Glee Fic: Sale Price
Title: Sale Price
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Blaine & Kurt friendship, pre-slash
Author: Kagedtiger
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Fox and all the lovely people who create it.
Warnings/Spoilers: Up through episode 7 or so.
Series: None
Summary: Blaine goes shopping with Kurt for the first time and discovers Kurt's hidden superpower.
Notes: Because all of us want to know how the hell Kurt affords those clothes. (Additionally, thank you to http://gleestyle.com/ for reference regarding Kurt's wardrobe and pricing thereof.)
Blaine doesn't know Kurt that well yet, but he's getting to. They've only been hanging out a few weeks now - almost a month - but already Kurt has become one of his best friends. It's nothing against anyone at Dalton; he loves the Warblers, and they're all great to him. But he's the only one in the club who's gay, and it's nice to hang around with someone who gets it. And besides, he and Kurt have a lot in common - they both love music and theater, they both watch old movies, and things are just... easy, with Kurt. Kurt is fun to be with. Kurt gets incredibly excited and intense about things, and it's fun to watch him go off on a topic he cares about, to listen to the passion in his voice.
Blaine is skimming around Facebook, looking at people's status updates (Jeff: standing by in case Nick needs a ride to the hospital. Still can't believe he ate the Mysterious Red Back-of-the-Fridge Gel Thingy. Serious balls, dude.) when a chat window from Kurt pops up at the bottom of his screen.
Kurt: Blaine!
Kurt: What are your plans for this weekend?
'Nothing pressing,' Blaine types back. 'Did you have something in mind?'
A moment later, Kurt's reply pops up.
Kurt: I was wondering if you might like to accompany us on The Shopping Trip? At the Lima mall.
'Should I be scared of the capital letters?' types Blaine. 'And who's "us"?'
Kurt: Mercedes and Tina.
Blaine thinks. He's met Mercedes already, although she seemed remarkably suspicious of him when they were first introduced. She's warmed up a bit though, in the several times since. He doesn't recall ever meeting Tina, but he thinks maybe he remembers Kurt talking about her. She must be the asian goth.
Blaine: Sounds fun. Count me in. Where and when should we meet?
Kurt: We're all meeting up at the Lima Bean at 9 AM sharp on Saturday, and then we'll go from there.
Blaine: Cool. I'll see you there, then.
Kurt: Great! See you there.
Blaine doesn't think much of it, except to mark it on his mental calendar. He and Kurt have been hanging out regularly after school and on weekends, but they've never been shopping together before. It wouldn't be Blaine's first choice of activity, but Kurt seemed excited about it, and whenever Kurt is excited Blaine is almost always amused. So he should have a good time either way. He puts it out of his mind until Saturday.
When the day finally rolls around, Blaine has to remind himself why he agreed to get up so damn early on a Saturday. But he's doing it for Kurt, so he slouches his way out of bed and into some clothes before driving himself slowly and carefully to the Lima Bean.
Kurt has already arrived and waves at him from a table in the corner. He looks annoyingly awake and chipper, but that might have something to do with the already half-empty coffee in front of him. Blaine orders his own drink and sits down across from him.
By the time Mercedes and Tina arrive together, Blaine is feeling much more alive and caffeinated. There are short introductions in which Blaine shakes Tina's hand and she smiles shyly at him. The girls get their drinks to go, and the four of them drive their three cars the short few miles over to the Lima mall, parking next to each other.
Kurt walks into the mall like a man on a mission, chatting away to Mercedes where she clings onto his arm. This leaves Blaine striding next to Tina behind them. He smiles at her and politely offers her his own elbow so she won't feel left out. She grins back and takes it, seeming much less shy than she had moments ago at the Lima Bean.
"So, do you know what he's looking for?" Blaine asks.
Tina gives him a curious look that clearly states she doesn't know what he's talking about.
"At the mall," Blaine clarifies. "I mean, it's Kurt, so I assume he's looking for a specific jacket or something to go with one of his outfits...?"
Tina's expression of confusion disappears, only to be replaced by one of pity and slight condescension. "I see. You've never been on The Shopping Trip with Kurt before, huh?" He can hear the capital letters in her voice. Whatever this is, it's clearly a big deal.
"No..." says Blaine warily. "Should I be afraid?"
"Well, so, you know how Kurt works for his dad in the garage sometimes with, like, oil changes and tire rotations and stuff?" Blaine hadn't known, but decides not to comment and lets her continue. "So he saves up, and when he's got, like, two hundred bucks, he goes on The Shopping Trip. We just tag along to benefit from his superpower."
Blaine raises an eyebrow in frank disbelief. "Superpower?"
Tina grins like someone who knows a secret. "You'll see," she says.
Their first stop is T.J. Maxx, which is not the sort of place Blaine would have imagined Kurt shopping at, given its status as a discount store and Kurt's obvious attraction to high fashion. Although he supposes he shouldn't be surprised: the Lima mall has all of two outlets for major designers and he's surprised even those two can support themselves in a community like this, given the price of their clothes.
Kurt is a whirlwind of activity, so much so that Blaine is actually afraid to approach him. He chooses instead to hide in Men's Shirts, flipping idly through the rack and ignoring the clothes in front of him in favor of watching Kurt accrue a veritable mountain of shirts, pants, jackets, and even a few accessories. He almost can't see the boy's face over the pile when Kurt finally staggers over to him and unceremoniously dumps a good portion of the load into Blaine's arms. Blaine has to react quickly to keep from dropping anything, and he wonders to himself if this is how Kurt keeps his arms so toned.
"Hold these," Kurt says redundantly as Blaine struggles under the mountain of fabric. "They only let me try on seven pieces at a time, so this is going to take a few trips." And with that he throws his chosen seven pieces over his arm and flounces off towards the dressing rooms. Tina follows him with three items of her own, as does Mercedes with a single top in hand, leaving Blaine outside the dressing rooms by himself.
Luckily, Kurt seems to be as efficient at trying on clothes as he is at picking them out, and he returns a short while later with only a single sweater-vest-thing over his arm. "That load was mostly a bust," he says conversationally, "but I think I've struck gold here with that diagonal zip. It will look AMAZING with my long-sleeved striped top and the studded boots." As he's speaking, Kurt fishes seven more pieces of clothing out of the pile Blaine's still holding, then hands him the chosen sweater-vest. "Keep that one separate," he instructs. "It's a keeper."
With that, Kurt disappears once more into the changing room. Blaine sighs, juggles the load in his arms to keep the untried and accepted piles separate, and looks down at the article of clothing Kurt had selected. It does look fairly nice - it's a long, turtle-necked sweater with no sleeves, made strange mostly by the diagonal zipper on it that seems to cross the front of the garment from under one armpit to the opposite hip. It's not something Blaine himself would ever wear, but he's sure Kurt will look amazing in it, just as he says. Out of curiosity, he checks the price tag. Like most things in T.J. Maxx, it's marked down from the original designer brand price, in this case to $20. Then he checks what the original price was, and does a double-take, eyes bugging out of his head.
$375.
Kurt has handed him a nearly four-hundred-dollar vest, with a twenty-dollar price tag. Holy crap.
Blaine hears a nearby chuckle and looks up to find Mercedes smiling at him with a knowing look. "Let me guess," she says. "Five percent? Less?"
Blaine's brain takes a second to get working again before he realizes what she means. "Almost five," he says, still processing. "But that can't be real, right? I mean, they wouldn't sell it for that low. There's no way."
"It's Kurt Power," says Mercedes fondly. "If there's a crazy, wonderful designer piece anywhere in this store, Kurt will get it for less than twenty-five percent of it's original price. Guaranteed. He can do it with women's clothes, too. That's why we always go with him on these trips."
Blaine looks in disbelief between her and the sweater-vest. "You can't be serious," he says eventually, skeptical.
"Oh, you just watch," says Mercedes.
In the end, Kurt ends up choosing only seven items from the monster pile of pieces he'd picked out - two pairs of pants, the sweater, a jacket, a shirt, and two accessories - a hat and a bowtie. Total price?
$56.
Blaine is floored. He knows for a fact that the jacket Kurt has chosen must be upwards of two hundred dollars by itself, and Kurt somehow found it for next to nothing. He's almost starting to believe Mercedes and Tina about Kurt's superpower, except that it must be a fluke. It has to be.
But then they move on to Marshall's. And the next store. And the next. When they stop in front of one of the designer outlets and Kurt looks up at the sign, Blaine says, disbelief clear in his voice, "You can't be serious. They won't even have anything in the store for less than a hundred and fifty dollars."
Kurt just smiles sidelong at him and says, "Wanna bet?"
Blaine doesn't take the bet - wisely, as it turns out.
By the end of their shopping excursion, Kurt has spent just under two-hundred dollars, and has practically bought the equivalent of a full Fall wardrobe for the finickiest of fashion models. Blaine has never seen anything like it. It's not just that Kurt has an instinct for finding deals - sales seem to appear from thin air all around him, like cartoon birds drawn to a Disney princess. Blaine would've sworn up and down that the Marc Jacobs outlet didn't even HAVE clearance racks. Why should they? But somehow, Kurt seemed to find them.
They finally end the day with a victory late-lunch-early-dinner at Breadstix, which Blaine decides is on him - the least he can do to thank Kurt for finding him a lovely (and cheap, of course) pair of sweaters that actually fit quite well with his wardrobe. (Although to be fair, he had to turn down three more flamboyant pieces that Kurt had suggested first, two of which Kurt ended up buying for himself anyway). As they wait for their meals and munch on sticks of stale, cheap bread, Blaine can't contain himself anymore.
"So, how do you do it?"
"Do what?" asks Kurt, cocking his head curiously to the side. Tina and Mercedes both snicker behind their hands, obviously in on some joke that Blaine's not privy to.
"Those clothes! How the heck do you find everything so cheap? You're, like, some kind of miracle-worker!"
Kurt rolls his eyes. "Please. Why does everyone think that? Sometimes stuff is on sale. I just look through the clothes that look interesting, and I find some pieces that are a little cheaper. It's nothing special."
Blaine gapes at him, and Mercedes reaches over from where she's sitting next to Blaine in the booth to pat the astonished boy on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Hon," she says. "Just appreciate."
Kurt gives a heavenward roll of his eyes that clearly states he thinks she's being silly, but doesn't comment. Instead he takes the conversation around to current fall fashions, and Blaine is treated to the effervescence that he comes to look forward to whenever he hangs out with Kurt - Kurt practically glows as he talks, all animation and enthusiasm, sparkling eyes and punctuating hand gestures. Tina and Mercedes humor him, lit by the infectiousness of his enthusiasm.
Despite himself, Blaine can't help but be drawn in. By the time their meals arrive, he feels suffused with Kurt's joy, energy and excitement swirling like rapture through his blood.
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Blaine & Kurt friendship, pre-slash
Author: Kagedtiger
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Fox and all the lovely people who create it.
Warnings/Spoilers: Up through episode 7 or so.
Series: None
Summary: Blaine goes shopping with Kurt for the first time and discovers Kurt's hidden superpower.
Notes: Because all of us want to know how the hell Kurt affords those clothes. (Additionally, thank you to http://gleestyle.com/ for reference regarding Kurt's wardrobe and pricing thereof.)
Blaine doesn't know Kurt that well yet, but he's getting to. They've only been hanging out a few weeks now - almost a month - but already Kurt has become one of his best friends. It's nothing against anyone at Dalton; he loves the Warblers, and they're all great to him. But he's the only one in the club who's gay, and it's nice to hang around with someone who gets it. And besides, he and Kurt have a lot in common - they both love music and theater, they both watch old movies, and things are just... easy, with Kurt. Kurt is fun to be with. Kurt gets incredibly excited and intense about things, and it's fun to watch him go off on a topic he cares about, to listen to the passion in his voice.
Blaine is skimming around Facebook, looking at people's status updates (Jeff: standing by in case Nick needs a ride to the hospital. Still can't believe he ate the Mysterious Red Back-of-the-Fridge Gel Thingy. Serious balls, dude.) when a chat window from Kurt pops up at the bottom of his screen.
Kurt: Blaine!
Kurt: What are your plans for this weekend?
'Nothing pressing,' Blaine types back. 'Did you have something in mind?'
A moment later, Kurt's reply pops up.
Kurt: I was wondering if you might like to accompany us on The Shopping Trip? At the Lima mall.
'Should I be scared of the capital letters?' types Blaine. 'And who's "us"?'
Kurt: Mercedes and Tina.
Blaine thinks. He's met Mercedes already, although she seemed remarkably suspicious of him when they were first introduced. She's warmed up a bit though, in the several times since. He doesn't recall ever meeting Tina, but he thinks maybe he remembers Kurt talking about her. She must be the asian goth.
Blaine: Sounds fun. Count me in. Where and when should we meet?
Kurt: We're all meeting up at the Lima Bean at 9 AM sharp on Saturday, and then we'll go from there.
Blaine: Cool. I'll see you there, then.
Kurt: Great! See you there.
Blaine doesn't think much of it, except to mark it on his mental calendar. He and Kurt have been hanging out regularly after school and on weekends, but they've never been shopping together before. It wouldn't be Blaine's first choice of activity, but Kurt seemed excited about it, and whenever Kurt is excited Blaine is almost always amused. So he should have a good time either way. He puts it out of his mind until Saturday.
When the day finally rolls around, Blaine has to remind himself why he agreed to get up so damn early on a Saturday. But he's doing it for Kurt, so he slouches his way out of bed and into some clothes before driving himself slowly and carefully to the Lima Bean.
Kurt has already arrived and waves at him from a table in the corner. He looks annoyingly awake and chipper, but that might have something to do with the already half-empty coffee in front of him. Blaine orders his own drink and sits down across from him.
By the time Mercedes and Tina arrive together, Blaine is feeling much more alive and caffeinated. There are short introductions in which Blaine shakes Tina's hand and she smiles shyly at him. The girls get their drinks to go, and the four of them drive their three cars the short few miles over to the Lima mall, parking next to each other.
Kurt walks into the mall like a man on a mission, chatting away to Mercedes where she clings onto his arm. This leaves Blaine striding next to Tina behind them. He smiles at her and politely offers her his own elbow so she won't feel left out. She grins back and takes it, seeming much less shy than she had moments ago at the Lima Bean.
"So, do you know what he's looking for?" Blaine asks.
Tina gives him a curious look that clearly states she doesn't know what he's talking about.
"At the mall," Blaine clarifies. "I mean, it's Kurt, so I assume he's looking for a specific jacket or something to go with one of his outfits...?"
Tina's expression of confusion disappears, only to be replaced by one of pity and slight condescension. "I see. You've never been on The Shopping Trip with Kurt before, huh?" He can hear the capital letters in her voice. Whatever this is, it's clearly a big deal.
"No..." says Blaine warily. "Should I be afraid?"
"Well, so, you know how Kurt works for his dad in the garage sometimes with, like, oil changes and tire rotations and stuff?" Blaine hadn't known, but decides not to comment and lets her continue. "So he saves up, and when he's got, like, two hundred bucks, he goes on The Shopping Trip. We just tag along to benefit from his superpower."
Blaine raises an eyebrow in frank disbelief. "Superpower?"
Tina grins like someone who knows a secret. "You'll see," she says.
Their first stop is T.J. Maxx, which is not the sort of place Blaine would have imagined Kurt shopping at, given its status as a discount store and Kurt's obvious attraction to high fashion. Although he supposes he shouldn't be surprised: the Lima mall has all of two outlets for major designers and he's surprised even those two can support themselves in a community like this, given the price of their clothes.
Kurt is a whirlwind of activity, so much so that Blaine is actually afraid to approach him. He chooses instead to hide in Men's Shirts, flipping idly through the rack and ignoring the clothes in front of him in favor of watching Kurt accrue a veritable mountain of shirts, pants, jackets, and even a few accessories. He almost can't see the boy's face over the pile when Kurt finally staggers over to him and unceremoniously dumps a good portion of the load into Blaine's arms. Blaine has to react quickly to keep from dropping anything, and he wonders to himself if this is how Kurt keeps his arms so toned.
"Hold these," Kurt says redundantly as Blaine struggles under the mountain of fabric. "They only let me try on seven pieces at a time, so this is going to take a few trips." And with that he throws his chosen seven pieces over his arm and flounces off towards the dressing rooms. Tina follows him with three items of her own, as does Mercedes with a single top in hand, leaving Blaine outside the dressing rooms by himself.
Luckily, Kurt seems to be as efficient at trying on clothes as he is at picking them out, and he returns a short while later with only a single sweater-vest-thing over his arm. "That load was mostly a bust," he says conversationally, "but I think I've struck gold here with that diagonal zip. It will look AMAZING with my long-sleeved striped top and the studded boots." As he's speaking, Kurt fishes seven more pieces of clothing out of the pile Blaine's still holding, then hands him the chosen sweater-vest. "Keep that one separate," he instructs. "It's a keeper."
With that, Kurt disappears once more into the changing room. Blaine sighs, juggles the load in his arms to keep the untried and accepted piles separate, and looks down at the article of clothing Kurt had selected. It does look fairly nice - it's a long, turtle-necked sweater with no sleeves, made strange mostly by the diagonal zipper on it that seems to cross the front of the garment from under one armpit to the opposite hip. It's not something Blaine himself would ever wear, but he's sure Kurt will look amazing in it, just as he says. Out of curiosity, he checks the price tag. Like most things in T.J. Maxx, it's marked down from the original designer brand price, in this case to $20. Then he checks what the original price was, and does a double-take, eyes bugging out of his head.
$375.
Kurt has handed him a nearly four-hundred-dollar vest, with a twenty-dollar price tag. Holy crap.
Blaine hears a nearby chuckle and looks up to find Mercedes smiling at him with a knowing look. "Let me guess," she says. "Five percent? Less?"
Blaine's brain takes a second to get working again before he realizes what she means. "Almost five," he says, still processing. "But that can't be real, right? I mean, they wouldn't sell it for that low. There's no way."
"It's Kurt Power," says Mercedes fondly. "If there's a crazy, wonderful designer piece anywhere in this store, Kurt will get it for less than twenty-five percent of it's original price. Guaranteed. He can do it with women's clothes, too. That's why we always go with him on these trips."
Blaine looks in disbelief between her and the sweater-vest. "You can't be serious," he says eventually, skeptical.
"Oh, you just watch," says Mercedes.
In the end, Kurt ends up choosing only seven items from the monster pile of pieces he'd picked out - two pairs of pants, the sweater, a jacket, a shirt, and two accessories - a hat and a bowtie. Total price?
$56.
Blaine is floored. He knows for a fact that the jacket Kurt has chosen must be upwards of two hundred dollars by itself, and Kurt somehow found it for next to nothing. He's almost starting to believe Mercedes and Tina about Kurt's superpower, except that it must be a fluke. It has to be.
But then they move on to Marshall's. And the next store. And the next. When they stop in front of one of the designer outlets and Kurt looks up at the sign, Blaine says, disbelief clear in his voice, "You can't be serious. They won't even have anything in the store for less than a hundred and fifty dollars."
Kurt just smiles sidelong at him and says, "Wanna bet?"
Blaine doesn't take the bet - wisely, as it turns out.
By the end of their shopping excursion, Kurt has spent just under two-hundred dollars, and has practically bought the equivalent of a full Fall wardrobe for the finickiest of fashion models. Blaine has never seen anything like it. It's not just that Kurt has an instinct for finding deals - sales seem to appear from thin air all around him, like cartoon birds drawn to a Disney princess. Blaine would've sworn up and down that the Marc Jacobs outlet didn't even HAVE clearance racks. Why should they? But somehow, Kurt seemed to find them.
They finally end the day with a victory late-lunch-early-dinner at Breadstix, which Blaine decides is on him - the least he can do to thank Kurt for finding him a lovely (and cheap, of course) pair of sweaters that actually fit quite well with his wardrobe. (Although to be fair, he had to turn down three more flamboyant pieces that Kurt had suggested first, two of which Kurt ended up buying for himself anyway). As they wait for their meals and munch on sticks of stale, cheap bread, Blaine can't contain himself anymore.
"So, how do you do it?"
"Do what?" asks Kurt, cocking his head curiously to the side. Tina and Mercedes both snicker behind their hands, obviously in on some joke that Blaine's not privy to.
"Those clothes! How the heck do you find everything so cheap? You're, like, some kind of miracle-worker!"
Kurt rolls his eyes. "Please. Why does everyone think that? Sometimes stuff is on sale. I just look through the clothes that look interesting, and I find some pieces that are a little cheaper. It's nothing special."
Blaine gapes at him, and Mercedes reaches over from where she's sitting next to Blaine in the booth to pat the astonished boy on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Hon," she says. "Just appreciate."
Kurt gives a heavenward roll of his eyes that clearly states he thinks she's being silly, but doesn't comment. Instead he takes the conversation around to current fall fashions, and Blaine is treated to the effervescence that he comes to look forward to whenever he hangs out with Kurt - Kurt practically glows as he talks, all animation and enthusiasm, sparkling eyes and punctuating hand gestures. Tina and Mercedes humor him, lit by the infectiousness of his enthusiasm.
Despite himself, Blaine can't help but be drawn in. By the time their meals arrive, he feels suffused with Kurt's joy, energy and excitement swirling like rapture through his blood.