Nothing's So Loud (16/18) - Part One
Title: Nothing's So Loud (16/18)
Media: Fic
Author: a_glass_parade (GlassParade)
Beta: idoltina, additional support from gameboycolor
Rating: PG-13 to mild R
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine, reference to past Quinn/Finn and current Rachel/Finn
Genre: Romance, AU, Movie Adaptations
Warnings: Mentions of attempted suicide.
Spoilers: While events and references from all three seasons of Glee may be adapted and worked into the story occasionally, it's otherwise fully AU.
Word Count: Currently 88,000+ (WHAT. EVEN.)
Summary: Blaine Anderson is the easy going skateboarding slacker who's carried a torch for sheltered class Valedictorian Kurt Hummel for the last year. On the day they graduate from high school, he decides to do something about it. There's no way they should work. Everything will conspire against them. Can this unlikely pairing prevail?
Additional Notes: gameboycolor and naderegen wanted 90's Klaine. I suggested updating Cameron Crowe's iconic movie "Say Anything" to 1998 and making Blaine and Kurt into an analogue of Lloyd and Diane's star-crossed romance. This very loose adaptation, for better or for worse, is the result. Title is from the song "All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket.
“You should get out of the house.”
Kurt looked up at his father's words, pausing in the middle of scooping out a cantaloupe. Frowning, he set aside the melon baller in his hand and blinked, clearly taken by surprise. “Come again?”
“Get out.” Burt leaned against the counter and snitched a slice of kiwi out of the fruit salad his son was preparing for their breakfast. “Go to the mall, get lunch, whatever, just get out. Call Blaine.”
“I'm not calling Blaine,” Kurt replied testily, resuming his work on the melon. “I haven't figured out what I want to do to make everything up to him. And don't start.” He pointed the melon baller at his father and waved it menacingly. “He was out of town this weekend anyway, I remember he told me about some meet in Cincinnati weeks ago. Even if I knew what I wanted to do, I couldn't have reached him.”
Burt rolled his eyes. “You coulda gone to Cincinnati and surprised him. I don't know why you don't ask me for dating advice.”
“Maybe because you haven't been out on a date in ten years.” Arching an eyebrow, Kurt dodged the playful swat Burt aimed at his hair. “Well, excuse me for pointing out the obvious.”
“I'm just sayin', he stood out on our front lawn in front of God and everyone playing that song for you - and I really don't want to know what makes that song special, I can guess and I'm tryin' not to think too hard about it - surprising him in Cincinnati might have been nice. You could have brought flowers, I don't know.” Burt whisked another slice of kiwi out from under Kurt's nose. “Too late anyway. Get out of the house, Kurt. Call someone else, go do something. Maybe you could go to Cedar Point. Or Detroit, that's fun.”
Kurt slanted a sidelong glance at Burt, who contrived to look very innocent. “Okay, we've gone from 'the mall' to 'another state entirely.'” Shoving aside the gutted melon, he tugged over a plastic basket of strawberries and began slicing them into the fruit salad. “What do you want, Dad? What's your angle? And please, don't tell me it's about the bathroom habits. That's a conversation I don't want to have again...and besides, no one needs the bathroom to themselves for five hours.”
“You don't know my habits,” Burt shot back, grinning at the horrified look on Kurt's face. “I didn't read any of the paper yesterday, that Sunday edition is enormous...oh, stop it, Kurt.” He sighed and clapped a hand down on his son's arm. “You've been cooped up in here since I came back home from the hospital, you don't leave unless it's to go run errands. I'm not gonna break, kid. You can go out and do something fun.”
“I'm fine.” Kurt kept slicing strawberries, not looking at his father. “It's no problem, everything is just fine, I don't need anything.”
“Mmhm. Yesterday you served me a salad with radishes cut into roses and the carrot shreds curled like Shirley Temple's hair. And you folded the napkin into a little swan or somethin'.” He patted Kurt's arm until his son met his eyes. “You used to be such a good kid.”
Kurt's mouth dropped open. “I'm a great kid!”
“Nah.” Burt picked a chunk of melon out of the salad and popped it into his mouth. “You haven't listened to me at all this summer, I had to ground you once, put a curfew on you, you don't take my advice...”
“That is not fair.” Kurt slapped down his knife and snatched up the bowl of fruit, carrying it to the dining room table. “It's not. One, that wasn't really grounding, two, your curfew was later than the one I was prepared to accept, three, I have given up a lot to help you -”
Burt nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets and grinning. “Uh huh. And I didn't ask you to. I actually told you not to. Told you to enjoy your summer. And then you went and messed it all up anyway. I think I need to ground you again.”
“This is preposterous!” Kurt was going around the kitchen gathering things for breakfast, slamming doors and rattling plates in his agitation. “Most parents would be thrilled - thrilled - to have an almost adult child being as, as, as responsible as I am and trying to be helpful.”
“Don't get me wrong, kid, I'm grateful, but I keep tellin' you, I want you to be a kid.” He walked over to Kurt, removing a carton of yogurt from his hands and pulling him into a hug. “All I wanted you to do this summer was have fun. I shouldn't have to blackmail and bribe you into bein' happy, Kurt.” Stepping back, he gripped Kurt's arms and smiled sadly. “Let go, kid. Get out. Go do something, please.”
Kurt visibly wavered, searching Burt's face to be sure. Burt kept his eyes steady and his face calm, working to not give anything away. It took all he had not to sigh in relief when Kurt finally nodded. “Okay...um...yeah. I could go for some shopping. I can even call a friend.”
“Good!” Burt beamed and released his son, turning to the breakfast table. “We can eat and you can go make that call and leave me in peace for the day. Tell ya what, you can even take my credit card.”
“Oh my God, you're dying.” Kurt looked horrified, making Burt turn around so as to not laugh in his face. “You're dying and you and Dr. Johansson have been lying to me.”
“I just want you to go shopping. I'll give you a spending limit and tell you you're limited to buying luggage, does that make you feel better?” With a roll of his eyes, Burt sat down and spooned out a bowl of fruit and yogurt. “Yeesh. Come sit down and eat. Anyone ever tell you that you're way too uptight?”
“Only you, every day of my life,” Kurt sighed, dropping into his own chair and serving himself his own serving of breakfast. Without any further ado, he fell to eating, obviously lost in thought.
Burt couldn't have been more pleased with how the discussion had worked out, though he did feel slightly guilty for lying to his only kid. He did have an agenda that he wasn't about to tell Kurt about, because Kurt was already too convinced that between the two of them, he was the parent, not Burt. He'd get all worked up and yell and try to actually forbid what Burt had planned, and forget that. It was not worth the hassle.
He escaped to the living room as soon as he could, not bringing up Kurt's going out again so as to not raise suspicion. Keeping his posture loose and casual, Burt lounged on the couch watching Oprah as he listened to Kurt tripping back and forth upstairs, singing along to his radio and calling someone he called 'Sugar' - that couldn't be right, had to be a nickname, but whatever. Burt was just glad Kurt was going to leave so he could do what he wanted. Which wasn't reading the Sunday paper a day late.
“Bye,” he called as Kurt hustled out the door two hours later with a hasty wave and a smile over his shoulder. As soon as Burt heard the CRX rev up and pull out of the driveway, he was on his feet and upstairs, throwing off his pajamas and pulling on a shop coverall.
“Two months since I set foot in that shop, I know it's falling apart without me,” Burt muttered as he tugged on a baseball cap and checked out the front windows to make sure Kurt hadn't turned around because he forgot something. Nope, the coast was clear. Knowing he was going against doctor's orders gave Burt an extra little thrill as he ran out to his car and took off for the shop, feeling more alive than he had since the first shooting pains went through his chest all those weeks ago.
When he walked through the shop doors, he almost lost it laughing at his employees' incredulous looks. “Burt!” Mick, his head mech, was the first to recover. “Whattaya doin' here? Everything okay? Kurt said you were supposed to be restin' when he was in here the other day.”
“Yeah, well, I rested,” Burt shot back, grinning and slapping the backs of all the mechs he could reach. “I feel fine and I got a need to get my hands dirty. Anyone bring in anything good?”
Yeah, it felt good being back at the shop. He was starting to feel less guilty by the minute. What Diane Johansson and Kurt didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
“Thanks for wanting to meet up, Sugar.” Kurt thought about hugging the girl in gratitude, but decided against it when he realized she was wearing a leather jacket with spiked, not studded, epaulets. That had more than likely not been a mistake. “It's nice to see you.”
“I'm only doing this because you said you wanted to help get Blaine back.” She flounced into the Victoria's Secret and started flipping through racks of padded bras. “I don't think you deserve him, and I almost called my cousin Anthony to come cheer him up, but I'm pretty sure he still wants you...” Sugar heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. “You so fucked up good, Hummel.”
“Tell me something I don't know,” he sighed, wincing away from a decapitated mannequin in a blue gingham push-up corset..
“You're an idiot,” she informed him, laughing at his outraged glare. “Hey, I'm pretty sure you didn't know that.”
Kurt picked up a thong that seemed little more than a string with high hopes and instantly wished he hadn't. “I actually had a pretty good idea of that, as a matter of fact,” he muttered, tossing it back down and desperately longing to wash his hands. Who knew how many people had picked over these undergarments with grubby, unsanitary paws? “Now, I don't know how to win Blaine back in a really spectacular way. You could help with that.”
“You gave him the damn pen.” Sugar snapped, throwing a particularly heavily padded D-cup at his head, forcing him to catch it or risk losing an eye. “The pen, Kurt. You're an idiot. And you only called me, like, three hours ago, so I haven't even had time to figure something out that will make up for that.”
“I panicked!” He held his hands up, hoping to stave off another lingerie based assault. They were also getting much too close to the lotion and perfume display for his personal comfort. “I panicked, and I told you the pen means a lot to me.”
“Yeah, and does he know that?” At Kurt's sudden downcast look, Sugar barked out a triumphant laugh. “Oh, wow, you fucked this even better than I thought.”
“Help meeeeeeeeee,” he pleaded, trying not to gawk too hard at a woman who had just emerged from the dressing room in a bright purple satin bra and was yelling for her friends to tell her if it evened out her boob problem. “Help me, I'll do anything, just come up with something brilliant. That doesn't involve Cosmo,” he added, remembering the results of her last helpful plan. Wait, why had he called Sugar again?
She beckoned over her shoulder at him, leading the way to the dressing rooms with a handful of bras clutched in her fingers. A salesgirl tried to stop her from making him follow her into one of the horrible pink stalls, but Sugar brushed her off with a wave of her hand. “I'm trying to help him get his boyfriend back, okay? He's coming in so I can talk at him.” With a snap of her gum, she grabbed Kurt by the wrist and dragged him in, pushing him down to sit on the tiny bench. “So, you gotta go big or go home,” she began, stripping off her jacket and throwing it at him.
“I don't actually think I have to be in here for this,” he tried to demur, dropping the jacket and covering his eyes with his hands when she tugged her t-shirt off and began to unclip her bra. It was one thing to deal with other actors wandering around half-naked backstage, but he really had no desire to see Sugar's breasts. “I can go outside. Let me go outside.”
“Oh, so you want me to shout about how you slept with your boyfriend and dumped him the next day? So everyone can hear?” A rattle of hangers let him know she was trying on one of the lacy little numbers she'd picked out. “I mean, we totally can if you want to do that, sure.”
Kurt knew when he was beaten. “No,” he mumbled, slumping back against the wall, keeping his fingers firmly pressed to his eyes. “It's fine. Just help.”
“That's what I thought.” The sound of a clasp being hooked and straps being snapped indicated that she was kind of covered again, for the moment. “Open up, tell me if this bra is cute on me, and I'll see what I can do.”
“I didn't sign up for this,” Kurt griped, peering at her through his fingers. “Red's not really your color.”
Sugar huffed at him. “Says you, my rack is awesome in any color. And yeah, you did. I'm helping you because Blaine's my boo and for whatever deluded reason he loves you and wants you back. I haven't, like, forgiven you, so suck it up and help me pick out a bra. And then buy me a cookie. A big one with the whipped cream in the middle.”
He rubbed a hand down one side of his face and sighed. “Fine. But just so you know, when you get around to helping me instead of tormenting me, I draw the line at anything that involves parades, climbing balconies, or a Jumbotron at some Philistinic sporting event.”
The look she cast back over her shoulder, complete with a hair toss and a scoff, was one that could have given Rachel Berry a run for her money. “Lame. Fine.” In one deft move she'd extricated herself from the red bra with no warning, making Kurt yelp and scramble to cover his eyes again. “Oh my God, Kurt, they're breasts, it's not like they're gonna start shooting poison gas at you...”
Over the next four hours, Kurt saw Sugar's breasts a grand total of five times, bought her two Double Decker cookies and vetoed 1) a stripping Gorillagram 2) a year's worth of extraordinarily kinky sex coupons and 3) singing anything at all from Michael Bolton's disturbingly prolific catalog of sap, dear God. “I...appreciate...your help,” he finally told her as they walked to the parking garage, trying to be as delicate and diplomatic as possible. “But I think I'm going to have to go in another direction, Sugar.”
“Kurt.” She put a hand on his arm as he turned to leave. “I'm fuckin' with you.”
He turned back, unable to keep himself from gaping at her. “What?”
“I'm fuckin' with you.” Sugar rolled her eyes and smirked at him. “I have been since we met up. You deserved it.” She chortled raucously. “Seriously, you think I'm that bad at romance?”
“Uh...” Kurt couldn't come up with another diplomatic response, so he went for honesty. “It's just that using your Cosmo tips actually scared him. And I don't want to scare him, I want to get it right.”
“Yeah. So. How did you get it right that night?” She tipped her head and watched him questioningly, a tiny smile on her lips. “You musta done, you got in his pants, so what'd you do?”
“I...” He rubbed at his temples trying to think. “I didn't do anything. We just talked. I told him...I told him the truth. That I was scared, but I wanted to be with him no matter what. That's not going to work this time, though, Sugar.”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
“Um, because 24 hours later, I dumped him?” Kurt couldn't believe he was having to spell it out like this. Or how much it hurt to remember just how badly he'd betrayed Blaine. “Maybe I shouldn't even try. He probably won't even listen to me. Why would he want to?” He turned once again to go, only to be stopped when Sugar snagged the back of his vest in her fist.
“He wants you back, Kurt,” she told him firmly, holding him in place. “Trust me on this one. I don't think you have to worry about him not listening. I think you have to worry about you chickening out.” She pulled him around to face her, a grim look on her face that abruptly let him know that Sugar Motta was more fiercely defensive of Blaine than he'd ever thought possible, and that she wouldn't mind causing Kurt a world of pain if he screwed up again. “Why do you want him back? What if you just pull your indecisive crap on him again? You're going to England, what if you dump him long distance because you can't hang? I think before you decide what to do to get him back, you need to be sure you want him back.”
It took a moment for him to gather his scattered thoughts. “I want him back, Sugar. I do. I'm...not going to be able to convince you of that in a day, so please, oh God, please don't send people after me, but I want him back. I know I screwed up, okay?” Kurt tugged out of her grasp, resisting the urge to run an agitated hand through his hair. “I do know it. That's why I want to do something big to prove it.”
Sugar regarded him for a long, long time, inscrutable and assessing. It made him fight his body's increasing desire to run like hell. In the end, she finally nodded slowly. “Fine,” she said, stepping back. “Okay. That'll work. For now.”
Kurt heaved a sigh of relief. “So what do I do?”
“Same as you did last time. Be you. That's who he likes. For some reason.” She shrugged and stared at him like he was stupid. “Everything doesn't have to be a big thing, Hummel. It just has to be a real thing.”
“Seriously?” He eyed her skeptically.
“Seriously. That's it. Just...do your thing that makes you Kurt Hummel. I personally find it weird and a little scary, but you know, it ain't me you gotta impress.” Sugar grinned and stepped forward to stretch up and hug him, taking care to not impale his face with her jacket. “Just, you know, go get him. Or I really will call Cousin Anthony.”
“Don't you dare.” He squeezed her gently and let her go. “Thanks, Sugar.”
“Hey, any time. Unless you screw up again.” She began walking backwards towards her little red VW, pointing two fingers between her eyes and his. “Watching you, Hummel.”
“Understood,” he called, watching her get into her car and screech off in a cloud of dust and “Color Me Badd”. Shaking his head, he headed home himself, mulling over her words and wondering if it really could be that simple.
His guard was up immediately when he pulled into the driveway at the house and saw that his father's car was gone. Kurt frowned. “I knew you had a plan,” he muttered, climbing out of the CRX and heading for the door. Bursting into the house as quickly as he could, he scanned the front table for a note. Nothing. He moved into the kitchen and checked the refrigerator. None there either. Of course.
Panic paralyzed his chest, making it difficult for him to breathe. Kurt tried to calm down, tried to make his racing heart resume activity at a normal speed. “Maybe he went to the store,” he whispered, half hopefully, half pleadingly as he glanced over their shared desk in the office.
But he knew better, really.
The red light of a new message on the answering machine caught his eye, blinking, it seemed, almost malevolently at him. Kurt paced slowly over to the table to check it, a wretched sense of foreboding weighing down his shoulders with every step. Pressing the button made Connie Anderson's too-calm voice flood the air of the room and cut off his breath.
“Hello, Kurt, it's Connie at Lima General.” This was Connie-the-Nurse, not Connie-Blaine's-Sister. Kurt's heart sank. “I need you to come down here as soon as you hear this message, please. Drive carefully, but be quick. I'll meet you here.” There was a click and a dial tone while Kurt stood stock still, staring at the machine in horror.
What had his father done?
...Part Two...
Media: Fic
Author: a_glass_parade (GlassParade)
Beta: idoltina, additional support from gameboycolor
Rating: PG-13 to mild R
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine, reference to past Quinn/Finn and current Rachel/Finn
Genre: Romance, AU, Movie Adaptations
Warnings: Mentions of attempted suicide.
Spoilers: While events and references from all three seasons of Glee may be adapted and worked into the story occasionally, it's otherwise fully AU.
Word Count: Currently 88,000+ (WHAT. EVEN.)
Summary: Blaine Anderson is the easy going skateboarding slacker who's carried a torch for sheltered class Valedictorian Kurt Hummel for the last year. On the day they graduate from high school, he decides to do something about it. There's no way they should work. Everything will conspire against them. Can this unlikely pairing prevail?
Additional Notes: gameboycolor and naderegen wanted 90's Klaine. I suggested updating Cameron Crowe's iconic movie "Say Anything" to 1998 and making Blaine and Kurt into an analogue of Lloyd and Diane's star-crossed romance. This very loose adaptation, for better or for worse, is the result. Title is from the song "All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket.
“You should get out of the house.”
Kurt looked up at his father's words, pausing in the middle of scooping out a cantaloupe. Frowning, he set aside the melon baller in his hand and blinked, clearly taken by surprise. “Come again?”
“Get out.” Burt leaned against the counter and snitched a slice of kiwi out of the fruit salad his son was preparing for their breakfast. “Go to the mall, get lunch, whatever, just get out. Call Blaine.”
“I'm not calling Blaine,” Kurt replied testily, resuming his work on the melon. “I haven't figured out what I want to do to make everything up to him. And don't start.” He pointed the melon baller at his father and waved it menacingly. “He was out of town this weekend anyway, I remember he told me about some meet in Cincinnati weeks ago. Even if I knew what I wanted to do, I couldn't have reached him.”
Burt rolled his eyes. “You coulda gone to Cincinnati and surprised him. I don't know why you don't ask me for dating advice.”
“Maybe because you haven't been out on a date in ten years.” Arching an eyebrow, Kurt dodged the playful swat Burt aimed at his hair. “Well, excuse me for pointing out the obvious.”
“I'm just sayin', he stood out on our front lawn in front of God and everyone playing that song for you - and I really don't want to know what makes that song special, I can guess and I'm tryin' not to think too hard about it - surprising him in Cincinnati might have been nice. You could have brought flowers, I don't know.” Burt whisked another slice of kiwi out from under Kurt's nose. “Too late anyway. Get out of the house, Kurt. Call someone else, go do something. Maybe you could go to Cedar Point. Or Detroit, that's fun.”
Kurt slanted a sidelong glance at Burt, who contrived to look very innocent. “Okay, we've gone from 'the mall' to 'another state entirely.'” Shoving aside the gutted melon, he tugged over a plastic basket of strawberries and began slicing them into the fruit salad. “What do you want, Dad? What's your angle? And please, don't tell me it's about the bathroom habits. That's a conversation I don't want to have again...and besides, no one needs the bathroom to themselves for five hours.”
“You don't know my habits,” Burt shot back, grinning at the horrified look on Kurt's face. “I didn't read any of the paper yesterday, that Sunday edition is enormous...oh, stop it, Kurt.” He sighed and clapped a hand down on his son's arm. “You've been cooped up in here since I came back home from the hospital, you don't leave unless it's to go run errands. I'm not gonna break, kid. You can go out and do something fun.”
“I'm fine.” Kurt kept slicing strawberries, not looking at his father. “It's no problem, everything is just fine, I don't need anything.”
“Mmhm. Yesterday you served me a salad with radishes cut into roses and the carrot shreds curled like Shirley Temple's hair. And you folded the napkin into a little swan or somethin'.” He patted Kurt's arm until his son met his eyes. “You used to be such a good kid.”
Kurt's mouth dropped open. “I'm a great kid!”
“Nah.” Burt picked a chunk of melon out of the salad and popped it into his mouth. “You haven't listened to me at all this summer, I had to ground you once, put a curfew on you, you don't take my advice...”
“That is not fair.” Kurt slapped down his knife and snatched up the bowl of fruit, carrying it to the dining room table. “It's not. One, that wasn't really grounding, two, your curfew was later than the one I was prepared to accept, three, I have given up a lot to help you -”
Burt nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets and grinning. “Uh huh. And I didn't ask you to. I actually told you not to. Told you to enjoy your summer. And then you went and messed it all up anyway. I think I need to ground you again.”
“This is preposterous!” Kurt was going around the kitchen gathering things for breakfast, slamming doors and rattling plates in his agitation. “Most parents would be thrilled - thrilled - to have an almost adult child being as, as, as responsible as I am and trying to be helpful.”
“Don't get me wrong, kid, I'm grateful, but I keep tellin' you, I want you to be a kid.” He walked over to Kurt, removing a carton of yogurt from his hands and pulling him into a hug. “All I wanted you to do this summer was have fun. I shouldn't have to blackmail and bribe you into bein' happy, Kurt.” Stepping back, he gripped Kurt's arms and smiled sadly. “Let go, kid. Get out. Go do something, please.”
Kurt visibly wavered, searching Burt's face to be sure. Burt kept his eyes steady and his face calm, working to not give anything away. It took all he had not to sigh in relief when Kurt finally nodded. “Okay...um...yeah. I could go for some shopping. I can even call a friend.”
“Good!” Burt beamed and released his son, turning to the breakfast table. “We can eat and you can go make that call and leave me in peace for the day. Tell ya what, you can even take my credit card.”
“Oh my God, you're dying.” Kurt looked horrified, making Burt turn around so as to not laugh in his face. “You're dying and you and Dr. Johansson have been lying to me.”
“I just want you to go shopping. I'll give you a spending limit and tell you you're limited to buying luggage, does that make you feel better?” With a roll of his eyes, Burt sat down and spooned out a bowl of fruit and yogurt. “Yeesh. Come sit down and eat. Anyone ever tell you that you're way too uptight?”
“Only you, every day of my life,” Kurt sighed, dropping into his own chair and serving himself his own serving of breakfast. Without any further ado, he fell to eating, obviously lost in thought.
Burt couldn't have been more pleased with how the discussion had worked out, though he did feel slightly guilty for lying to his only kid. He did have an agenda that he wasn't about to tell Kurt about, because Kurt was already too convinced that between the two of them, he was the parent, not Burt. He'd get all worked up and yell and try to actually forbid what Burt had planned, and forget that. It was not worth the hassle.
He escaped to the living room as soon as he could, not bringing up Kurt's going out again so as to not raise suspicion. Keeping his posture loose and casual, Burt lounged on the couch watching Oprah as he listened to Kurt tripping back and forth upstairs, singing along to his radio and calling someone he called 'Sugar' - that couldn't be right, had to be a nickname, but whatever. Burt was just glad Kurt was going to leave so he could do what he wanted. Which wasn't reading the Sunday paper a day late.
“Bye,” he called as Kurt hustled out the door two hours later with a hasty wave and a smile over his shoulder. As soon as Burt heard the CRX rev up and pull out of the driveway, he was on his feet and upstairs, throwing off his pajamas and pulling on a shop coverall.
“Two months since I set foot in that shop, I know it's falling apart without me,” Burt muttered as he tugged on a baseball cap and checked out the front windows to make sure Kurt hadn't turned around because he forgot something. Nope, the coast was clear. Knowing he was going against doctor's orders gave Burt an extra little thrill as he ran out to his car and took off for the shop, feeling more alive than he had since the first shooting pains went through his chest all those weeks ago.
When he walked through the shop doors, he almost lost it laughing at his employees' incredulous looks. “Burt!” Mick, his head mech, was the first to recover. “Whattaya doin' here? Everything okay? Kurt said you were supposed to be restin' when he was in here the other day.”
“Yeah, well, I rested,” Burt shot back, grinning and slapping the backs of all the mechs he could reach. “I feel fine and I got a need to get my hands dirty. Anyone bring in anything good?”
Yeah, it felt good being back at the shop. He was starting to feel less guilty by the minute. What Diane Johansson and Kurt didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
“Thanks for wanting to meet up, Sugar.” Kurt thought about hugging the girl in gratitude, but decided against it when he realized she was wearing a leather jacket with spiked, not studded, epaulets. That had more than likely not been a mistake. “It's nice to see you.”
“I'm only doing this because you said you wanted to help get Blaine back.” She flounced into the Victoria's Secret and started flipping through racks of padded bras. “I don't think you deserve him, and I almost called my cousin Anthony to come cheer him up, but I'm pretty sure he still wants you...” Sugar heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. “You so fucked up good, Hummel.”
“Tell me something I don't know,” he sighed, wincing away from a decapitated mannequin in a blue gingham push-up corset..
“You're an idiot,” she informed him, laughing at his outraged glare. “Hey, I'm pretty sure you didn't know that.”
Kurt picked up a thong that seemed little more than a string with high hopes and instantly wished he hadn't. “I actually had a pretty good idea of that, as a matter of fact,” he muttered, tossing it back down and desperately longing to wash his hands. Who knew how many people had picked over these undergarments with grubby, unsanitary paws? “Now, I don't know how to win Blaine back in a really spectacular way. You could help with that.”
“You gave him the damn pen.” Sugar snapped, throwing a particularly heavily padded D-cup at his head, forcing him to catch it or risk losing an eye. “The pen, Kurt. You're an idiot. And you only called me, like, three hours ago, so I haven't even had time to figure something out that will make up for that.”
“I panicked!” He held his hands up, hoping to stave off another lingerie based assault. They were also getting much too close to the lotion and perfume display for his personal comfort. “I panicked, and I told you the pen means a lot to me.”
“Yeah, and does he know that?” At Kurt's sudden downcast look, Sugar barked out a triumphant laugh. “Oh, wow, you fucked this even better than I thought.”
“Help meeeeeeeeee,” he pleaded, trying not to gawk too hard at a woman who had just emerged from the dressing room in a bright purple satin bra and was yelling for her friends to tell her if it evened out her boob problem. “Help me, I'll do anything, just come up with something brilliant. That doesn't involve Cosmo,” he added, remembering the results of her last helpful plan. Wait, why had he called Sugar again?
She beckoned over her shoulder at him, leading the way to the dressing rooms with a handful of bras clutched in her fingers. A salesgirl tried to stop her from making him follow her into one of the horrible pink stalls, but Sugar brushed her off with a wave of her hand. “I'm trying to help him get his boyfriend back, okay? He's coming in so I can talk at him.” With a snap of her gum, she grabbed Kurt by the wrist and dragged him in, pushing him down to sit on the tiny bench. “So, you gotta go big or go home,” she began, stripping off her jacket and throwing it at him.
“I don't actually think I have to be in here for this,” he tried to demur, dropping the jacket and covering his eyes with his hands when she tugged her t-shirt off and began to unclip her bra. It was one thing to deal with other actors wandering around half-naked backstage, but he really had no desire to see Sugar's breasts. “I can go outside. Let me go outside.”
“Oh, so you want me to shout about how you slept with your boyfriend and dumped him the next day? So everyone can hear?” A rattle of hangers let him know she was trying on one of the lacy little numbers she'd picked out. “I mean, we totally can if you want to do that, sure.”
Kurt knew when he was beaten. “No,” he mumbled, slumping back against the wall, keeping his fingers firmly pressed to his eyes. “It's fine. Just help.”
“That's what I thought.” The sound of a clasp being hooked and straps being snapped indicated that she was kind of covered again, for the moment. “Open up, tell me if this bra is cute on me, and I'll see what I can do.”
“I didn't sign up for this,” Kurt griped, peering at her through his fingers. “Red's not really your color.”
Sugar huffed at him. “Says you, my rack is awesome in any color. And yeah, you did. I'm helping you because Blaine's my boo and for whatever deluded reason he loves you and wants you back. I haven't, like, forgiven you, so suck it up and help me pick out a bra. And then buy me a cookie. A big one with the whipped cream in the middle.”
He rubbed a hand down one side of his face and sighed. “Fine. But just so you know, when you get around to helping me instead of tormenting me, I draw the line at anything that involves parades, climbing balconies, or a Jumbotron at some Philistinic sporting event.”
The look she cast back over her shoulder, complete with a hair toss and a scoff, was one that could have given Rachel Berry a run for her money. “Lame. Fine.” In one deft move she'd extricated herself from the red bra with no warning, making Kurt yelp and scramble to cover his eyes again. “Oh my God, Kurt, they're breasts, it's not like they're gonna start shooting poison gas at you...”
Over the next four hours, Kurt saw Sugar's breasts a grand total of five times, bought her two Double Decker cookies and vetoed 1) a stripping Gorillagram 2) a year's worth of extraordinarily kinky sex coupons and 3) singing anything at all from Michael Bolton's disturbingly prolific catalog of sap, dear God. “I...appreciate...your help,” he finally told her as they walked to the parking garage, trying to be as delicate and diplomatic as possible. “But I think I'm going to have to go in another direction, Sugar.”
“Kurt.” She put a hand on his arm as he turned to leave. “I'm fuckin' with you.”
He turned back, unable to keep himself from gaping at her. “What?”
“I'm fuckin' with you.” Sugar rolled her eyes and smirked at him. “I have been since we met up. You deserved it.” She chortled raucously. “Seriously, you think I'm that bad at romance?”
“Uh...” Kurt couldn't come up with another diplomatic response, so he went for honesty. “It's just that using your Cosmo tips actually scared him. And I don't want to scare him, I want to get it right.”
“Yeah. So. How did you get it right that night?” She tipped her head and watched him questioningly, a tiny smile on her lips. “You musta done, you got in his pants, so what'd you do?”
“I...” He rubbed at his temples trying to think. “I didn't do anything. We just talked. I told him...I told him the truth. That I was scared, but I wanted to be with him no matter what. That's not going to work this time, though, Sugar.”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
“Um, because 24 hours later, I dumped him?” Kurt couldn't believe he was having to spell it out like this. Or how much it hurt to remember just how badly he'd betrayed Blaine. “Maybe I shouldn't even try. He probably won't even listen to me. Why would he want to?” He turned once again to go, only to be stopped when Sugar snagged the back of his vest in her fist.
“He wants you back, Kurt,” she told him firmly, holding him in place. “Trust me on this one. I don't think you have to worry about him not listening. I think you have to worry about you chickening out.” She pulled him around to face her, a grim look on her face that abruptly let him know that Sugar Motta was more fiercely defensive of Blaine than he'd ever thought possible, and that she wouldn't mind causing Kurt a world of pain if he screwed up again. “Why do you want him back? What if you just pull your indecisive crap on him again? You're going to England, what if you dump him long distance because you can't hang? I think before you decide what to do to get him back, you need to be sure you want him back.”
It took a moment for him to gather his scattered thoughts. “I want him back, Sugar. I do. I'm...not going to be able to convince you of that in a day, so please, oh God, please don't send people after me, but I want him back. I know I screwed up, okay?” Kurt tugged out of her grasp, resisting the urge to run an agitated hand through his hair. “I do know it. That's why I want to do something big to prove it.”
Sugar regarded him for a long, long time, inscrutable and assessing. It made him fight his body's increasing desire to run like hell. In the end, she finally nodded slowly. “Fine,” she said, stepping back. “Okay. That'll work. For now.”
Kurt heaved a sigh of relief. “So what do I do?”
“Same as you did last time. Be you. That's who he likes. For some reason.” She shrugged and stared at him like he was stupid. “Everything doesn't have to be a big thing, Hummel. It just has to be a real thing.”
“Seriously?” He eyed her skeptically.
“Seriously. That's it. Just...do your thing that makes you Kurt Hummel. I personally find it weird and a little scary, but you know, it ain't me you gotta impress.” Sugar grinned and stepped forward to stretch up and hug him, taking care to not impale his face with her jacket. “Just, you know, go get him. Or I really will call Cousin Anthony.”
“Don't you dare.” He squeezed her gently and let her go. “Thanks, Sugar.”
“Hey, any time. Unless you screw up again.” She began walking backwards towards her little red VW, pointing two fingers between her eyes and his. “Watching you, Hummel.”
“Understood,” he called, watching her get into her car and screech off in a cloud of dust and “Color Me Badd”. Shaking his head, he headed home himself, mulling over her words and wondering if it really could be that simple.
His guard was up immediately when he pulled into the driveway at the house and saw that his father's car was gone. Kurt frowned. “I knew you had a plan,” he muttered, climbing out of the CRX and heading for the door. Bursting into the house as quickly as he could, he scanned the front table for a note. Nothing. He moved into the kitchen and checked the refrigerator. None there either. Of course.
Panic paralyzed his chest, making it difficult for him to breathe. Kurt tried to calm down, tried to make his racing heart resume activity at a normal speed. “Maybe he went to the store,” he whispered, half hopefully, half pleadingly as he glanced over their shared desk in the office.
But he knew better, really.
The red light of a new message on the answering machine caught his eye, blinking, it seemed, almost malevolently at him. Kurt paced slowly over to the table to check it, a wretched sense of foreboding weighing down his shoulders with every step. Pressing the button made Connie Anderson's too-calm voice flood the air of the room and cut off his breath.
“Hello, Kurt, it's Connie at Lima General.” This was Connie-the-Nurse, not Connie-Blaine's-Sister. Kurt's heart sank. “I need you to come down here as soon as you hear this message, please. Drive carefully, but be quick. I'll meet you here.” There was a click and a dial tone while Kurt stood stock still, staring at the machine in horror.
What had his father done?
...Part Two...