercedes again.
“Okay,” she says after a long moment of thought. “I have no idea what I just saw.”
“He’s a human being,” Kurt says. “That’s all I’m trying to prove.”
“Hang on.” She holds her hands up and gives him another look, both puzzled and slightly reproachful. “I figured out what it was. This is how you get with school projects, Kurt. And as much as I would seriously love to see you go at that boy with the glitter paint, I don’t think it’d turn out as well as your poster-boards.”
“It’s going to be a long time before I put him and glitter in the same room,” Kurt says.
“Just… be careful, Kurt,” Mercedes insists. “I mean, I promise to sing GaGa at your funeral, but I’d rather not do it this weekend.”
“You’re going to sing ‘Now Comes the Night’ by Rob Thomas at my funeral,” Kurt says. “Brad will be excellent accompanying you, and Mr. Schuester will cry.”
Mercedes looks surprised, then not surprised, then sad. “You’ve thought this out.”
Kurt sips at the dregs of his drink. “You’re also on-duty to make sure Santana wears something decent, and Rachel is definitely not allowed to sing ‘Candle in the Wind.’”
On second thought-or, more accurately, on four-billionth-and-second thought-this might be the crowning achievement on a long list of extremely stupid decisions.
Kurt curls up in the bowl chair and then gets up again, because it’ll put creases in his slacks. He paces across the carpet, glances at the clock, goes over to prod at iTunes, and then heads upstairs just in case the doorbell isn’t working.
He should really put himself out of his misery now that Mercedes knows how to handle the arrangements.
There’s a brisk knock at the door. Kurt’s not sure how to feel about the fact that his doorbell-related paranoia was apparently justified. He stops pacing a rut into the kitchen linoleum, takes a deep breath, and crosses the foyer to open the door.
Karofsky doesn’t exactly return Kurt’s welcoming smile, but he doesn’t look hostile either. There’s no new car in or near the driveway, which means he must have parked a ways down the street-just in case someone happened by, recognized both the vehicle and the location, and subsequently added two and two.
The sooner they conduct this conclave, probably the better.
“Come in,” Kurt says. Karofsky steps over the threshold and then out of the way as Kurt closes the door again. His dark eyes dart around at first, picking out Kurt can’t tell which features, and then rove slowly over the panorama as a whole. Kurt leads the way towards the kitchen, assuming his guest will follow. “Can I get you anything? Most of what we have is kind of healthy food, because my dad’s still not at a hundred percent, and Finn just eats anything inanimate that comes within five feet of him.” The left corner of Karofsky’s mouth curls up. “I once watched him inhale an entire package of Oreos in five minutes flat,” Kurt says, which is, nightmarishly, completely true. “He almost ate the plastic, too, but Carole caught him just in time.”
Karofsky snickers, and then he seems to remember where he is, veers towards awkward again, and shrugs.
Kurt can’t prevent himself from thinking Oh my God boys are so dumb, but fortunately he’s learned since the second grade not to say stuff like that out loud. Besides, considering just how far out of his element David Karofsky has come, Kurt supposes he can cut the guy a pretty considerable quantity of slack.
“We can get food later,” he says. “I’ll show you my room.”
Still wordlessly, Karofsky trails him down the stairs. His steps pause as Kurt’s lair comes into view.
“Holy shit,” he says. “It’s like the Batcave.”
Kurt moves out of the way, and Karofsky stands at the foot of the stairs, his hands shoved into his pockets again, to stare around himself, somewhat uncomfortably.
“I know,” Kurt sighs. “Gayer than a San Franciscan rainbow. It’s fine; the Gay Batcave is a title I think I can live with.”
“No, it’s just… nice,” Karofsky says. “Really nice. Like those home and garden magazines or whatever. You could be an interior designer or something. Nobody gives a shit about that stuff around here, but I guess it’s a big deal in real cities.”
Kurt tries so, so hard not to beam like a five-year-old with a lollipop. “Well, nothing’s going to break if you take a seat. I’ll warn you if you’re about to sit on a leek.”
Karofsky rolls his eyes extensively, sizing up the bowl chair when he’s done. “Dude, I looked that shit up. It’s a fucking vegetable.”
Kurt can’t help himself. “Did you go on WikiLeeks?”
Blaine would get i-
Karofsky snorts.
At Kurt’s startled expression, he flops down in the bowl chair and hunches his shoulders like they’ll protect him from judgment. “My dad is a news junkie. And his newspapers have, like, two comics, and they’re political and never funny. So I read the news when I have breakfast.”
Kurt fusses with iTunes and keeps his voice light. “I see no problem with that. And I’d totally harbor Julian Assange; he’s kind of foxy. Unfortunately, he’s almost certainly a total jackass. Anyway… here.” He holds one of the duet-color-coded lyrics sheets out to Karofsky, instinctually keeping his distance and feeling a twinge of what might be regret.
“Wait, the Chili Peppers?” Karofsky says. “I thought you listened to GaGa and shit.”
“Back when there were actually music videos on television,” Kurt says, “I used to stay up until two in the morning on weekends hoping one of theirs would come on. I told myself it was because I liked their music, but really it was because I was twelve years old and confused, and Anthony Kiedis is incapable of keeping a shirt on. Even after I figured it out, though, I kind of kept following them.”
Karofsky looks at the lyrics again, then up at him. “That’s… weird.”
Kurt shrugs a little, settling in his desk chair and drumming his fingers on the desktop. “I don’t know. They have a lot of tracks I like, and ‘Californication’ is a good one.”
“No,” Karofsky says. “The idea of you being confused-about anything. You… always know what you want.”
Kurt blinks. He swallows. He decides that he can’t face this inward Gorgon right now, and he shoves it aside with a well-polished mental shield.
“Well,” he says, “what I want now is to start this before you break through a wall of my Gay Batcave to escape.”
Karofsky takes the bait, lowering the lyrics sheet and giving Kurt a long-suffering look now. “Are you sure about this? This is stupid. You fucking bribed me with food and air conditioning.”
“Come on,” Kurt says. “I know you’re good. And by your reaction, I’m betting Mr. Schue told you the same thing. Then he probably got into your personal space and gave you the puppy eyes.”
Karofsky stares. “You’re seriously fucking psychic, Hummel. It’s creepy as hell.”
Kurt smiles faintly. “One of my many talents. Speaking of which, before we jump into this, I don’t think you’ve ever heard me sing, so I should warn you of two things: one, I’m a countertenor, which basically just means that I sing in a high range, but… Two, I was the third-best singer in New Directions, after Mercedes and Rachel.”
“That Rachel chick is a psycho,” Karofsky says. “And coming from me…”
“The real moment of terror is when you think about the fact that she’ll someday take over the world,” Kurt says. “And then you realize that reindeer sweaters will be mandatory attire beneath her tyrannical rule.”
Karofsky smirks. “I don’t know what you’re worried about. If anyone on the fucking planet could wear a reindeer sweater and not look like a dumbass, it’d be you.”
Kurt flushes hotly and attempts to retort, but it comes out as a half-stammered, “I d-don’t…”
“Shut up,” Karofsky says good-naturedly, picking at the corner of his lyrics sheet now. “It’s like-the stuff you usually wear, looking at the pieces individually, it’s like, ‘What the fuck is that?’, but the way you put them all together, they kind of make sense.”
Kurt thinks his head might be spinning. “David, that’s the most accessible definition of fashion I’ve ever heard from anyone, let alone a teenaged boy.”
There is a long pause while they both admire the Gay Batcave instead of making eye contact.
“You want to get started?” Kurt asks.
“Fuck yeah,” Karofsky says.
Kurt wishes he’d thought to master-plan that all along.
“I’ll be the red text and go first,” he offers. “I think it might be better to sing through it once without the music, so we can get a little more comfortable with the lyrics before we try to keep up with the tempo-especially since they’re complicated. So you’re the blue text, if that’s all right.”
Karofsky was close, but no sometimes-just-a-cigar-Kurt doesn’t always know what he wants. But he knows how to take command of a situation, and the gut-wrenching, nay-saying voice that whispers constantly from the back of his head has taught him to prepare for almost any contingency. It’s understandable that most people can’t distinguish the two.
“Blue and red make purple,” Karofsky says. “You put the choruses in green.”
Kurt pauses. “…did I?”
Karofsky sends him a cold look that pushes straight through his skin to curl around his bones.
Kurt clears his throat, sits up straighter to open his chest, and looks intently at the printout. “I’ll just… start, shall I?”
“Look, if you think you’re, like, protecting me, that’s bullsh-”
“Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind’s elation,” Kurt sings. “Little girls from Sweden dream of silver-screen quotations. And if you want these kinda’ dreams, it’s Californication…”
Karofsky hesitates, but he rallies and forges ahead, presumably because the only thing worse than singing in a basement with another guy is chickening out about it. His voice is low and tentative, but it holds, and Schue’s right-Karofsky’s unpracticed, but he’s not even a quarter bad.
“It’s the edge of the world and all of Western civilization…”
Kurt is every bit as pleased as punch.
“Email me something you want to try,” Kurt says when they troop upstairs for a beverage break. “Did Rachel teach you how to harmonize?”
“Rachel wants me to drop dead,” Karofsky says.
“Good,” Kurt says. “Not that she wants to kill you,” he adds hastily; “that she didn’t teach you. She gives instruction under the assumption that everybody around her has also been taking music lessons since they were three weeks old.” He opens the fridge and leans over to peer inside. “What can I get you?”
Karofsky bends down to look with him, and their shoulders brush-Karofsky’s is startlingly warm here in the glacial aura of the fridge. Kurt wants to recoil, and then he doesn’t, and then he doesn’t dare to move.
At least he’s categorically disproved Karofsky’s you always know what you want theory now.
“Root beer doesn’t have any caffeine, right?” Karofsky asks.
“Right,” Kurt says. He shouldn’t ask as he reaches; shouldn’t notice the small shift of Karofsky’s arm against his- “Why?”
Karofsky accepts the can and steps away. “Migraines run in the family.”
Kurt is still halfway into the fridge-which, on the upside, makes freezing in place kind of appropriate. “Oh. Wow. David, I’m sorry.”
Karofsky shrugs and opens the can. Kurt really should have started a shrug tally a long time ago; lately he’s been starting to differentiate the subtleties of things like shoulder angles and complementary body language. This shrug means something like I never know what the hell to say when people apologize for stuff they had nothing to do with.
Kurt fills a glass of water from the tap, partly to give himself something to do; partly because he doesn’t need the calories, and diet soda tastes like cough syrup.
“I’ve got a stupid question,” Karofsky says.
Kurt doesn’t particularly like the sound of that, but rarely has he ever gone to greater lengths to bring something on himself. “Shoot.”
Karofsky’s fingertips leave shining trails in the condensation on the can. “Are there any other fags at McKinley, or is it just us?”
“That’s not a stupid question,” Kurt says. “It’s just an offensive one.” He pauses. “And it’s not ‘us’; it’s just you. I’m going back to Dalton next year, remember?”
“Fine,” Karofsky says flatly. “Is it just me?”
“Statistically, I doubt it,” Kurt says. “But every time I try to play the odds, I lose.” He attempts to gauge the tides of Karofsky’s homicidal tendencies. “Especially on the football team.”
The tide appears to be coming in. “Wait, what?”
“I barked up a lot of the wrong trees,” Kurt says, swilling his glass and watching the whirlpool. “Finn, Sam… all right, I guess that’s zero for two. That’s actually better than the team’s performance up until last season.”
Karofsky seems to calm a little. “That Sam kid’d probably be better off gay at the rate he’s going. I’m pretty sure those pep talks he mutters to himself before games are in that language from ‘Avatar.’”
“Please tell me you’ve seen evidence that he artificially colors his hair,” Kurt says desperately. “Please. It would vindicate the entirety of my sad little life.”
Karofsky’s eyebrows arch and then dip again. “I haven’t seen anything.”
Kurt scowls.
Innocently, Karofsky sips at his soda can. “Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“If I was Mr. Schue,” Kurt says, “I would hug you for that.”
“If you were Schuester,” Karofsky says, “I wouldn’t let you get close enough.”
At two in the morning tonight, when Kurt will presumably receive a coupon from the coffee shop with a members’ discount, he’s going to regret leaving his computer open with the volume maxed out, but he wants to hear the ding if Karofsky emails him. As he lies on his back in bed with his hands folded over his chest, blue words scroll across his eyelids so persistently that he softly sings along.
“Marry me, girl, be my fairy to the world; be my very own constellation…”
The ding sounds like a school bell at five past eight the next morning, and Kurt’s attempt to throw himself out of bed ends on the floor, with a tangle of displaced sheets and a lot of flailing.
At least the coffee coupon will be useful; he was getting slammed into lockers in his dreams all night.
Except it’s not a coupon; it’s from Blaine. There’s no subject line, so Kurt clicks and then blearily squints, allowing him to read the magnum opus:
Calling you in five - consider this fair warning! ;)
“It’s summer, you bastard,” Kurt says.
His iPhone rings. The ringtone for Blaine is a recording of the man himself starting to sing “Telephone” and then dissolving into laughter.
Kurt looks at the email. “That was three minutes, you bastard,” he says, because he’s not very creative until about nine.
Kurt picks up just as previous-Blaine starts giggling too much to finish the chorus.
“You’re sick,” he says.
“Good mornin’,” Blaine sings immediately; “good mor-nin’, it’s great to stay up late-”
“Thanks, Gene,” Kurt says, trying not to notice the weird acrobatics his heart does at the thought of being woken with Singin’ in the Rain every day. “What’s going on that couldn’t possibly wait until noon?”
“Nothing, really,” Blaine says. “Just that we haven’t caught up in-” He clucks his tongue in disapproval. “-almost a week. Shameful! What’s new in Lima-town?”
“Not much,” Kurt says. Empirically speaking, it’s almost sort of quasi-true if you tilt your head. “I have an interview Sunday at the toy store downtown. Mercedes thinks I’m going to get fired on my first day for berating the customers.”
Blaine laughs, and Kurt can picture that gleam-thing his eyes do so clearly that it makes his chest contract.
“That means she knows you’ll get the job,” Blaine is saying. “Which, might I add, you obviously will, but good luck anyway. Have you started the summer reading yet?”
“Jesus Christ, Blaine,” Kurt says, but he’s smiling despite himself. “It’s not even July.”
“Get a jump on it,” Blaine suggests. “Grab it from behind and take it by surprise.”
Kurt would like the record to show that it is not his fault that sounds like an elaborate innuendo. Blaine has a way of saying exactly the wrong thing in exactly the wrong tone. He’s the worst kind of tease in the world-an utterly oblivious one.
“My colored Post-Its and I will get right on that,” Kurt says. “Or maybe we’ll go outside and enjoy summer like a normal kid.”
“You are so not normal,” Blaine says. “That’s what makes you great.”
Kurt fumbles that one. There’s a reason he played kicker, and even that was only for about two weeks.
“Well,” he manages, “I’d be happy to talk about me until the sun becomes a red giant and obliterates the solar system, but while I’m distracted, how are you?”
“You know me,” Blaine says cheerfully. “Just chugging along, keeping myself out of trouble.”
Kurt should seize that segue. Kurt should tell him. Kurt should lay it all out and get someone else’s eyes panning over the plotline, because he’s biased and scared and traumatized and bewildered, and it’s impossible to see the design of the hedge maze when you’re standing in the middle. Blaine might be able to guide him to the exit.
Except… Blaine has his own life to manage. Blaine’s previous experience is with hedge corridors. It’s too complicated to explain right. Karofsky’s just starting to peek out from under his armor, and a breach of trust now would send him scuttling back inside forever.
And Kurt’s really damn tired of the damsel role.
“Are you doing your summer reading?” Kurt asks, tutting for good measure. “It’s only, what, a billion pages, give or take?”
“Why do you think I get up so early?” Blaine replies. “Honestly, no, I haven’t yet. We should have a race.”
“What does the winner get?”
“Ice cream,” Blaine says. “Or maybe alcohol, depending on what he’s been reading. Deal?”
“Booze within gambling,” Kurt says. “You’re a corruptive influence, Blaine Anderson.”
He can hear Blaine’s shining grin. “I’ll take that as a yes. Hey, let me know when you start the job-I’ll drive down. I can assess your new place of employment and show you my tentative song sets for next year at the same time.”
“Need I repeat that it’s still June?” Kurt asks. “Why in the world do you have songs already planned? Sometimes I seriously get to thinking that you’re an extremely convincing cyborg.”
“Does not com-pute,” Blaine says in a toneless robot voice. “Con-tact me with news, Kurt Hum-mel. Catch you la-ter.”
“Goodbye, Blaine-bot,” Kurt says.
The line clicks. Kurt puts the phone down. He smiles.
Then he feels sick.
There is no ding to herald Karofsky’s email, because Kurt is upstairs enduring another family dinner when it arrives.
Although it’s not very cool-teenager to admit it, he secretly enjoys sitting down with his patchwork nuclear family and bonding over meals. Even when the conversation is distressingly mundane, he loves observing the way they interact. He loves that Carole never burns things (and never subsequently has to pitch them out and start over); he loves that his father always tries to help her, and she lets him assist but is smart enough to assign him tasks that do not involve open flames-and to make him think it’s his own idea. Kurt loves her un-subtle hints that he doesn’t eat enough. He loves the way his father looks at her like he still can’t believe his luck while she’s telling Finn to chew his food, because she watched a Discovery Channel special on snakes, so she knows for sure that he’s not one of them. He loves the way Finn’s initial uneasiness has slowly dissipated and changed to genuine contentment, because Finn is so simple but so intrinsically good.
In a country-in a world-full of hate and fear and shaky, broken things, Kurt is fiercely proud that this cobbled-together household dares to sit down around a table every night and care about each other.
“Are you okay, Kurt?” Carole asks. “I can’t tell if that’s the lost-in-thought expression or something I should be worried about.”
“I just love you,” Kurt says. “All of you. Frate-in a brotherly way, Finn.”
Finn pauses to swallow. “Uh, cool. Thanks, Kurt. You’re actually kind of an awesome brother.” He glances, none too slyly, in the direction of the oven and flashes a winning smile. Fortunately, their parents are too distracted by Kurt’s schmaltz to notice.
Carole looks delighted. Kurt’s dad looks pleased and just a little bit concerned.
Kurt recognizes that expression; he’s going to get a session of Hey, if there’s anything you just want to put out there, I swear I won’t judge tonight. He starts calculating what and how much he can say, but it doesn’t really matter if he uses this particular opportunity or not; the fact that it exists makes him so tinglingly happy that it almost hurts.
It strikes him as bizarre that he can at once be so remarkably fortunate and so deeply shattered underneath.
When he gets back to his room-after the usual Have some dessert, Kurt and Finn’s inevitable excitement at the accidental rhyme-he flips up the screen of his laptop and discovers an email from dkarofsky, which is significantly more professional a screenname than he was expecting.
He moves to open it, but then there’s a ringing in the back of his head, and his fingers tremble until he presses his hands against the desk. This is not a game. This is not a practice run. This is not a chance meeting in the park that has spiraled into something weird and challenging and dangerous and almost fun.
This is Kurt Hummel inviting his personal hell to seek him out everywhere. This is a leap of faith, and Kurt has no one in the clouds to beg for safe landing.
This is his own fault, and if this gets nasty, there is no one else to blame.
But the subject line reads sup, and apart from the omission of a somewhat critical apostrophe, there isn’t anything sinister in that.
He clicks.
yo
realized i don’t know any songs.
you should pick something else. californication was cool.
- d
The tight, thick feeling in Kurt’s chest abates. He takes a few deep breaths, appreciating them, and then hits the button to reply.
I really don’t think you know what you’re getting into here…
- Kurt
He hits the send button before he can lose his nerve, and then he sits back in his chair and stares at the screen. The ringing in his head has resolved into a voice-a voice asking him over and over what the hell he thinks he’s doing.
He doesn’t really have an answer. He wants to rattle off a long and detailed list of excuses-he’s just letting this wild current carry him forward; it’s an act of charity; he’s the only one who understands how much Karofsky’s hurting; the guy has just never learned how to express himself constructively; he’s a scared little boy who breaks his toys before anyone can take them away-but the truth is that Kurt just doesn’t know. It’s all of those things, and none of them; and maybe in some part, it’s a defiance of the rules others have set for him and the borders he’s made in his own mind.
Except now it’s irrevocable. Now there are pixels darting back and forth across the internet, solid evidence, tenable damnation. Now it’s real to everyone who knows how to read Arial size 10 font; it’s no longer a flash of possibility that both of them could later deny.
It’s not safe anymore.
There’s a knock on the wall alongside the stairs. Kurt swivels in his chair and looks up. “Dad?”
“The one and only,” his father says, coming down the rest of the way. He glances around, smiling faintly. “I’ve said it before, but what you did with this room is great. I’m glad you didn’t inherit your taste from my side of the family.”
“That’s because there was nothing to inherit,” Kurt says, grinning.
“Sure there was,” Dad says calmly. “It’d just be all done up in plaid and denim, and you’d have one crooked picture of the engine of a Mustang on the wall.”
Kurt tries very, very had to un-imagine that. “Oh, my God, Dad. Thank you for the nightmares.”
Burt shifts, slipping his hands into his pockets. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. You were really quiet at dinner, like Carole said, and… were you up late doing stuff, and you’re just tired, or is it something else?”
“Oh,” Kurt says. “Um. It’s-complicated. And I’m still sorting out exactly what it is.”
His father’s expression folds immediately into concern. Kurt’s heart creases, too, like the little origami cranes Tina would make out of Post-It notes in math-after everything he has done and not done, everything he’s said, every way he’s failed and fallen short, But Hummel is always, always, always behind him. There is no gratitude large enough for this.
“Okay,” Dad says. “That’s cool. As long as you’re cool. Just let me or Carole know the second you’re not.”
“I will, Dad,” he says.
Burt moves over and fiddles with one of the gauzy drapes, readjusting it in a way that looks worse, although at least he doesn’t have the power to turn it into flannel.
“I’ve probably said this before, too, Kurt, but… high school’s hard for everyone, and it’s twice as hard for you. Even Dalton’s not going to be perfect, as I’m sure you figured out about an hour after you started. But if there’s ever anything I can do to make it easier-even if it’s just that you want one of those coffee things, or you’re all out of clean socks, or you need somebody to talk to about a boy you like… all you’ve got to do is say the word. I know a lot of last year was about me, between the nice trip to the hospital and Carole and the stuff with Finn, but don’t ever hesitate to tell me if you need me to focus only on you. I do always try to think of you, Kurt, even when I’m working on me, and I just want you to hear it from me that I’d come from halfway across the world if you called. So… call, if you ever need to. ’Cause there is nothing in the world I want more than for you to be happy, no matter what it takes.”
Kurt manages to wrangle a few words out around the lump in his throat. Unfortunately, those words are, “Dad, you’re so sappy.”
Luckily, his father remembers what happens now, so he doesn’t even bother to look offended. He even gets his arms open in time as Kurt rockets across the room and starts hugging him fit to bruise a rib.
“We were going to watch a movie upstairs,” Burt says, patting at Kurt’s back indulgently. “You can join us if you want, but I gotta warn you that it was Finn’s turn to pick.”
“Is the DVD cover one giant explosion, or does it have scantily-clad women?” Kurt asks. “Actually, don’t answer that. I might be up in a minute, as long as you and Carole promise not to canoodle on the couch.”
“No canoodling,” Burt says staunchly. “Scout’s honor.”
The cover has one giant explosion.
The film has four.
When Kurt heads back downstairs, still trying to figure out if it’s spatially possible to carry that many firearms on one’s person, he has a new email.
uhh shit. you are terrifying when you say crap like that.
but i can’t think of anything so seriously.
- d
Kurt smiles.
Then he cracks his knuckles, lays his fingers over the keys, and unleashes the beast.
His heart’s pounding by the time he sends the message, but come Monday, he’ll find out what Karofsky is made of.
When Sunday dawns, Kurt is nervous for his interview.
He’s sort of giddily pleased about the fact, really, as much as he hates the clamminess of his hands and the incredibly distracting way his heart is knocking around. He’s glad he can still feel like this about normal things-that he can slide into the ranks of ordinary teenagers and nod comprehendingly when they talk about sweating palms and an adrenaline rush that would be worth eight dollars an hour on its own. It’s encouraging that he won’t always have to stop and say I thought you only felt like this when you were walking through a crowd in the hallway, trying to watch everyone, trying to hear one set of footsteps over the noise of lovers’ spats and homework panic and rants about family, fighting to pick out that shadow even though you know you won’t see it coming, and lockers are too flat to draw blood; and no matter how many times you vomit in the morning knowing you have to go back, nobody does a thing.
This morning’s winged stomach-dwellers flutter more kindly than the ones he remembers, but the mere fact of their common evolutionary ancestor warms him.
…which is not terribly helpful in Ohio at the end of June.
A large, tired-looking woman waves him into the back room. The single window out to the parking lot looks to be stuck shut, and the multiple desktop spaces are blanketed in stacks of papers, a quartet of computers, and a dozen flawed or broken pieces of potential merchandise. Many of these items are in some danger from the rattling fan in the corner, which is pushing hot air around the room in a weary kind of way. The woman is wearing a Tinkerbell T-shirt. Kurt likes the rhinestones on her reading glasses.
“Take a seat,” she bids him, and then there’s an impressively awkward moment as he pauses, and she realizes that all of the chairs are currently being used as filing cabinets. She puts his application down on top of one of them, relocates some piles, and then gestures vaguely to the rolling chair she has unearthed.
Kurt sits, crosses his legs, and folds his hand on his knee. He’s starting to wonder if it’s bad to be egregiously overdressed for an interview. He’s also starting to wonder if it’s bad to be egregiously overdressed for life.
The woman glances over his résumé, not that there’s much on it, and her eyebrows rise.
“You go to Dalton?” she says.
“Yes,” Kurt says. “I transferred last year.”
He’s prepared for her to ask why-Dealing with the cliques was too challenging, and the curriculum wasn’t challenging enough-but she moves right on to: “So this would just be for the summer.”
“Ideally,” Kurt says. “But I can commit to almost any available shifts, and I live close enough that I could be on-call in case there was ever an emergency.”
The look she gives him makes him feel like an alien.
“Great,” she says. “Ever worked a register before?”
“Not as such, but I-” Flatter myself. “-like… to think I could figure it out.”
She picks at one of the rhinestones on the glasses’ frame, still looking at his papers-at the word Dalton, anyway. “Do you like kids?”
“Who doesn’t?” Kurt says instead of lying.
“Have you ever arranged a display before?”
Lady, my entire life is an arranged display.
“Here,” Kurt says. In five and a half seconds, he’s pulled up one of the pictures of his bedroom that sit around on the hard drive of his phone for occasions like this. “It’s not toys, but I got most of this stuff at Target.”
The woman looks. She smiles, surprised. She sits back, tilts her head a fraction, and then nods it and stands. From a manila folder on one of the shelves on the wall, she draws a few pieces of paper, which she hands to him.
“Here’s your W-2,” she says. “Come in tomorrow at nine for training and bring it with you.”
Kurt hesitates. “Just to be absolutely sure… you did just hire me…?”
“Unless you have an outstanding warrant that I find out about when I look up your social security number,” she says. “Which is going to be in about two minutes in case you need to get a head start.”
The fluttery things migrate from Kurt’s stomach to his chest, and he smiles. “Wow. I-thank you. Thank you for your time.”
“Are you going to be a small-sized apron?”
Kurt presages a love-hate relationship with the prospective article. “Almost certainly.”
“See you tomorrow, Kurt,” the woman says. “Come with your game face on.”
“It’s always on,” Kurt says.
“That’s what I like to hear,” she says.
He’s already in the parking lot when he realizes she never gave him her name.
[Chapter 1] [Chapter 3]
Chapter: 2. These Kinds of Dreams
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Karofsky/Kurt
Rating: R (…or F, for "Full of F-Bombs")
Word Count: 7,434
Warnings: language; underaged drinking; language; sporadic angststorms; language; talk of a religious nature; major spoilers through 2.11; sorta-spoilers through 2.15 ("Sexy")
Summary: Somehow the dead heat of summer gives rise to the mother(fucker) of all second chances. The road to redemption is paved with fights, phone calls, false starts, and more than a few jokes at the expense of the lovable Finn Hudson.
Author's Note: Hey, check this out: A FOUR-CLAUSE NOTE! I want to promise that this isn't going to be a habit, but that would probably end up making me a lying ho, and I have enough problems as it is.
1. As far as the writing goes, yes, it's all done, so it's just a matter of editing and updating. \o/ As far as the editing and updating goes, I am flying by the seat of my pants. And my pants are on fire. (That's a common side-effect of being a lying ho.)
2. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone reading this so far! :D I'm not usually in "live" fandoms - I tend to be so late to the party that everyone is already passed out amongst the empty pizza boxes - but you guys are all totally awesome, and I'm so excited that you're excited. ♥
3. One of the things I meant to put into the first-chapter note was that I would be very remiss (and slightly insane) not to acknowledge the influence of the kurtofsky_ims on this fic - and since KIMS is genius, I am proud to do so. I think I wrote in a small homage somewhere, but I don't actually remember what it is, presumably because I am a failure. A failure who has had both too much caffeine and not nearly enough. XD
4. Californication, if you would like it for reference.
CHAPTER 2: THESE KINDS OF DREAMS
“Mmmm.” Mercedes has a tendency to hum during the first few sips of iced coffee. Kurt always imagines that she’s curling her toes inside her shoes. “So what’s new since the last time nothing was new?”
“This and that,” Kurt says. He pokes at a particularly large ice cube with the end of his straw. “I just filled out an application next door.”
“At Play Faire?” Mercedes asks.
“Why do you look like you’re having horrifying mental images?” Kurt asks. “They let you wear whatever you want under the aprons, and it’s so small that there won’t be much inventory to get confused about.”
Mercedes gives him a look. “Kurt, you do realize that selling kids’ toys means selling toys to kids.”
Kurt pops the straw into the corner of his mouth and sucks delicately. “I don’t see what you mean.”
“All I’m saying is that Play Faire employees probably aren’t encouraged to beat some discipline into their customers.”
“I would never beat discipline into a child,” Kurt says. “I would just put the fear of God into him and let the discipline sneak in while he was crying.” He pauses. “Okay, now I do see what you mean.”
“My cousin Jason is going to be over tomorrow,” Mercedes says. “Come by for a couple hours, and I can show you how to negotiate with somebody who thinks Santa’s real and doesn’t understand words with four syllables.”
Kurt considers. “So pretty much Brittany.”
Mercedes laughs. “Yeah, except small and hyper instead of practically stoned.”
“I… can’t,” Kurt says, cringing even as he gets the word out. “That’s the other thing I was hoping to talk to you about. I sort of… need a song that a normal guy would like.”
Mercedes, bless her beautiful, capacious heart, sits back and sips her drink, watching him but not judging yet. “I don’t think I’m the best person to help you there.”
“Well, you dated Puck for a while,” Kurt says, managing not to make a face. “What did he listen to?”
“The sound of his own voice, mostly,” Mercedes says. “Why don’t you ask Finn? Is this something for the Warblers? He’d probably still help you, you know. Finn’s competitive, but he cares about you more.”
“He also owes me for saving him from the Wrath of Carole yesterday,” Kurt says. He stirs the ice around with his straw, vacillating. “Just… I kind of don’t want Finn to know about it.”
Mercedes’s worried frown is downright adorable. “Kurt, what is this about?”
He takes a deep breath and prepares to get deservedly bitch-slapped. “It’s about Karofsky.”
Kurt thinks that this week has had far more than its share of long, meaningful pauses. The current specimen is enhanced by a slow eyebrow-raise. “Okay, Kurt, I’m sorry, but why in the hell do you need a song for Karofsky? I figure you probably don’t need me to remind you that this is the guy who drove you fifty miles away and kind of ruined both our lives. Please tell me he has a smokin’ gay brother with the same last name.”
Kurt shakes his head slowly. “He doesn’t need one. I didn’t-I wasn’t totally honest with you. With anyone, really, except Blaine, because-”
Kurt loves Mercedes Jones. He loves her as much as an outlandishly gay boy could ever possibly love a gorgeous, powerful young diva, because she isn’t offended that he held back-she moves on to the implications: “What happened, Kurt?”
“Karofsky kissed me.” His voice wavers a little, but he irons it out by force. “It was-I mean, it happened in the locker room, and nobody saw or knew about it, but I told Blaine, and then Blaine tried to confront him about it, and then he said he’d kill me if word got out, and you know the part about trying to get him expelled-”
“Yeah,” Mercedes cuts in gently, leaning across the table to grab his hand and squeeze it. “The part I don’t get is why you’re gonna serenade the guy you hate, even if he is in the closet or whatever. Kurt, I know-all right, I don’t know. But I can guess that you feel like you’re connected to him because you’re both gay, so you’ve both had to deal with a lot of the same stuff, but having that in common doesn’t make any of what he did to you okay.”
“He’s terrified,” Kurt says. “Fear makes people do horrible things.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Mercedes says. “How do you know he’ll even-”
“We’ve been talking,” Kurt says. “I ran into him in the park, and we just-had a conversation. It went really well.”
Mercedes uses her Skeptical Eyebrows.
“Okay,” Kurt says; “it was pretty craptastic, and it ended with him storming off in a huff, but then we had another yesterday, and I kind of… invited him over.”
Mercedes uses her What the Fuck Is Wrong with You Kurt Hummel Eyebrows.
“You mean you kind of invited him over,” she says, “so that the guy who kind of forced you to change schools can kind of see your bedroom?”
“Of course it sounds amazingly stupid when you put it like that,” Kurt manages.
“Kurt…” Mercedes begins.
“I know,” he says. “But what if-let’s just entertain the hypothetical possibility here-what if he just needs somebody to let him in? What if just a little bit of kindness and acceptance makes a difference? Wouldn’t it be worth the risk?”
“As much as I am sincerely glad you’re trying to find the best in people,” Mercedes says, “I just don’t think there’s much to dig up in Dave Karof-”
“OhmyGod, he’s here,” Kurt whispers furiously. When all of this started, he developed a habit of always taking the seat where he could see the door, and it’s a total head-trip that it’s actually paying off now. “I can’t keep looking at him,” he tells Mercedes in an undertone. “Do you have-”
Mercedes is already getting out her hand mirror and pretending to play with her hair. Kurt focuses intently on his drink, tipping it back and forth, trying not to make it obvious that he’s watching Mercedes’s reactions like a hawk.
No. Not quite like that. Kurt’s never been the predator in his life.
“Okay, he stopped by the door,” Mercedes says in a voice that would sound placid and ordinary to anyone who didn’t know her well. “He’s got some kind of note-he looks kinda pissed. He’s looking around… yeah, he definitely sees you. He doesn’t look scared, Kurt; he looks angry. Are you sure you don’t want to just… leave?”
“Relax,” Kurt says, and it comes out a whole lot calmer than he feels. “He doesn’t have anything to prove to us.”
Mercedes gives him one last look that clearly says I really, sincerely hope you’re right as she snaps her mirror shut. “Good, ’cause he’s coming over.”
Kurt meant what he said. That doesn’t prevent his heart from clenching tightly and then stuttering so fast that he almost chokes on his drink.
He feigns surprise as he looks up, Karofsky’s shadow falling across their table, and feels his cheeks hollow as he sucks on the straw. Karofsky’s face changes just a little-too little for Kurt to nail down what emotion that was.
“Hi,” Kurt says. “I didn’t take you for a coffee man. I was thinking more blood of virgins and righteous sweat.”
“Kurt,” Mercedes says warningly.
Karofsky glances between the two of them, fist curling tighter around a scrap of white paper. Obviously Kurt assumed that he’d have big hands, but he’d never really looked at them until now, possibly because previous experience instructed him to duck whenever he was in their range.
“My mom’s sick,” Karofsky says, and his voice is tight, low, flat, and slightly harsh-defensive. “She wanted me to get her something, but I can never read her fucking chicken scratches.”
A young mother with a four-year-old gives Karofsky a dirty look. He ignores her.
Kurt shrugs, puts his drink down on the table, and holds out a hand. “Can I see?”
He notices-why does he notice?-that Karofsky’s careful not to touch Kurt’s skin in the process of dropping the paper into his open palm.
Kurt assesses the damage. It appears that Karofsky’s mother actually paid attention in the fourth grade when they were learning cursive.
“She wants a low-fat caramel latte,” Kurt translates. He pauses. The look on Karofsky’s face will be hilarious later, but right now Kurt kind of feels sorry for him. “Why don’t you give me the money, and I’ll place the order?”
There’s a five-dollar bill in front of him in the time it takes Kurt to blink.
He blinks again. “Right.”
Karofsky loiters, looking sourly at the table of stirrers and add-ons, while Kurt places the order and then moves over near him to wait. He watches Kurt tap one foot to the elevator music.
“Is it a compulsion, or what?”
Kurt smiles. “Something like that.”
Karofsky leans back against the table and pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He shifts the toe of one shoe back and forth in time, then the other, then both at once. Then he stops and glances back towards the wide front window of the store. “I’m dead meat if anybody I know’s out there. The only thing gayer than getting a caramel whatever latte is getting one for your mom.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Kurt asks. “What’s she got?”
“Migraine.”
Kurt wrinkles his nose. “I think I’ve heard that caffeine makes them worse.”
Karofsky glances at him. “You going to argue with a woman with a migraine?”
Kurt smiles. “I do sometimes miss the ‘Testosterone Only’ sign my dad used to have up in our kitchen. But he’s so happy it’s hard to want anything about the old life back.” Karofsky opens his mouth, but Kurt beats him to the punch. “Say anything about my defective testosterone, and you’re getting low-fat caramel latte burns all down your chest.”
Karofsky shakes his head. “You are scary as fuck sometimes, Hummel.”
“…you know, I think that makes up for the testosterone comment you didn’t make.”
Karofsky rolls his eyes, but before he can return fire, a barista slaps a cup down on the countertop.
“Skinny caramel latte for Stef?”
Kurt collects the cup and hands it off to Karofsky, who is frowning at him again. “That’s not your name.”
“Nope,” Kurt says. “It’s Lady GaGa’s.”
Karofsky’s frown deepens, but that might be partly the thought of returning to the Realm of the Migraine Mom. “Hummel, you are weird as hell.”
“Thanks,” Kurt says. “See you tomorrow.”
Karofsky departs in peace, and Kurt returns to the table and settles across from Mercedes again.
“Okay,” she says after a long moment of thought. “I have no idea what I just saw.”
“He’s a human being,” Kurt says. “That’s all I’m trying to prove.”
“Hang on.” She holds her hands up and gives him another look, both puzzled and slightly reproachful. “I figured out what it was. This is how you get with school projects, Kurt. And as much as I would seriously love to see you go at that boy with the glitter paint, I don’t think it’d turn out as well as your poster-boards.”
“It’s going to be a long time before I put him and glitter in the same room,” Kurt says.
“Just… be careful, Kurt,” Mercedes insists. “I mean, I promise to sing GaGa at your funeral, but I’d rather not do it this weekend.”
“You’re going to sing ‘Now Comes the Night’ by Rob Thomas at my funeral,” Kurt says. “Brad will be excellent accompanying you, and Mr. Schuester will cry.”
Mercedes looks surprised, then not surprised, then sad. “You’ve thought this out.”
Kurt sips at the dregs of his drink. “You’re also on-duty to make sure Santana wears something decent, and Rachel is definitely not allowed to sing ‘Candle in the Wind.’”
On second thought-or, more accurately, on four-billionth-and-second thought-this might be the crowning achievement on a long list of extremely stupid decisions.
Kurt curls up in the bowl chair and then gets up again, because it’ll put creases in his slacks. He paces across the carpet, glances at the clock, goes over to prod at iTunes, and then heads upstairs just in case the doorbell isn’t working.
He should really put himself out of his misery now that Mercedes knows how to handle the arrangements.
There’s a brisk knock at the door. Kurt’s not sure how to feel about the fact that his doorbell-related paranoia was apparently justified. He stops pacing a rut into the kitchen linoleum, takes a deep breath, and crosses the foyer to open the door.
Karofsky doesn’t exactly return Kurt’s welcoming smile, but he doesn’t look hostile either. There’s no new car in or near the driveway, which means he must have parked a ways down the street-just in case someone happened by, recognized both the vehicle and the location, and subsequently added two and two.
The sooner they conduct this conclave, probably the better.
“Come in,” Kurt says. Karofsky steps over the threshold and then out of the way as Kurt closes the door again. His dark eyes dart around at first, picking out Kurt can’t tell which features, and then rove slowly over the panorama as a whole. Kurt leads the way towards the kitchen, assuming his guest will follow. “Can I get you anything? Most of what we have is kind of healthy food, because my dad’s still not at a hundred percent, and Finn just eats anything inanimate that comes within five feet of him.” The left corner of Karofsky’s mouth curls up. “I once watched him inhale an entire package of Oreos in five minutes flat,” Kurt says, which is, nightmarishly, completely true. “He almost ate the plastic, too, but Carole caught him just in time.”
Karofsky snickers, and then he seems to remember where he is, veers towards awkward again, and shrugs.
Kurt can’t prevent himself from thinking Oh my God boys are so dumb, but fortunately he’s learned since the second grade not to say stuff like that out loud. Besides, considering just how far out of his element David Karofsky has come, Kurt supposes he can cut the guy a pretty considerable quantity of slack.
“We can get food later,” he says. “I’ll show you my room.”
Still wordlessly, Karofsky trails him down the stairs. His steps pause as Kurt’s lair comes into view.
“Holy shit,” he says. “It’s like the Batcave.”
Kurt moves out of the way, and Karofsky stands at the foot of the stairs, his hands shoved into his pockets again, to stare around himself, somewhat uncomfortably.
“I know,” Kurt sighs. “Gayer than a San Franciscan rainbow. It’s fine; the Gay Batcave is a title I think I can live with.”
“No, it’s just… nice,” Karofsky says. “Really nice. Like those home and garden magazines or whatever. You could be an interior designer or something. Nobody gives a shit about that stuff around here, but I guess it’s a big deal in real cities.”
Kurt tries so, so hard not to beam like a five-year-old with a lollipop. “Well, nothing’s going to break if you take a seat. I’ll warn you if you’re about to sit on a leek.”
Karofsky rolls his eyes extensively, sizing up the bowl chair when he’s done. “Dude, I looked that shit up. It’s a fucking vegetable.”
Kurt can’t help himself. “Did you go on WikiLeeks?”
Blaine would get i-
Karofsky snorts.
At Kurt’s startled expression, he flops down in the bowl chair and hunches his shoulders like they’ll protect him from judgment. “My dad is a news junkie. And his newspapers have, like, two comics, and they’re political and never funny. So I read the news when I have breakfast.”
Kurt fusses with iTunes and keeps his voice light. “I see no problem with that. And I’d totally harbor Julian Assange; he’s kind of foxy. Unfortunately, he’s almost certainly a total jackass. Anyway… here.” He holds one of the duet-color-coded lyrics sheets out to Karofsky, instinctually keeping his distance and feeling a twinge of what might be regret.
“Wait, the Chili Peppers?” Karofsky says. “I thought you listened to GaGa and shit.”
“Back when there were actually music videos on television,” Kurt says, “I used to stay up until two in the morning on weekends hoping one of theirs would come on. I told myself it was because I liked their music, but really it was because I was twelve years old and confused, and Anthony Kiedis is incapable of keeping a shirt on. Even after I figured it out, though, I kind of kept following them.”
Karofsky looks at the lyrics again, then up at him. “That’s… weird.”
Kurt shrugs a little, settling in his desk chair and drumming his fingers on the desktop. “I don’t know. They have a lot of tracks I like, and ‘Californication’ is a good one.”
“No,” Karofsky says. “The idea of you being confused-about anything. You… always know what you want.”
Kurt blinks. He swallows. He decides that he can’t face this inward Gorgon right now, and he shoves it aside with a well-polished mental shield.
“Well,” he says, “what I want now is to start this before you break through a wall of my Gay Batcave to escape.”
Karofsky takes the bait, lowering the lyrics sheet and giving Kurt a long-suffering look now. “Are you sure about this? This is stupid. You fucking bribed me with food and air conditioning.”
“Come on,” Kurt says. “I know you’re good. And by your reaction, I’m betting Mr. Schue told you the same thing. Then he probably got into your personal space and gave you the puppy eyes.”
Karofsky stares. “You’re seriously fucking psychic, Hummel. It’s creepy as hell.”
Kurt smiles faintly. “One of my many talents. Speaking of which, before we jump into this, I don’t think you’ve ever heard me sing, so I should warn you of two things: one, I’m a countertenor, which basically just means that I sing in a high range, but… Two, I was the third-best singer in New Directions, after Mercedes and Rachel.”
“That Rachel chick is a psycho,” Karofsky says. “And coming from me…”
“The real moment of terror is when you think about the fact that she’ll someday take over the world,” Kurt says. “And then you realize that reindeer sweaters will be mandatory attire beneath her tyrannical rule.”
Karofsky smirks. “I don’t know what you’re worried about. If anyone on the fucking planet could wear a reindeer sweater and not look like a dumbass, it’d be you.”
Kurt flushes hotly and attempts to retort, but it comes out as a half-stammered, “I d-don’t…”
“Shut up,” Karofsky says good-naturedly, picking at the corner of his lyrics sheet now. “It’s like-the stuff you usually wear, looking at the pieces individually, it’s like, ‘What the fuck is that?’, but the way you put them all together, they kind of make sense.”
Kurt thinks his head might be spinning. “David, that’s the most accessible definition of fashion I’ve ever heard from anyone, let alone a teenaged boy.”
There is a long pause while they both admire the Gay Batcave instead of making eye contact.
“You want to get started?” Kurt asks.
“Fuck yeah,” Karofsky says.
Kurt wishes he’d thought to master-plan that all along.
“I’ll be the red text and go first,” he offers. “I think it might be better to sing through it once without the music, so we can get a little more comfortable with the lyrics before we try to keep up with the tempo-especially since they’re complicated. So you’re the blue text, if that’s all right.”
Karofsky was close, but no sometimes-just-a-cigar-Kurt doesn’t always know what he wants. But he knows how to take command of a situation, and the gut-wrenching, nay-saying voice that whispers constantly from the back of his head has taught him to prepare for almost any contingency. It’s understandable that most people can’t distinguish the two.
“Blue and red make purple,” Karofsky says. “You put the choruses in green.”
Kurt pauses. “…did I?”
Karofsky sends him a cold look that pushes straight through his skin to curl around his bones.
Kurt clears his throat, sits up straighter to open his chest, and looks intently at the printout. “I’ll just… start, shall I?”
“Look, if you think you’re, like, protecting me, that’s bullsh-”
“Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind’s elation,” Kurt sings. “Little girls from Sweden dream of silver-screen quotations. And if you want these kinda’ dreams, it’s Californication…”
Karofsky hesitates, but he rallies and forges ahead, presumably because the only thing worse than singing in a basement with another guy is chickening out about it. His voice is low and tentative, but it holds, and Schue’s right-Karofsky’s unpracticed, but he’s not even a quarter bad.
“It’s the edge of the world and all of Western civilization…”
Kurt is every bit as pleased as punch.
“Email me something you want to try,” Kurt says when they troop upstairs for a beverage break. “Did Rachel teach you how to harmonize?”
“Rachel wants me to drop dead,” Karofsky says.
“Good,” Kurt says. “Not that she wants to kill you,” he adds hastily; “that she didn’t teach you. She gives instruction under the assumption that everybody around her has also been taking music lessons since they were three weeks old.” He opens the fridge and leans over to peer inside. “What can I get you?”
Karofsky bends down to look with him, and their shoulders brush-Karofsky’s is startlingly warm here in the glacial aura of the fridge. Kurt wants to recoil, and then he doesn’t, and then he doesn’t dare to move.
At least he’s categorically disproved Karofsky’s you always know what you want theory now.
“Root beer doesn’t have any caffeine, right?” Karofsky asks.
“Right,” Kurt says. He shouldn’t ask as he reaches; shouldn’t notice the small shift of Karofsky’s arm against his- “Why?”
Karofsky accepts the can and steps away. “Migraines run in the family.”
Kurt is still halfway into the fridge-which, on the upside, makes freezing in place kind of appropriate. “Oh. Wow. David, I’m sorry.”
Karofsky shrugs and opens the can. Kurt really should have started a shrug tally a long time ago; lately he’s been starting to differentiate the subtleties of things like shoulder angles and complementary body language. This shrug means something like I never know what the hell to say when people apologize for stuff they had nothing to do with.
Kurt fills a glass of water from the tap, partly to give himself something to do; partly because he doesn’t need the calories, and diet soda tastes like cough syrup.
“I’ve got a stupid question,” Karofsky says.
Kurt doesn’t particularly like the sound of that, but rarely has he ever gone to greater lengths to bring something on himself. “Shoot.”
Karofsky’s fingertips leave shining trails in the condensation on the can. “Are there any other fags at McKinley, or is it just us?”
“That’s not a stupid question,” Kurt says. “It’s just an offensive one.” He pauses. “And it’s not ‘us’; it’s just you. I’m going back to Dalton next year, remember?”
“Fine,” Karofsky says flatly. “Is it just me?”
“Statistically, I doubt it,” Kurt says. “But every time I try to play the odds, I lose.” He attempts to gauge the tides of Karofsky’s homicidal tendencies. “Especially on the football team.”
The tide appears to be coming in. “Wait, what?”
“I barked up a lot of the wrong trees,” Kurt says, swilling his glass and watching the whirlpool. “Finn, Sam… all right, I guess that’s zero for two. That’s actually better than the team’s performance up until last season.”
Karofsky seems to calm a little. “That Sam kid’d probably be better off gay at the rate he’s going. I’m pretty sure those pep talks he mutters to himself before games are in that language from ‘Avatar.’”
“Please tell me you’ve seen evidence that he artificially colors his hair,” Kurt says desperately. “Please. It would vindicate the entirety of my sad little life.”
Karofsky’s eyebrows arch and then dip again. “I haven’t seen anything.”
Kurt scowls.
Innocently, Karofsky sips at his soda can. “Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“If I was Mr. Schue,” Kurt says, “I would hug you for that.”
“If you were Schuester,” Karofsky says, “I wouldn’t let you get close enough.”
At two in the morning tonight, when Kurt will presumably receive a coupon from the coffee shop with a members’ discount, he’s going to regret leaving his computer open with the volume maxed out, but he wants to hear the ding if Karofsky emails him. As he lies on his back in bed with his hands folded over his chest, blue words scroll across his eyelids so persistently that he softly sings along.
“Marry me, girl, be my fairy to the world; be my very own constellation…”
The ding sounds like a school bell at five past eight the next morning, and Kurt’s attempt to throw himself out of bed ends on the floor, with a tangle of displaced sheets and a lot of flailing.
At least the coffee coupon will be useful; he was getting slammed into lockers in his dreams all night.
Except it’s not a coupon; it’s from Blaine. There’s no subject line, so Kurt clicks and then blearily squints, allowing him to read the magnum opus:
Calling you in five - consider this fair warning! ;)
“It’s summer, you bastard,” Kurt says.
His iPhone rings. The ringtone for Blaine is a recording of the man himself starting to sing “Telephone” and then dissolving into laughter.
Kurt looks at the email. “That was three minutes, you bastard,” he says, because he’s not very creative until about nine.
Kurt picks up just as previous-Blaine starts giggling too much to finish the chorus.
“You’re sick,” he says.
“Good mornin’,” Blaine sings immediately; “good mor-nin’, it’s great to stay up late-”
“Thanks, Gene,” Kurt says, trying not to notice the weird acrobatics his heart does at the thought of being woken with Singin’ in the Rain every day. “What’s going on that couldn’t possibly wait until noon?”
“Nothing, really,” Blaine says. “Just that we haven’t caught up in-” He clucks his tongue in disapproval. “-almost a week. Shameful! What’s new in Lima-town?”
“Not much,” Kurt says. Empirically speaking, it’s almost sort of quasi-true if you tilt your head. “I have an interview Sunday at the toy store downtown. Mercedes thinks I’m going to get fired on my first day for berating the customers.”
Blaine laughs, and Kurt can picture that gleam-thing his eyes do so clearly that it makes his chest contract.
“That means she knows you’ll get the job,” Blaine is saying. “Which, might I add, you obviously will, but good luck anyway. Have you started the summer reading yet?”
“Jesus Christ, Blaine,” Kurt says, but he’s smiling despite himself. “It’s not even July.”
“Get a jump on it,” Blaine suggests. “Grab it from behind and take it by surprise.”
Kurt would like the record to show that it is not his fault that sounds like an elaborate innuendo. Blaine has a way of saying exactly the wrong thing in exactly the wrong tone. He’s the worst kind of tease in the world-an utterly oblivious one.
“My colored Post-Its and I will get right on that,” Kurt says. “Or maybe we’ll go outside and enjoy summer like a normal kid.”
“You are so not normal,” Blaine says. “That’s what makes you great.”
Kurt fumbles that one. There’s a reason he played kicker, and even that was only for about two weeks.
“Well,” he manages, “I’d be happy to talk about me until the sun becomes a red giant and obliterates the solar system, but while I’m distracted, how are you?”
“You know me,” Blaine says cheerfully. “Just chugging along, keeping myself out of trouble.”
Kurt should seize that segue. Kurt should tell him. Kurt should lay it all out and get someone else’s eyes panning over the plotline, because he’s biased and scared and traumatized and bewildered, and it’s impossible to see the design of the hedge maze when you’re standing in the middle. Blaine might be able to guide him to the exit.
Except… Blaine has his own life to manage. Blaine’s previous experience is with hedge corridors. It’s too complicated to explain right. Karofsky’s just starting to peek out from under his armor, and a breach of trust now would send him scuttling back inside forever.
And Kurt’s really damn tired of the damsel role.
“Are you doing your summer reading?” Kurt asks, tutting for good measure. “It’s only, what, a billion pages, give or take?”
“Why do you think I get up so early?” Blaine replies. “Honestly, no, I haven’t yet. We should have a race.”
“What does the winner get?”
“Ice cream,” Blaine says. “Or maybe alcohol, depending on what he’s been reading. Deal?”
“Booze within gambling,” Kurt says. “You’re a corruptive influence, Blaine Anderson.”
He can hear Blaine’s shining grin. “I’ll take that as a yes. Hey, let me know when you start the job-I’ll drive down. I can assess your new place of employment and show you my tentative song sets for next year at the same time.”
“Need I repeat that it’s still June?” Kurt asks. “Why in the world do you have songs already planned? Sometimes I seriously get to thinking that you’re an extremely convincing cyborg.”
“Does not com-pute,” Blaine says in a toneless robot voice. “Con-tact me with news, Kurt Hum-mel. Catch you la-ter.”
“Goodbye, Blaine-bot,” Kurt says.
The line clicks. Kurt puts the phone down. He smiles.
Then he feels sick.
There is no ding to herald Karofsky’s email, because Kurt is upstairs enduring another family dinner when it arrives.
Although it’s not very cool-teenager to admit it, he secretly enjoys sitting down with his patchwork nuclear family and bonding over meals. Even when the conversation is distressingly mundane, he loves observing the way they interact. He loves that Carole never burns things (and never subsequently has to pitch them out and start over); he loves that his father always tries to help her, and she lets him assist but is smart enough to assign him tasks that do not involve open flames-and to make him think it’s his own idea. Kurt loves her un-subtle hints that he doesn’t eat enough. He loves the way his father looks at her like he still can’t believe his luck while she’s telling Finn to chew his food, because she watched a Discovery Channel special on snakes, so she knows for sure that he’s not one of them. He loves the way Finn’s initial uneasiness has slowly dissipated and changed to genuine contentment, because Finn is so simple but so intrinsically good.
In a country-in a world-full of hate and fear and shaky, broken things, Kurt is fiercely proud that this cobbled-together household dares to sit down around a table every night and care about each other.
“Are you okay, Kurt?” Carole asks. “I can’t tell if that’s the lost-in-thought expression or something I should be worried about.”
“I just love you,” Kurt says. “All of you. Frate-in a brotherly way, Finn.”
Finn pauses to swallow. “Uh, cool. Thanks, Kurt. You’re actually kind of an awesome brother.” He glances, none too slyly, in the direction of the oven and flashes a winning smile. Fortunately, their parents are too distracted by Kurt’s schmaltz to notice.
Carole looks delighted. Kurt’s dad looks pleased and just a little bit concerned.
Kurt recognizes that expression; he’s going to get a session of Hey, if there’s anything you just want to put out there, I swear I won’t judge tonight. He starts calculating what and how much he can say, but it doesn’t really matter if he uses this particular opportunity or not; the fact that it exists makes him so tinglingly happy that it almost hurts.
It strikes him as bizarre that he can at once be so remarkably fortunate and so deeply shattered underneath.
When he gets back to his room-after the usual Have some dessert, Kurt and Finn’s inevitable excitement at the accidental rhyme-he flips up the screen of his laptop and discovers an email from dkarofsky, which is significantly more professional a screenname than he was expecting.
He moves to open it, but then there’s a ringing in the back of his head, and his fingers tremble until he presses his hands against the desk. This is not a game. This is not a practice run. This is not a chance meeting in the park that has spiraled into something weird and challenging and dangerous and almost fun.
This is Kurt Hummel inviting his personal hell to seek him out everywhere. This is a leap of faith, and Kurt has no one in the clouds to beg for safe landing.
This is his own fault, and if this gets nasty, there is no one else to blame.
But the subject line reads sup, and apart from the omission of a somewhat critical apostrophe, there isn’t anything sinister in that.
He clicks.
yo
realized i don’t know any songs.
you should pick something else. californication was cool.
- d
The tight, thick feeling in Kurt’s chest abates. He takes a few deep breaths, appreciating them, and then hits the button to reply.
I really don’t think you know what you’re getting into here…
- Kurt
He hits the send button before he can lose his nerve, and then he sits back in his chair and stares at the screen. The ringing in his head has resolved into a voice-a voice asking him over and over what the hell he thinks he’s doing.
He doesn’t really have an answer. He wants to rattle off a long and detailed list of excuses-he’s just letting this wild current carry him forward; it’s an act of charity; he’s the only one who understands how much Karofsky’s hurting; the guy has just never learned how to express himself constructively; he’s a scared little boy who breaks his toys before anyone can take them away-but the truth is that Kurt just doesn’t know. It’s all of those things, and none of them; and maybe in some part, it’s a defiance of the rules others have set for him and the borders he’s made in his own mind.
Except now it’s irrevocable. Now there are pixels darting back and forth across the internet, solid evidence, tenable damnation. Now it’s real to everyone who knows how to read Arial size 10 font; it’s no longer a flash of possibility that both of them could later deny.
It’s not safe anymore.
There’s a knock on the wall alongside the stairs. Kurt swivels in his chair and looks up. “Dad?”
“The one and only,” his father says, coming down the rest of the way. He glances around, smiling faintly. “I’ve said it before, but what you did with this room is great. I’m glad you didn’t inherit your taste from my side of the family.”
“That’s because there was nothing to inherit,” Kurt says, grinning.
“Sure there was,” Dad says calmly. “It’d just be all done up in plaid and denim, and you’d have one crooked picture of the engine of a Mustang on the wall.”
Kurt tries very, very had to un-imagine that. “Oh, my God, Dad. Thank you for the nightmares.”
Burt shifts, slipping his hands into his pockets. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. You were really quiet at dinner, like Carole said, and… were you up late doing stuff, and you’re just tired, or is it something else?”
“Oh,” Kurt says. “Um. It’s-complicated. And I’m still sorting out exactly what it is.”
His father’s expression folds immediately into concern. Kurt’s heart creases, too, like the little origami cranes Tina would make out of Post-It notes in math-after everything he has done and not done, everything he’s said, every way he’s failed and fallen short, But Hummel is always, always, always behind him. There is no gratitude large enough for this.
“Okay,” Dad says. “That’s cool. As long as you’re cool. Just let me or Carole know the second you’re not.”
“I will, Dad,” he says.
Burt moves over and fiddles with one of the gauzy drapes, readjusting it in a way that looks worse, although at least he doesn’t have the power to turn it into flannel.
“I’ve probably said this before, too, Kurt, but… high school’s hard for everyone, and it’s twice as hard for you. Even Dalton’s not going to be perfect, as I’m sure you figured out about an hour after you started. But if there’s ever anything I can do to make it easier-even if it’s just that you want one of those coffee things, or you’re all out of clean socks, or you need somebody to talk to about a boy you like… all you’ve got to do is say the word. I know a lot of last year was about me, between the nice trip to the hospital and Carole and the stuff with Finn, but don’t ever hesitate to tell me if you need me to focus only on you. I do always try to think of you, Kurt, even when I’m working on me, and I just want you to hear it from me that I’d come from halfway across the world if you called. So… call, if you ever need to. ’Cause there is nothing in the world I want more than for you to be happy, no matter what it takes.”
Kurt manages to wrangle a few words out around the lump in his throat. Unfortunately, those words are, “Dad, you’re so sappy.”
Luckily, his father remembers what happens now, so he doesn’t even bother to look offended. He even gets his arms open in time as Kurt rockets across the room and starts hugging him fit to bruise a rib.
“We were going to watch a movie upstairs,” Burt says, patting at Kurt’s back indulgently. “You can join us if you want, but I gotta warn you that it was Finn’s turn to pick.”
“Is the DVD cover one giant explosion, or does it have scantily-clad women?” Kurt asks. “Actually, don’t answer that. I might be up in a minute, as long as you and Carole promise not to canoodle on the couch.”
“No canoodling,” Burt says staunchly. “Scout’s honor.”
The cover has one giant explosion.
The film has four.
When Kurt heads back downstairs, still trying to figure out if it’s spatially possible to carry that many firearms on one’s person, he has a new email.
uhh shit. you are terrifying when you say crap like that.
but i can’t think of anything so seriously.
- d
Kurt smiles.
Then he cracks his knuckles, lays his fingers over the keys, and unleashes the beast.
His heart’s pounding by the time he sends the message, but come Monday, he’ll find out what Karofsky is made of.
When Sunday dawns, Kurt is nervous for his interview.
He’s sort of giddily pleased about the fact, really, as much as he hates the clamminess of his hands and the incredibly distracting way his heart is knocking around. He’s glad he can still feel like this about normal things-that he can slide into the ranks of ordinary teenagers and nod comprehendingly when they talk about sweating palms and an adrenaline rush that would be worth eight dollars an hour on its own. It’s encouraging that he won’t always have to stop and say I thought you only felt like this when you were walking through a crowd in the hallway, trying to watch everyone, trying to hear one set of footsteps over the noise of lovers’ spats and homework panic and rants about family, fighting to pick out that shadow even though you know you won’t see it coming, and lockers are too flat to draw blood; and no matter how many times you vomit in the morning knowing you have to go back, nobody does a thing.
This morning’s winged stomach-dwellers flutter more kindly than the ones he remembers, but the mere fact of their common evolutionary ancestor warms him.
…which is not terribly helpful in Ohio at the end of June.
A large, tired-looking woman waves him into the back room. The single window out to the parking lot looks to be stuck shut, and the multiple desktop spaces are blanketed in stacks of papers, a quartet of computers, and a dozen flawed or broken pieces of potential merchandise. Many of these items are in some danger from the rattling fan in the corner, which is pushing hot air around the room in a weary kind of way. The woman is wearing a Tinkerbell T-shirt. Kurt likes the rhinestones on her reading glasses.
“Take a seat,” she bids him, and then there’s an impressively awkward moment as he pauses, and she realizes that all of the chairs are currently being used as filing cabinets. She puts his application down on top of one of them, relocates some piles, and then gestures vaguely to the rolling chair she has unearthed.
Kurt sits, crosses his legs, and folds his hand on his knee. He’s starting to wonder if it’s bad to be egregiously overdressed for an interview. He’s also starting to wonder if it’s bad to be egregiously overdressed for life.
The woman glances over his résumé, not that there’s much on it, and her eyebrows rise.
“You go to Dalton?” she says.
“Yes,” Kurt says. “I transferred last year.”
He’s prepared for her to ask why-Dealing with the cliques was too challenging, and the curriculum wasn’t challenging enough-but she moves right on to: “So this would just be for the summer.”
“Ideally,” Kurt says. “But I can commit to almost any available shifts, and I live close enough that I could be on-call in case there was ever an emergency.”
The look she gives him makes him feel like an alien.
“Great,” she says. “Ever worked a register before?”
“Not as such, but I-” Flatter myself. “-like… to think I could figure it out.”
She picks at one of the rhinestones on the glasses’ frame, still looking at his papers-at the word Dalton, anyway. “Do you like kids?”
“Who doesn’t?” Kurt says instead of lying.
“Have you ever arranged a display before?”
Lady, my entire life is an arranged display.
“Here,” Kurt says. In five and a half seconds, he’s pulled up one of the pictures of his bedroom that sit around on the hard drive of his phone for occasions like this. “It’s not toys, but I got most of this stuff at Target.”
The woman looks. She smiles, surprised. She sits back, tilts her head a fraction, and then nods it and stands. From a manila folder on one of the shelves on the wall, she draws a few pieces of paper, which she hands to him.
“Here’s your W-2,” she says. “Come in tomorrow at nine for training and bring it with you.”
Kurt hesitates. “Just to be absolutely sure… you did just hire me…?”
“Unless you have an outstanding warrant that I find out about when I look up your social security number,” she says. “Which is going to be in about two minutes in case you need to get a head start.”
The fluttery things migrate from Kurt’s stomach to his chest, and he smiles. “Wow. I-thank you. Thank you for your time.”
“Are you going to be a small-sized apron?”
Kurt presages a love-hate relationship with the prospective article. “Almost certainly.”
“See you tomorrow, Kurt,” the woman says. “Come with your game face on.”
“It’s always on,” Kurt says.
“That’s what I like to hear,” she says.
He’s already in the parking lot when he realizes she never gave him her name.
[Chapter 1] [Chapter 3]