Kurt Elizabeth Hummel. He smiled to himself as he wrote it on the slip of notebook paper, adding a couple of pretty little decorations just for flourish. It wasn't really his name of course; he was just exercising a little irony since he had been his own duet partner, showing off both the masculine and feminine sides of his makeup.
Trying to envision his manly, slightly-redneck father approving of such a name for his brand new baby son made Kurt chuckle just to think of it.
He liked Elizabeth though. It was the middle name his mother had intended to give him if he had been born a girl, in honor of his grandmother. According to the preface of his baby-book, in a passage outlined in his mother's beautiful curly script, Burt and Kate Hummel had decided to prolong their suspense and wait until their child was born before finding out the sex. The names they had finalized were Katherine Elizabeth for a girl, or Kurt Elliot for a boy.
The name Elliot had never appealed to Kurt as a child, though he was warming to it as he got older and realized that it had a rather dignified ring to it, but it gave him a clandestine thrill to rename himself this way. It wasn't that he wanted to be a girl, he was quite happy keeping the parts nature had given him, thank you very much, but he could not deny the appeal that many traditionally female looks and activities held for him.
Even coming out as openly gay to the whole school had not made his feminine side more tolerable to most people. To outright homophobes, it made him even more of a freak and an object of blatant abuse. He hated that, of course, but in a way those types were a lot easier to deal with than the pseudo-tolerant ones, like Finn, who patted himself on the back for being "cool" with gay people even as he basically warned Kurt that he would infect the new guy with his icky and unpopular gay cooties if he dared to sing a duet with him in Glee.
Kurt snorted, waving off the questioning look he got from Rachel at the small sound.
He watched Mr. Schuester gather up the papers and begin tallying the votes, wondering what he would think when he reached Kurt's and saw what he had written. Would he comment, or just write it off as a quirk and move on? Probably the latter. Shue was a good guy but not the type to look for deeper meaning in anything. Or to consider fairness to all, considering his choice to present a duet competition to a class of eleven students, insuring that someone would either have doubly good odds by performing twice or be forced to sit the assignment out.
Kurt thought back to his performance, smiling as he mentally relived the thrill of putting on a big full-costume production number, pretending that he was on a Broadway stage in front of hundreds of enthralled fans. It had been a wonderful daydream, and great fun to imagine the other Glee kids waiting backstage with photographs and playbills that he would magnanimously agree to sign, all the while pretending not to remember their names.
After all, they deserved a snub – if only an imaginary one - for viewing him as an unwelcome singing partner. He had talent, creativity, good dance skills, killer fashion sense, and a voice that was entirely capable of complementing either a male or female partner, and yet while his own partner-choice had been deemed inappropriate, nobody else had even asked him!
Well, Mercedes had wanted to know who he was partnering with, but he had known she wasn't issuing an invitation. And that was okay. She usually preferred to blend her R&B stylings with Artie's. Their voices worked well together and everyone knew it. Kurt had been very surprised when instead of teaming up; the two of them had gone with Santana and Brittany, respectively.
Dad's advice about going it alone until he found someone like himself – out and brave – had made him back out on singing with Sam, and Kurt had just assumed that meant that he would be the odd-one-out in the competition. What else was new, right?
He had tried to cheer himself up by leafing through the sheet music collection at the public library after school, intending to find a killer solo that he could perform after the contest was done, something so great that it would make all of them regret not having chosen him as a duet partner, and then he had found it.
Victor/Victoria: the story of a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman.
The tag line on the sheet music had leapt out at him like large neon letters. Kurt was not pretending to be anything, but did those words not perfectly represent the very masculine/feminine balance that he was currently having so much trouble getting others to embrace?
The book had contained a few pictures of Julie Andrews in assorted costumes and given a run-down of the show and he had smiled to see them. He had always liked Julie Andrews, she reminded him strongly of Grandma Elizabeth, but he really only knew her from children's movies like "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music". This . . . was incredible! He had downloaded the movie on his iPod and watched the entire thing right there and then, replaying the musical numbers with full sound as soon as he got home. It had been perfect.
Texting Brittany, Mike, Tina, a few friends from the Cheerios and Bernice Masters from the Drama department – the only person he knew who as big a lover of ornate costuming as himself – Kurt had choreographed and costumed the entire number in his imagination. It had taken a lot of work to bring that vision to life so quickly, but it had required surprisingly little persuasion to get everyone else on board.
The actual performance had been strangely liberating, as if he was letting his true colors fly without shame for the first time in his entire life.
The reaction from Mr. Schuester and the small Glee audience had been gratifying, to say the least. Shue, Mercedes, Rachel, Santana and Finn had jumped up to give him a standing ovation and he had seen Sam and Quinn bursting into surprisingly enthusiastic applause as well. Artie had smiled and clapped politely, appearing more confused than enthralled, but one tepid review out of eight critics wasn't bad!
So now, they all waited. Kurt struggled not to let his anxiety show. Surely, for all the enthusiasm they had shown, someone would have voted for him. Mr. Schuester turned around slowly, drawing out the suspense worse than Ryan Seacrest on an 'American Idol' results show, before announcing that he had a winner.
Kurt rolled his eyes upon hearing that almost everyone had voted for themselves. Okay, he should have expected that one. Apparently only two people had not gone the self-promotion route. He wondered who it had been.
He held his breath, body tense with anticipation, and then deflated as he heard the names Quinn and Sam announced. The head cheerleader and the quarterback, the cute little twin-pack of perky, bottle-blonde, all-American, male-female goodness . . . that he had allowed to happen by pushing Sam to partner with someone more appropriate.
Naturally.
As everyone murmured congratulations to the winners, quite reluctantly in some cases, Kurt sighed. He supposed he should be a good sport and do the same. Even if it did make him feel like the world's biggest idiot.
His pride and pleasure in the memory of his "vocal masturbation" disappeared, replaced by embarrassment. Singing a duet with yourself and then expecting everyone; hell, anyone, to lavish praise on you for your cleverness . . . how pathetic.
Watching Sam and Quinn hold hands and smile so brightly at each other, already looking like a nauseatingly happy couple, made his stomach hurt. Screw good sportsmanship. Time was up, the bell would ring at any second, and he just could not take anymore. So he grabbed his books and left.
As usual, nobody seemed to notice.
Maybe he would get lucky and history class would be its usual totally brain-numbing experience today. For a while, perhaps he could just forget about how alone he was. How lonely he would probably always be at this school, and in this town.
Over the sound of the bell ringing, an even more annoying sound caught his ears. Rachel Berry's voice, saying, "Hey, I have something I wanted to talk to you about . . ."
THE END