I have finally finished one (1) stinking chapter of Because You Left. And now I can't seem to get into Chapter Two to save my life. But still, one chapter down, so. Anderbros?
Anderbros.
Title: Windy City
Pairing/Character(s): Kurt/Blaine, Cooper, Sam
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Awkward and embarrassing situations.
Word Count: Very short
Spoilers: Glee 3x15, "Big Brother"
Standard-Issue Short-Form Disclaimer: I do not hold copyright to Glee, I make no claims to such, and I am not profiting from this.
Summary: In which Cooper asks Blaine, Kurt, and Sam to critique his dance moves, and Blaine doesn't understand why Sam has to be there, and then he does, and it's the most uncomfortable three minutes and forty-two seconds of his life.
Author's Notes: So after seeing some “Magic Mike” gifs, I wandered over to the kink meme to see if anyone had posted fic about Cooper Anderson being a stripper, because… I mean, obviously. And all I saw was one
prompt asking for “Whatever the author wants as long as it involves Cooper and male stripping.” And then I wrote something completely silly and not at all hot, because I fail at kink meme.
(But really, someone else should go give that prompt a proper fill.)
(Also, this is a repost from tumblr, because let's be honest -- I like reblogs and all, but I really miss comments. Sad but true.)
Blaine’s state of denial lasts approximately thirty seconds.
In retrospect, he should have figured out what was happening when Cooper pulled on one of the loose ends of his untied bowtie, sliding it deftly from underneath his collar and twirling it over his head before tossing it at Kurt (who catches it with an almost disturbingly gleeful smile). But there are things that even he doesn’t expect from Cooper (he’s not sure why; he should know better by now), and a striptease in the Hummel/Hudson living room is one of those things. So he tells himself that this is not happening, that Cooper wouldn’t do this, that even he would never -
And then Cooper is ripping his shirt open (buttons, buttons everywhere), and his bare chest is waxed smooth and it’s alarmingly shiny and oh God, that must be baby oil, and Blaine experiences a strange moment of thankfulness because Carole’s at work and Burt’s in D.C. and Finn is lifting weights in Puck’s basement and Cooper is gyrating his hips as his hands drift towards the elastic waist of his shiny gold pants and now Blaine understands why his brother is wearing tear-away basketball warmups with his old dress shirt and one of Blaine’s bowties because he’s going to tear his pants off because he is stripping, stripping in the Hummel/Hudson living room while “Hungry Like the Wolf” plays in the background and that little sideways shoulder roll is something he took right from the “Rio” choreography and wow there goes that childhood memory and Blaine finds himself on the verge of semi-hysterical laughter that he just barely manages to choke down, because he’s not totally sure of the etiquette for this particular situation but he’s pretty sure that it would be very, very rude of him to giggle.
It takes two tries for Cooper to get his warm-up pants off; the snaps near his ankle refuse to budge when he yanks at the waistband, and then again when he bends down to tug at the knees, and he has to step out of them. But his game face never falters, and Blaine is vaguely proud of him for that.
Not as proud as Kurt, apparently, who actually claps his hands with a sort of barely restrained giddiness. Blaine thinks he might be jealous, a little, because Kurt is his boyfriend and Cooper is his brother and come on - but Cooper’s legs are just as shiny and smooth as his chest and shoulders, waxed and oiled and he’s wearing a gold Speedo that Blaine thinks he recognizes from the time Cooper landed the role of Rocky in The Rocky Horror Show down in Fresno and he’s not sure but he thinks his brain is melting because his brother is stripping, stripping, in the middle of the Hummel/Hudson living room in front of Blaine and Kurt and Sam and he knows he’s repeating himself but the problem is that his brain, like a broken record, keeps getting stuck on that one thing over and over again and if he lives a hundred years he’s sure that this will live on as the most embarrassing three minutes and forty-two seconds of his life and nothing Sue Sylvester says about him will ever bother him again because it just doesn’t get worse than this.
Cooper spins around and pops his butt out a few times and Blaine can actually feel his brain melting.
Kurt claps again.
Sam just cups his chin in his palm and looks thoughtful, and at least Blaine knows why Cooper wanted Sam to help with his moves, and not Mike.
Oh God, he’s supposed to be focusing on Cooper’s moves so he can help him, and he can’t because Cooper is waxed and oily and pretty much totally naked and crawling across the shag rug that Kurt didn’t want but Burt insisted on and then he grabs Blaine’s knees and pulls himself forward, leaning in, and Blaine can’t pull back fast enough and gets a faceful of Cooper’s oily chest. Cooper just ruffles his hair semi-apologetically before spinning around to pop his butt at Sam a few times. He settles for blowing Kurt a kiss (it’s surprisingly tactful under the circumstances, Blaine thinks, still wiping baby oil off his nose) before grinding his way back to the center of the living room. Cooper drops to his knees, does this weird headbanging thing that would probably work a lot better if he had long hair, and ends the song with his back arched, one hand on the floor behind him and his crotch thrust forward and Blaine has to look at the ceiling really fast because the alternative is just… No. No.
But he claps - maybe not as enthusiastically as Kurt does, but he claps for his brother because he really does love Cooper, in spite of everything, and he doesn’t want him to feel like Blaine’s disappointed in him because he’s not, he really isn’t.
It’s just.
Stripping.
He manages to tear his eyes away from the popcorn ceiling that Kurt absolutely despises, looks back at Cooper kneeling on the floor, hands on his shiny, hairless thighs. Cooper’s smiling, nodding his head as Kurt’s applause finally tapers off, but there’s that wide-eyed something about him that tells Blaine that he really, really needs to hear something positive right now.
So when Cooper says, “So,” takes a deep breath, and then adds, “what did you guys think? And, you know, be brutally honest,” well.
“I think,” Blaine says, and tamps down the urge to run away before anything more awkward can happen, and smiles. “I think that casting director would be crazy not to give you this part, Coop.”
And Cooper beams at him, and Blaine wonders if it’d be okay for him to run to Kurt’s room and grab a bathrobe real fast because yes, they’re having a moment, but it just be so much easier if Cooper’s nipples weren’t right there staring at him.
“Fantastic,” Kurt says. “Absolutely. I mean, the costuming could use a little work,” and he waves his hand over at the pile of discarded gold polyester on the floor, “but luckily for you, I happen to have a little experience with these kinds of things.”
Cooper turns back to Blaine, eyebrow raised; Blaine goes back to staring at the ceiling, bright red, and oh God, now it’s awkward again and honestly he’s not sure why he let himself think it was over in the first place because it can always, always get worse when Cooper’s around.
“I mean, you’ve definitely got the body for it,” Sam says, leaning back into the sofa and it’s really not fair that he’s this calm; it really, really isn’t. “And your movements are really smooth, you know, which a lot of guys aren’t, so that’s definitely an asset. But… not to be harsh, or anything, but you haven’t really seen a lot of dude strippers, have you? Because some of the choreography was a little… I mean, with the hair, and everything.”
Blaine half expects Cooper to deflate at that, but instead he just tips back on his heels a little bit, drawing his knees together almost primly (and oh, thank God for that). “Well,” Cooper says. “I mean, I’ve been trying to do my research, but it’s not always… You know, if you’re just there to watch and then the ladies start rushing the stage and sometimes it’s hard to see, exactly, which is why I was hoping -”
He looks up at Sam, eyes still wide in that bizarrely earnest way, and Sam finally cracks a grin.
And the next thing Blaine knows, he and Sam are teaching Cooper (still in his Speedo) how to do the “Windy City” while Kurt beams at them from the couch, feet tucked under him and eyes lit up like it’s Christmas and he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted.
And the funny thing is that while watching Cooper strip was probably the most mortifying three minutes and forty-two seconds of his life, teaching him how to strip is actually not that bad. It’s almost kind of fun. Especially when Sam claps him on the shoulder and says “Now Blaine here, he knows how to rock the body roll,” because… well. It’s nice to have someone compliment his moves for a change. And it’s nice to have the chance to teach Cooper, to show him how it’s supposed to be done.
And when Cooper gets the part - because with Sam’s instruction and Blaine’s assistance and Kurt’s costuming, he’ll be a shoo-in for sure - Blaine will sit in the audience, and he’ll say, “That’s my brother. I helped him get there.”
And while he realizes that seeing Cooper’s junk projected on a fifteen-foot screen will be several orders of magnitude more awkward than this is, and that for his own sanity, he should stop this madness right now… Well, he loves Cooper.
So when Kurt restarts the song and Cooper starts rolling his hips again, Blaine takes a deep breath, fights back the giggles, and watches.