Fic: The Barbravention (Glee, Gen)
I was NEVER HERE. Shhhhh.
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine (past), Hummelberry friendship
Rating: Gen
Word count: 1,617
Spoilers: Through Glee 4x04 ("The Break Up") and for Barbra Streisand's 2012 "Back to Brooklyn" concerts.
Summary: Three possible cures for a heartbreak: high-quality dark chocolate, prescription medication, or concert tickets.
Also on AO3, where I will actually move the rest of my stuff too, when I have time.
The Barbravention
“Only I can lead this Barbravention.”
“Is she here?”
“No, this is a mall in Ohio.”
- Glee, “Born This Way”
* * * * *
The Barclays Center looks like a spaceship landed on Atlantic Avenue, all gorgeous metal swoops and bright lights. Kurt knows there’s some controversy about the place, saw Chase’s little sneer when he’d mentioned it, but he can’t bring himself to care. The arena is new in town, like him, and tonight it’s the best place in the city to be.
He’d been joking when he said, it or trying to. He’d come into the office a little early that awful Monday after Blaine left, held together by willpower and a new embroidered waistcoat, trying not to look like he’d just had his heart pulled out of his chest and apparently failing. When Isabelle had squeezed his shoulder and asked if there was anything she could do, he’d said, “Oh, I don’t know, some chocolates? Xanax? Barbra Streisand tickets?” He’d laughed when he said it, but two days later there’d been a Mast Brothers bar and an envelope on his desk. He’d had to go to the bathroom to cry again when he saw it.
But tonight he’s in his favorite new velvet blazer, and he’s got Rachel on his arm vibrating with so much excitement she might explode before they even get to their seats and nothing is wrong and nothing hurts. The arena is even beautiful on the inside, sophisticated grey and eggplant, and it still smells of new carpet and new paint, new possibilities. When they reach their seats and pull out their opera glasses (bedazzled for her, the classic lorgnette style for him) they have a perfect line of sight to the stage, and Rachel looks like she’s going to pass out.
“Did you know that she has done fewer than fifty live performances in this entire century, Kurt? And that’s a generous estimation because I’m including the political fundraisers and the charitable events and even the concert for Sondheim in that - she’s only done two tours, two tours in the last twelve years, only three in my entire lifetime before this, and we’re here.”
Kurt lets the recitation of facts and figures wash over him as he looks out across the crowd. They’re too high up in the stands to spot any of the famous people he knows have to be here tonight, but even without that, this crowd is something to see. Flocks of older women in bright floral-print tops and flashy jewels, loudly filling each other in on family gossip. Married couples, sharing sandwiches from the artisanal food stands in the lobbies. Hipster types trying hard not to look too excited. And everywhere he looks, it’s versions of them; older, younger, fat, tall, skinny, short, everywhere, it’s happily, openly, obviously gay men, and so, so many intense, happy-looking women who clearly spent their childhoods singing into a hairbrush to the mirror.
“We made it,” he says, and he doesn’t mean the ride on the G train.
“We did,” she says. Her eyes are shining
* * * *
The lights go down, and the show begins. It starts with a slideshow of Barbra’s early years, baby pictures and her high school yearbook photo and everything, and the crowd is eating it all up with a spoon. Someone nearby whoops when a picture of Barbra singing with Judy Garland appears, and Kurt lets himself join in.
The curtains drop, and then the orchestra - there’s an orchestra in a pit, bigger than he’s seen on Broadway, with tons of strings - plays the overture from Funny Girl, and Rachel squeals a little as each familiar theme starts. The musicians get a standing ovation when they’re done, and it turns into a roar as Barbra appears, suddenly spotlit at the center of the stage, covered in black sequins. It’s all so completely over the top he thinks he might die.
She starts to sing, and all of a sudden, he can’t breathe. It’s real, this is happening, Barbra Streisand, in New York, and she’s singing “As If We Never Said Goodbye.”
I don’t know why I’m frightened, I know my way around here
The Brooklyn docks, the nova lox, the sound here
The audience roars with delight at the new lyrics. He reaches for Rachel’s hand in the dark and they hold on to each other.
Yes a world with hot knishes is incredibly delicious
And I need a moment
“So talk amongst yourselves,” Barbra says, “I’m a little verklempt.”
Rachel is crying with happiness.
* * * * *
Barbra Streisand has a cold, and she apologizes to the audience for sipping chicken soup between songs, but you can barely tell it when she sings. The woman is seventy years old, and the high notes aren’t there anymore, but so what? Kurt has sung a bunch of these songs himself and knows exactly how hard they are, and how easy she makes them seem. The Marvin Hamlisch tribute gives him goosebumps, and when she ends the first part of the concert with a “Rose’s Turn/Some People/Don’t Rain on My Parade” medley, he is lost, completely.
The second half opens with another video tribute, and if Rachel isn’t taking notes for her own future diva tours, he’ll eat his hat. Barbra comes out dressed in red this time, and when she introduces a trumpet soloist, she sits on her chair and watches him play attentively. Kurt doesn’t quite recognize the song he’s riffing on until Barbra turns to the crowd and starts to sing.
What’ll I do when you are far away, and I’m so blue, what’ll I do?
The thing about Barbra, the reason he thinks Rachel has always loved her, isn’t the nose or the range or the brilliance of her phrasing: it’s that she can express so much need with her voice. She sounds broken with longing now.
What’ll I do when I am wondering who is kissing you, what’ll I do?
When she gets to “kissing,” she pauses for a breath, and then she spits out the word like it’s a bullet.
What’ll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to?
Her voice scrapes across the lyric, moaning with loss, and he’s crying, torn open. He didn’t even know he had this much sadness left.
When I’m alone with only dreams of you that won’t come true, what’ll I do?
Rachel has a comforting arm around his waist, and he wants to shake her off, say that he’s fine, but he can’t. He just can’t.
The tune shifts to “My Funny Valentine,” and Kurt finally starts to gets himself under control. He’s never cared for the song: the lyric is cruel, and there are too many weird key changes. He takes a long deep breath through his nose, and holds the exhale for a count of five. He can do this.
Rachel hands him a tissue. It’s not a handkerchief that smells of Tide and pocket lint, but it’ll do. By the time Barbra circles back to end the song with one last What’ll I do? he’s under control again. He keeps his face perfectly impassive and applauds.
* * * * *
The night is warm for late fall, so even once they’ve left the arena behind, they’re in no rush. They take a longer route back to the subway, following the packs of concertgoers headed to the LIRR terminal and continuing past.
Barbra had ended with an encore: some chatting with the people in the front rows, a soft-pedal pitch to vote Obama, and “Happy Days Are Here Again.” After the first verse, she’d said “You can sing along with me, you know,” and of course Kurt and Rachel couldn’t not.
“Oh, you sound good!” Barbra had said to the crowd, and they did. There’s just something about singing in a group that’s special. 18,000 strangers, all belting “Happy days are here again!” like they could make it happen just by wishing.
“They’re coming, they’re coming!” Barbra had promised as she ended the song, and walking down Ashland Place, still holding Rachel’s hand, Kurt can believe it. Things will have to break his way again eventually. Maybe tonight’s the start.
They turn the corner, and there’s the Brooklyn Academy of Music in all of its nineteenth-century limestone glory. People are spilling out the front doors here too, clutching programs and talking in groups.
Rachel squeezes his hand, and he smiles at her, trying to look reassuring.
“That’ll be us, soon,” she says.
He frowns. “That is us. Except we paid money for our programs, and I’ll bet those were free.”
“No! I mean, inside. On stage. They’ll be coming to see us. Here. I can feel it.”
It’s another dream that seems like it’s slipping away from him, but tonight, he can tighten his grip and try to hold it close. “Me too.”
“I mean, it’s no Barclays Center, true, but even for Barbra Streisand, playing a concert in a sports stadium before it even officially opens is a once-in-a-lifetime event. And the fact of the matter, Kurt, is that Lima is simply not big enough to support a stadium that size, so I couldn’t have a welcome-home concert there in the first place.”
“It’s a tragedy.”
“It really is. But we’ll rise above it somehow.”
They cross the street towards Fulton. The city is alive, even this late, with cars and buses and restaurants and bars and music. Kurt smiles. “Of course we will,” he tells her. “We’re stars.”
In other news, I am writing another Glee story, also gen, which I hope to finish over the weekend. I am as surprised as you are, people.
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine (past), Hummelberry friendship
Rating: Gen
Word count: 1,617
Spoilers: Through Glee 4x04 ("The Break Up") and for Barbra Streisand's 2012 "Back to Brooklyn" concerts.
Summary: Three possible cures for a heartbreak: high-quality dark chocolate, prescription medication, or concert tickets.
Also on AO3, where I will actually move the rest of my stuff too, when I have time.
The Barbravention
“Only I can lead this Barbravention.”
“Is she here?”
“No, this is a mall in Ohio.”
- Glee, “Born This Way”
* * * * *
The Barclays Center looks like a spaceship landed on Atlantic Avenue, all gorgeous metal swoops and bright lights. Kurt knows there’s some controversy about the place, saw Chase’s little sneer when he’d mentioned it, but he can’t bring himself to care. The arena is new in town, like him, and tonight it’s the best place in the city to be.
He’d been joking when he said, it or trying to. He’d come into the office a little early that awful Monday after Blaine left, held together by willpower and a new embroidered waistcoat, trying not to look like he’d just had his heart pulled out of his chest and apparently failing. When Isabelle had squeezed his shoulder and asked if there was anything she could do, he’d said, “Oh, I don’t know, some chocolates? Xanax? Barbra Streisand tickets?” He’d laughed when he said it, but two days later there’d been a Mast Brothers bar and an envelope on his desk. He’d had to go to the bathroom to cry again when he saw it.
But tonight he’s in his favorite new velvet blazer, and he’s got Rachel on his arm vibrating with so much excitement she might explode before they even get to their seats and nothing is wrong and nothing hurts. The arena is even beautiful on the inside, sophisticated grey and eggplant, and it still smells of new carpet and new paint, new possibilities. When they reach their seats and pull out their opera glasses (bedazzled for her, the classic lorgnette style for him) they have a perfect line of sight to the stage, and Rachel looks like she’s going to pass out.
“Did you know that she has done fewer than fifty live performances in this entire century, Kurt? And that’s a generous estimation because I’m including the political fundraisers and the charitable events and even the concert for Sondheim in that - she’s only done two tours, two tours in the last twelve years, only three in my entire lifetime before this, and we’re here.”
Kurt lets the recitation of facts and figures wash over him as he looks out across the crowd. They’re too high up in the stands to spot any of the famous people he knows have to be here tonight, but even without that, this crowd is something to see. Flocks of older women in bright floral-print tops and flashy jewels, loudly filling each other in on family gossip. Married couples, sharing sandwiches from the artisanal food stands in the lobbies. Hipster types trying hard not to look too excited. And everywhere he looks, it’s versions of them; older, younger, fat, tall, skinny, short, everywhere, it’s happily, openly, obviously gay men, and so, so many intense, happy-looking women who clearly spent their childhoods singing into a hairbrush to the mirror.
“We made it,” he says, and he doesn’t mean the ride on the G train.
“We did,” she says. Her eyes are shining
* * * *
The lights go down, and the show begins. It starts with a slideshow of Barbra’s early years, baby pictures and her high school yearbook photo and everything, and the crowd is eating it all up with a spoon. Someone nearby whoops when a picture of Barbra singing with Judy Garland appears, and Kurt lets himself join in.
The curtains drop, and then the orchestra - there’s an orchestra in a pit, bigger than he’s seen on Broadway, with tons of strings - plays the overture from Funny Girl, and Rachel squeals a little as each familiar theme starts. The musicians get a standing ovation when they’re done, and it turns into a roar as Barbra appears, suddenly spotlit at the center of the stage, covered in black sequins. It’s all so completely over the top he thinks he might die.
She starts to sing, and all of a sudden, he can’t breathe. It’s real, this is happening, Barbra Streisand, in New York, and she’s singing “As If We Never Said Goodbye.”
I don’t know why I’m frightened, I know my way around here
The Brooklyn docks, the nova lox, the sound here
The audience roars with delight at the new lyrics. He reaches for Rachel’s hand in the dark and they hold on to each other.
Yes a world with hot knishes is incredibly delicious
And I need a moment
“So talk amongst yourselves,” Barbra says, “I’m a little verklempt.”
Rachel is crying with happiness.
* * * * *
Barbra Streisand has a cold, and she apologizes to the audience for sipping chicken soup between songs, but you can barely tell it when she sings. The woman is seventy years old, and the high notes aren’t there anymore, but so what? Kurt has sung a bunch of these songs himself and knows exactly how hard they are, and how easy she makes them seem. The Marvin Hamlisch tribute gives him goosebumps, and when she ends the first part of the concert with a “Rose’s Turn/Some People/Don’t Rain on My Parade” medley, he is lost, completely.
The second half opens with another video tribute, and if Rachel isn’t taking notes for her own future diva tours, he’ll eat his hat. Barbra comes out dressed in red this time, and when she introduces a trumpet soloist, she sits on her chair and watches him play attentively. Kurt doesn’t quite recognize the song he’s riffing on until Barbra turns to the crowd and starts to sing.
What’ll I do when you are far away, and I’m so blue, what’ll I do?
The thing about Barbra, the reason he thinks Rachel has always loved her, isn’t the nose or the range or the brilliance of her phrasing: it’s that she can express so much need with her voice. She sounds broken with longing now.
What’ll I do when I am wondering who is kissing you, what’ll I do?
When she gets to “kissing,” she pauses for a breath, and then she spits out the word like it’s a bullet.
What’ll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to?
Her voice scrapes across the lyric, moaning with loss, and he’s crying, torn open. He didn’t even know he had this much sadness left.
When I’m alone with only dreams of you that won’t come true, what’ll I do?
Rachel has a comforting arm around his waist, and he wants to shake her off, say that he’s fine, but he can’t. He just can’t.
The tune shifts to “My Funny Valentine,” and Kurt finally starts to gets himself under control. He’s never cared for the song: the lyric is cruel, and there are too many weird key changes. He takes a long deep breath through his nose, and holds the exhale for a count of five. He can do this.
Rachel hands him a tissue. It’s not a handkerchief that smells of Tide and pocket lint, but it’ll do. By the time Barbra circles back to end the song with one last What’ll I do? he’s under control again. He keeps his face perfectly impassive and applauds.
* * * * *
The night is warm for late fall, so even once they’ve left the arena behind, they’re in no rush. They take a longer route back to the subway, following the packs of concertgoers headed to the LIRR terminal and continuing past.
Barbra had ended with an encore: some chatting with the people in the front rows, a soft-pedal pitch to vote Obama, and “Happy Days Are Here Again.” After the first verse, she’d said “You can sing along with me, you know,” and of course Kurt and Rachel couldn’t not.
“Oh, you sound good!” Barbra had said to the crowd, and they did. There’s just something about singing in a group that’s special. 18,000 strangers, all belting “Happy days are here again!” like they could make it happen just by wishing.
“They’re coming, they’re coming!” Barbra had promised as she ended the song, and walking down Ashland Place, still holding Rachel’s hand, Kurt can believe it. Things will have to break his way again eventually. Maybe tonight’s the start.
They turn the corner, and there’s the Brooklyn Academy of Music in all of its nineteenth-century limestone glory. People are spilling out the front doors here too, clutching programs and talking in groups.
Rachel squeezes his hand, and he smiles at her, trying to look reassuring.
“That’ll be us, soon,” she says.
He frowns. “That is us. Except we paid money for our programs, and I’ll bet those were free.”
“No! I mean, inside. On stage. They’ll be coming to see us. Here. I can feel it.”
It’s another dream that seems like it’s slipping away from him, but tonight, he can tighten his grip and try to hold it close. “Me too.”
“I mean, it’s no Barclays Center, true, but even for Barbra Streisand, playing a concert in a sports stadium before it even officially opens is a once-in-a-lifetime event. And the fact of the matter, Kurt, is that Lima is simply not big enough to support a stadium that size, so I couldn’t have a welcome-home concert there in the first place.”
“It’s a tragedy.”
“It really is. But we’ll rise above it somehow.”
They cross the street towards Fulton. The city is alive, even this late, with cars and buses and restaurants and bars and music. Kurt smiles. “Of course we will,” he tells her. “We’re stars.”
In other news, I am writing another Glee story, also gen, which I hope to finish over the weekend. I am as surprised as you are, people.