10 Song Meme
This was a fun, easy way to spend an afternoon, so why not? And what better way to christen my writing journal? Bandwagon, here I am!
Rating: High PG (a little swearing, but really very little)
Description of the meme: I turned my iPod on random and wrote a drabble for each song that played. I only wrote while the song played, wrapping it up as soon as the song ended. Entirely Kurt-centric, some Kurt/Blaine.
Disclaimers: All characters belong to Fox and Ryan Murphy and are most definitely not my own.
A/N: Unbeta'd, I apologize in advance. Also, warnings and apologies all around for my extremely eclectic musical taste, my occasionally unsuitable writing tone (I gave a story based on a My Chemical Romance song a punchline? Really?), and my unapologetic belief in the Kurt/Finn BROTP. I refuse to apologize for the sheer geekery in the sixth drabble and insist that, if you haven't had a group of nerdy-awkward American boys start singing and (attempting to) dance "Gee" at you after they've destroyed you in a video game, you haven't truly lived.
New Math - Tom Lehrer (Did I mention this was going to be eclectic?)
“What do you mean, it doesn’t make sense?”
Blaine ran a hand through his hair for the third time in five minutes, making Kurt want to do the same so badly that it ached inside of him. He told himself it was to smooth out all the curls, currently splayed in every direction, not because he just really wanted to touch Blaine or anything.
“It seriously seems like you’re speaking another language,” Blaine complained.
Kurt rolled his eyes. “We’re studying French, Blaine. It is another language.”
**
Teenagers - My Chemical Romance
Less than two hours into his first day as a McKinley High student, Blaine experienced his first slushie.
It was something Kurt had grown used to over the years. A slushie would hit his face, the corn syrup would sting his eyes, he would sit in his own disgusting stickiness for the rest of the day, and life would go on. He had never gone to a teacher about it.
Blaine gave him courage a lot of ways.
“What the hell are you so scared of?” he asked Mr. Schue, slamming his hands down on his desk. “You’re a figure of authority! It is entirely your fault that this hasn’t stopped by now.”
Mr. Schue stared at him, a deer caught in headlights. “Kurt, I-"
“Shape up,” Kurt said. “You’re a teacher. Start acting like one.”
Mr. Schue’s fifth-period Spanish class watched in silence as he stormed from the room.
**
Yukai Tsukai Kaibutsu-kun - Satoshi Ohno (Aaaaand this is when I figured out that my iPod was out to get me. I mean, seriously?! SERIOUSLY?!)
Kurt knew that he could be a bit much to handle. He really did try to control his anger, but sometimes people were just so stupid. Seriously, they were of no benefit to society whatsoever. If Kurt had his way, any moron who turned to him in the morning and made a joke about PMS would be strapped to a chair and forced to watch “I Know Who Killed Me” until he or she passed out from the overload of second-hand poor life decisions.
“Coffee?” Blaine asked, cowering behind the cup like it was a shield.
Kurt accepted the offering. “When I take over the world, you will be spared.”
“That’s all I ask,” Blaine said.
**
You Won’t Succeed on Broadway if You Don’t Have Any Jews - Spamalot (ahahaha and this is when I forgave my iPod everything forever)
Sometimes, Kurt thought a Glee club without Rachel would be the best thing ever.
“I’m tired of doing all of the work!” Rachel said to the rest of the club. “While I understand that I am the only person who matters in this song, I cannot sing our entire setlist by myself.” She considered this fact for a second. “Actually, yes, I could, but it’s the very contrast between my talent and natural ability and your own off-key singing that highlight just how talented I really am.”
“Thank you, Rachel,” Mr. Schue said. “Now, can we let someone else tell us their ideas for changes in the club next year?”
Rachel huffed all the way to her seat. Kurt was surprised when she turned around to face him.
“Sometimes I think you’re the only one who gets it,” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down. “You need to help me make them shape up, okay?”
Kurt twisted his head to look around him. “Me?” he asked, pointing for good measure.
Rachel frowned. “False modesty does not become you, Kurt.”
Sometimes, Kurt thought a Glee club with Rachel was pretty all right.
**
Piano Man - Billy Joel
Teaching the piano to college kids was not where Kurt had seen himself in twenty years' time, twenty years ago. He had seen bright costumes and brighter lights, if he saw anything at all, beyond his day-to-day turmoil.
The lights had gotten lost, somewhere along the way. Kurt’s world now was made of hard-backed chairs and dimly lit classrooms, clusters of ever-changing college kids who would stare blankly as he explained tonal theory and finger warm-ups. He knew most of them were only there because they had to be, only there to get out of this requirement or get into that program.
Some of them had futures, though. Those were the ones who were so bright it hurt to look at them. Most of them would burn too fast, would burn out before too long.
Sometimes, Kurt would stay behind after class, gently tracing the keys of the piano. Sometimes he would sing.
He was thirty-six years old. He had never left Ohio. But when he felt the notes travel through him, filling him with the buoyancy of unadulterated beauty, he knew that he was happy.
**
Still Alive - Ellen McLain’s version
“Sure, I know video games,” Kurt had said. “My step-brother plays Halo all the time.”
In theory, it was true. Finn did play Halo all the time and, while Kurt mostly sighed at him and tried to ignore it, he certainly knew of video games. Well, some video games. It was hard to tune Finn out all the time, after all.
Really, though, there was no way he was missing the overnight LAN party in the Dalton commons. It was a whole night with Blaine, and he’d probably be able to figure it out along the way anyway. How hard could it be?
--
“GG, PUNK!” Wes wooped. “FUCKING PWNED.”
“Gee gee gee gee, baby baby baby,” David half-sang, half-muttered, seemingly without realizing it, fingers flickering over his keyboard almost too fast for Kurt’s eyes to follow. “Gee gee gee gee, baby baby baby.”
“It’s like they’re aliens,” Kurt said, watching them hunch over their respective laptops. “Aliens with a particularly poor grasp on basic vocabulary and grammar.”
“Just wait until we have our annual Portal speed-run,” Blaine promised.
“The cake is a lie, bitch,” David snapped. He hadn’t looked up from his computer.
Blaine shook his head at Kurt’s look of confusion. “Don’t ask.” He smiled. “Come back over here so I can kick your ass in Halo again.”
Kurt was never going to a Dalton LAN party ever again.
**
It’s Gotta Be The Butz - The Phoenix Wright Musical Project (I... don't even know anymore)
“Okay,” Kurt said. “You are going to start over. And this time, you will make sense."
“I already told you, man,” Finn said. “Rachel just thought that your boyfriend dude was kind of suspicious, so I decided to set up a camera so she’d feel better.”
“You set up a camera,” Kurt said. He held up a hand to preemptively cut Finn off. “You set up a camera in order to catch my ‘boyfriend dude’ being suspicious in your own bedroom with the video playing in my room.”
Finn frowned. “Oh, was it backwards? How did that happen?”
Kurt sighed. “Did you get Brittany to help you with this?”
“No, it was just me. Why?”
Kurt shook his head. “No reason. I think I’m going to cry myself to sleep tonight. But wait! I can no longer sleep ever again, because you and Rachel making out is seared upon my eyelids in eternal ink of fire and blood and is all I see whenever I close my eyes. I guess that solves my problem.”
“That’s good, right? …Am I still in trouble?”
“Well, I was going to be mad at you for intruding upon my privacy in such an unimaginable way, but you managed to mess it up so badly that I feel I could not possibly do anything in revenge and stay in good conscience.”
“So… that’s a no?”
Kurt groaned, a short, sharp burst. “If you get me ice cream and an extra-strength Tylenol right now, all shall be forgiven.”
Finn smiled at him. “Awesome! I’m glad we had this talk.”
Kurt considered hitting his head on his desk, but he had his moisturizing routine to consider. He settled for a very, very deep, heartfelt sigh.
**
Candy Pop - HeartsDale
Being able to look at a boy just because he liked to look at him was a strange and new experience for Kurt. He was so used to taking a quick glance and immediately looking in the other direction, stomach clenching with fear as he prepared for the inevitable raised eyebrow and muttered “unnatural queer,” not to mention the slushies, that it wasn’t until he had been at Dalton Academy for two weeks that he actually looked at Blaine.
They had been in the choir room. Blaine had turned, the sunlight had caught him in silhouette, and Kurt had just looked.
“You’re beautiful,” Kurt had said, and, for once in his life, he didn’t feel sick as he thought it.
**
Falling for the First Time - Barenaked Ladies
Kurt had spent more time than he felt truly comfortable admitting, even in the relatively private comfort of his own head, imagining how he might ask Blaine to go out with him. Sitting in the library was merely an excuse to see his imaginary hand scrawl invitations across imaginary notebook pages, holding them up in silence or maybe passing them across the table, complete with little boxes labeled “yes” and “no.” Singing with the Warblers was just a time to imagine asking permission to sing a solo, descending to the front and putting all of his emotion into music, where he always felt it best.
When he woke up one morning to find a trail of rose petals leading from his dormitory room door, pulling him down the hallway and out of the building and to a secluded section of the courtyard where Blaine was waiting with his guitar and a small, nervous smile, not to mention David and Wes as back-up singers, Kurt felt a sudden, swooping vertigo as he realized that sometimes the real world really was better than his imagination.
**
Summer Splash! - Arashi
It had been Tina’s idea to rent a beach house the summer after senior year. They were all going their separate ways, and it was the perfect way to get everyone together for one last hurrah before life carried them forward on its slow, unstoppable march.
The last night, they sat out on the beach until long after the sun had set, watching the stars twinkle and the waves curl into the shore.
Everyone was surprised when Rachel was the first one to start crying.
“I am going on to better things,” she said, voice thick and wavering. “I am going to be a star. High school was always just a stepping stone.” She immediately shook her head. “But it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.” She cried harder, sobbing so hard that her entire body shook. “Thank you!” she gasped. “Thank you, thank you, oh God, thank you!”
No one was more surprised than Kurt when he was the first one to hug her. “Always,” he breathed into her hair, knowing it made no sense but not able to say anything else. “Always, always, always, Rachel!”
The stars might be hidden in the morning, but together they had built something none of them would ever forget.
Rating: High PG (a little swearing, but really very little)
Description of the meme: I turned my iPod on random and wrote a drabble for each song that played. I only wrote while the song played, wrapping it up as soon as the song ended. Entirely Kurt-centric, some Kurt/Blaine.
Disclaimers: All characters belong to Fox and Ryan Murphy and are most definitely not my own.
A/N: Unbeta'd, I apologize in advance. Also, warnings and apologies all around for my extremely eclectic musical taste, my occasionally unsuitable writing tone (I gave a story based on a My Chemical Romance song a punchline? Really?), and my unapologetic belief in the Kurt/Finn BROTP. I refuse to apologize for the sheer geekery in the sixth drabble and insist that, if you haven't had a group of nerdy-awkward American boys start singing and (attempting to) dance "Gee" at you after they've destroyed you in a video game, you haven't truly lived.
New Math - Tom Lehrer (Did I mention this was going to be eclectic?)
“What do you mean, it doesn’t make sense?”
Blaine ran a hand through his hair for the third time in five minutes, making Kurt want to do the same so badly that it ached inside of him. He told himself it was to smooth out all the curls, currently splayed in every direction, not because he just really wanted to touch Blaine or anything.
“It seriously seems like you’re speaking another language,” Blaine complained.
Kurt rolled his eyes. “We’re studying French, Blaine. It is another language.”
**
Teenagers - My Chemical Romance
Less than two hours into his first day as a McKinley High student, Blaine experienced his first slushie.
It was something Kurt had grown used to over the years. A slushie would hit his face, the corn syrup would sting his eyes, he would sit in his own disgusting stickiness for the rest of the day, and life would go on. He had never gone to a teacher about it.
Blaine gave him courage a lot of ways.
“What the hell are you so scared of?” he asked Mr. Schue, slamming his hands down on his desk. “You’re a figure of authority! It is entirely your fault that this hasn’t stopped by now.”
Mr. Schue stared at him, a deer caught in headlights. “Kurt, I-"
“Shape up,” Kurt said. “You’re a teacher. Start acting like one.”
Mr. Schue’s fifth-period Spanish class watched in silence as he stormed from the room.
**
Yukai Tsukai Kaibutsu-kun - Satoshi Ohno (Aaaaand this is when I figured out that my iPod was out to get me. I mean, seriously?! SERIOUSLY?!)
Kurt knew that he could be a bit much to handle. He really did try to control his anger, but sometimes people were just so stupid. Seriously, they were of no benefit to society whatsoever. If Kurt had his way, any moron who turned to him in the morning and made a joke about PMS would be strapped to a chair and forced to watch “I Know Who Killed Me” until he or she passed out from the overload of second-hand poor life decisions.
“Coffee?” Blaine asked, cowering behind the cup like it was a shield.
Kurt accepted the offering. “When I take over the world, you will be spared.”
“That’s all I ask,” Blaine said.
**
You Won’t Succeed on Broadway if You Don’t Have Any Jews - Spamalot (ahahaha and this is when I forgave my iPod everything forever)
Sometimes, Kurt thought a Glee club without Rachel would be the best thing ever.
“I’m tired of doing all of the work!” Rachel said to the rest of the club. “While I understand that I am the only person who matters in this song, I cannot sing our entire setlist by myself.” She considered this fact for a second. “Actually, yes, I could, but it’s the very contrast between my talent and natural ability and your own off-key singing that highlight just how talented I really am.”
“Thank you, Rachel,” Mr. Schue said. “Now, can we let someone else tell us their ideas for changes in the club next year?”
Rachel huffed all the way to her seat. Kurt was surprised when she turned around to face him.
“Sometimes I think you’re the only one who gets it,” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down. “You need to help me make them shape up, okay?”
Kurt twisted his head to look around him. “Me?” he asked, pointing for good measure.
Rachel frowned. “False modesty does not become you, Kurt.”
Sometimes, Kurt thought a Glee club with Rachel was pretty all right.
**
Piano Man - Billy Joel
Teaching the piano to college kids was not where Kurt had seen himself in twenty years' time, twenty years ago. He had seen bright costumes and brighter lights, if he saw anything at all, beyond his day-to-day turmoil.
The lights had gotten lost, somewhere along the way. Kurt’s world now was made of hard-backed chairs and dimly lit classrooms, clusters of ever-changing college kids who would stare blankly as he explained tonal theory and finger warm-ups. He knew most of them were only there because they had to be, only there to get out of this requirement or get into that program.
Some of them had futures, though. Those were the ones who were so bright it hurt to look at them. Most of them would burn too fast, would burn out before too long.
Sometimes, Kurt would stay behind after class, gently tracing the keys of the piano. Sometimes he would sing.
He was thirty-six years old. He had never left Ohio. But when he felt the notes travel through him, filling him with the buoyancy of unadulterated beauty, he knew that he was happy.
**
Still Alive - Ellen McLain’s version
“Sure, I know video games,” Kurt had said. “My step-brother plays Halo all the time.”
In theory, it was true. Finn did play Halo all the time and, while Kurt mostly sighed at him and tried to ignore it, he certainly knew of video games. Well, some video games. It was hard to tune Finn out all the time, after all.
Really, though, there was no way he was missing the overnight LAN party in the Dalton commons. It was a whole night with Blaine, and he’d probably be able to figure it out along the way anyway. How hard could it be?
--
“GG, PUNK!” Wes wooped. “FUCKING PWNED.”
“Gee gee gee gee, baby baby baby,” David half-sang, half-muttered, seemingly without realizing it, fingers flickering over his keyboard almost too fast for Kurt’s eyes to follow. “Gee gee gee gee, baby baby baby.”
“It’s like they’re aliens,” Kurt said, watching them hunch over their respective laptops. “Aliens with a particularly poor grasp on basic vocabulary and grammar.”
“Just wait until we have our annual Portal speed-run,” Blaine promised.
“The cake is a lie, bitch,” David snapped. He hadn’t looked up from his computer.
Blaine shook his head at Kurt’s look of confusion. “Don’t ask.” He smiled. “Come back over here so I can kick your ass in Halo again.”
Kurt was never going to a Dalton LAN party ever again.
**
It’s Gotta Be The Butz - The Phoenix Wright Musical Project (I... don't even know anymore)
“Okay,” Kurt said. “You are going to start over. And this time, you will make sense."
“I already told you, man,” Finn said. “Rachel just thought that your boyfriend dude was kind of suspicious, so I decided to set up a camera so she’d feel better.”
“You set up a camera,” Kurt said. He held up a hand to preemptively cut Finn off. “You set up a camera in order to catch my ‘boyfriend dude’ being suspicious in your own bedroom with the video playing in my room.”
Finn frowned. “Oh, was it backwards? How did that happen?”
Kurt sighed. “Did you get Brittany to help you with this?”
“No, it was just me. Why?”
Kurt shook his head. “No reason. I think I’m going to cry myself to sleep tonight. But wait! I can no longer sleep ever again, because you and Rachel making out is seared upon my eyelids in eternal ink of fire and blood and is all I see whenever I close my eyes. I guess that solves my problem.”
“That’s good, right? …Am I still in trouble?”
“Well, I was going to be mad at you for intruding upon my privacy in such an unimaginable way, but you managed to mess it up so badly that I feel I could not possibly do anything in revenge and stay in good conscience.”
“So… that’s a no?”
Kurt groaned, a short, sharp burst. “If you get me ice cream and an extra-strength Tylenol right now, all shall be forgiven.”
Finn smiled at him. “Awesome! I’m glad we had this talk.”
Kurt considered hitting his head on his desk, but he had his moisturizing routine to consider. He settled for a very, very deep, heartfelt sigh.
**
Candy Pop - HeartsDale
Being able to look at a boy just because he liked to look at him was a strange and new experience for Kurt. He was so used to taking a quick glance and immediately looking in the other direction, stomach clenching with fear as he prepared for the inevitable raised eyebrow and muttered “unnatural queer,” not to mention the slushies, that it wasn’t until he had been at Dalton Academy for two weeks that he actually looked at Blaine.
They had been in the choir room. Blaine had turned, the sunlight had caught him in silhouette, and Kurt had just looked.
“You’re beautiful,” Kurt had said, and, for once in his life, he didn’t feel sick as he thought it.
**
Falling for the First Time - Barenaked Ladies
Kurt had spent more time than he felt truly comfortable admitting, even in the relatively private comfort of his own head, imagining how he might ask Blaine to go out with him. Sitting in the library was merely an excuse to see his imaginary hand scrawl invitations across imaginary notebook pages, holding them up in silence or maybe passing them across the table, complete with little boxes labeled “yes” and “no.” Singing with the Warblers was just a time to imagine asking permission to sing a solo, descending to the front and putting all of his emotion into music, where he always felt it best.
When he woke up one morning to find a trail of rose petals leading from his dormitory room door, pulling him down the hallway and out of the building and to a secluded section of the courtyard where Blaine was waiting with his guitar and a small, nervous smile, not to mention David and Wes as back-up singers, Kurt felt a sudden, swooping vertigo as he realized that sometimes the real world really was better than his imagination.
**
Summer Splash! - Arashi
It had been Tina’s idea to rent a beach house the summer after senior year. They were all going their separate ways, and it was the perfect way to get everyone together for one last hurrah before life carried them forward on its slow, unstoppable march.
The last night, they sat out on the beach until long after the sun had set, watching the stars twinkle and the waves curl into the shore.
Everyone was surprised when Rachel was the first one to start crying.
“I am going on to better things,” she said, voice thick and wavering. “I am going to be a star. High school was always just a stepping stone.” She immediately shook her head. “But it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.” She cried harder, sobbing so hard that her entire body shook. “Thank you!” she gasped. “Thank you, thank you, oh God, thank you!”
No one was more surprised than Kurt when he was the first one to hug her. “Always,” he breathed into her hair, knowing it made no sense but not able to say anything else. “Always, always, always, Rachel!”
The stars might be hidden in the morning, but together they had built something none of them would ever forget.