First Performances
In the weeks before graduation, after Quinn’s accident, Rachel decides the Glee club needs to spend more time together. Her reasoning is that the last three years there’s been so much conflict and fighting there are members who don’t really know each other at all. And she’s right. She had no idea that Tina has been tap dancing since she was seven a suggestion her Mom made to help her get over her crippling shyness. They even shared a teacher, though Rachel, of course, points out that she was in a more advanced class. That leads the club to decide to they should show each other their earliest performances, whatever they have video of.
The get togethers are usually at the Hummel-Hudson house on Fridays after dinner. It’s just a matter of convenience as three members of New Directions live there and Rachel and Blaine are usually there on Friday nights anyway. Blaine is happy to be included, as no matter what’s happened, he still feels like the new guy. Rachel is quick to point out that he’s one of them, and she wants everyone to know him as well, even if he’s going to be staying behind next year. Kurt tells Blaine he’s being silly, of course he’s part of the group, a fact that makes Kurt smile that smile where his face scrunches up and Blaine wants to smoother that scrunchy face with kisses.
So this particular Friday, they’re grouped around the TV in the Hummel-Hudson living room, Rachel and Kurt providing snacks in the form of a fruit plate, homemade cookies and punch. Kurt takes his place on the couch and pulls Blaine up with him, even though Blaine pretty much has to sit on his lap since there’s so many people crowding around. Blaine likes this side of Kurt, the side that’s been a little more clingy as graduation and their impending separation grows near.
They watch a video after video. Four year old Mercedes singing “Jesus loves me” at church. Kurt is so impressed and proud at the power in her voice, even at four, that he doesn’t make a comment about the content of the song. They watch a video of Rory clog dancing, and Kurt tells Rory how his Dad used to take him to see Riverdance, and Rory promises to teach Kurt some steps over the summer.
They watch a video of Puck, when he was about five sitting on a porch swing with his father as his father plays guitar and sings “More Than Words”, Puck is quiet through the video, and Blaine is shocked because he’s never really seen Puck when he’s emotional. To lighten the mood they go straight into Rachel’s video, three year old Rachel during the talent portion of one of her many childhood pagents singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade”, and there are so many “Toddlers and Tiaras” jokes that they can’t even hear the video by the end because everyone is laughing so much. Surprisingly, Rachel doesn’t get offended, she actually laughs along with them, just proof of how much she’s grown over the years.
The laughter ends however when Kurt puts in a video of him at three, sitting in his Mom’s lap singing “Somewhere Out There”, his tiny voice ringing clear through the old video. Kurt tears up, this being the first time he’s seen this video in years and Blaine turns to Kurt and gives him a kiss on the cheek and buries his face in his neck.
Luckily the somber mood doesn’t stick, because Sugar has a hilarious video of her dancing in front of her TV at 10, copying Britney Spears choreography. Blaine is glad Sugar joined New Directions, she doesn’t take herself very seriously, and even though she can be self involved, she mostly just makes him laugh.
Brittany has a video of her very first dance competition and as expected, her talent, even at age six was apparent. Santana’s video, surprisingly is of her singing an old Selena song when she was in elementary school, and explains that seeing Jennifer Lopez in the movie about Selena’s life is what made Santana want to perform. Of course, Santana wouldn’t let a moment pass without getting some kind of jibe in so she points out to Finn that she’s got an even better ass than J. Lo, thank you very much.
Before he knows it, they’ve gone through all the videos, Joe’s parents never owned a video camera, Sam’s videos are in Kentucky with his family, Artie’s parents didn’t get a chance to dig through their attic and both Finn and Mike’s first performances were in Glee Club. Meaning it’s Blaine’s turn to show his first performance.
“Okay, this is from a talent show I did at school when I was in kindergarten. I choose this song because it was my Mom’s favorite, she listened to it around the house all the time.”
Blaine puts the video on and takes his seat back on Kurt’s lap, already blushing because he hasn’t seen this video in years.
On the screen, five year old Blaine is standing on a stage, blue jeans, tiny Chuck Taylors, and a red hoodie, his wild curls visible under his Cleveland Indians baseball cap. The music starts and only Kurt and Rachel recognize the song as soon as it starts, both trying to hide their smiles and five year old Blaine enthusiastically starts to sing.
“Anytime I need to see your face, I just close my eyes and I am taken to a place where your crystal and and magenta spirit take up shelter in the base of my spine, sweet like a chica cherry cola…”
Santana is the first to crack as they watch tiny Blaine dance around stage.
“Savage Garden, Blainers? You really were the gayest kid in school, even then.”
Kurt rolls his eyes, “Don’t listen to her, honey, you were adorable.”
“I can’t believe you could sing that fast when you were five, I can’t sing that fast now”, Finn just looks in awe of tiny Blaine now dancing his way through a break in the song. Blaine can feel the heat flooding his face. He should have chosen another video, but he wanted to be honest and this was really his first performance.
The performance feels like it’s going to go on forever, Blaine doesn’t remember it being this long when he performed it. He remembers how he felt afterwards, seeing his Mom in the audience, the first one out of her seat to applaud. His father standing in front of the stage with a video camera, his brother Cooper whistling loudly. That was when Blaine decided that for the rest of his life he’s want to perform. Everyone looked so happy when he sang, so that’s what he would do. He would sing and make people smile.
“So that’s everyone. Everyone’s videos were so fun and informative, though we can all agree that I was the most technically proficient out of all of us when we were young. My parents started training me when I was very young, even my cries were in perfect pitch.”
“I’ll show you perfect pitch.” Santana still liked to make threats like that, but at this point everyone knew they were empty.
They took a few minutes to clean up the mess around the room, and everyone collected their old videos. Artie disconnected the old VCR so Kurt could return it his parents room later that night. Burt and Carole both had old movies on video and they refused to completely rebuild their entire collection with DVDs, so they kept a VCR connected in their bedroom.
Everyone pretty much left after the cleanup, Santana, Brittany, Tina and Mike on their way to a movie, Sugar was taking both Rory and Artie over to meet her father, and Puck was taking Joe over to the Sorority house at Lima U to meet girls, hoping that their cool hair and guitar skills could score them some chicks, though Puck was a little worried that Joe wouldn’t know what to do with one if they did score.
Sam walked Mercedes out to her car, she had to be up early the next day for a bake sale at her church, leaving Finn, Rachel, Kurt and Blaine in the living room. Blaine tried to move off Kurt’s lap, but Kurt just pulled him back. They turned on the TV and the four of them (and Sam when he came back in, smiling brightly since Mercedes promised to call him after the bake sale) watched TV for the rest of the night.