"Have you ever wondered what it would have been like if you had been born a girl?"
Kurt groaned from underneath the kitchen sink. He was lying on his back on a towel just in case of dripping, even though he had already turned the water off long before he started working. He felt like a handyman at the moment with a tool in one hand and a stand flashlight beside his head. Though his jeans were definitely not showing off his butt crack and he was certain most handyman did not wear Marc Jacobs t-shirts.
"You're really going to do this now?"
Rachel, who was filing down her nails before she applied a new coat of nail polish nodded as she looked over at Kurt. Her own tools were set out on the kitchen table, ready for concentrating on nail polish. She had her feet up in the seat beside her, one booted foot over the over. They had both been working on their nails on a lazy Sunday morning when Rachel nearly had a meltdown at the thought of losing her rings to the New York water supply. Not that he blamed her, the thought was mildly alarming.
"Well?"
He sighed and put down the wrench and peeked out with a frown.
"When I'm down here trying to get the trap loose so I can get your wedding rings out of the drain?
"It's a good time as any."
Kurt picked up the wrench again and lay back on the towel. "You're just lucky Dad taught me how to do this before we got married." He paused. "Huh, he was right."
"Right about what?" said Rachel as she stood over Kurt, looking down at his chest. He nearly hit his head on the pipes when he startled a little at the closeness of her voice.
"That at some point in the future I would need to know this to keep from spending too much on a plumber."
"Question," gently reminded Rachel as she sat down beside his knees. He banged his wrench against the side of the plastic bowl next to him with a sigh.
"I never did, really."
Rachel was surprised by that. "Never at all?"
Kurt shrugged. "I was never uncomfortable in my gender, unlike say Unique." He grimaced as he made a complete turn with the wrench. "The thing that made me… wonder the most when I was younger was my features and how everyone perceived me. I thought that somehow I was wrong. I remember when my mom would take me on play dates with other kids and their parents would always comment on how pretty a child I was. Not strong, not talented, not intelligent. Pretty. Pretty was what Mom called her Christmas dishes or what Dad would say when he pointed out the girls playing in the park. It was very confusing. I wasn't a set of plates or a girl with braids in her hair. And just because I liked looking at fashion magazines when Mom went to the bookstore didn't mean I didn't want to be a boy. I wasn't confused by my gender, by any means. The magazines sometimes didn't help either, because all the male models were so handsome. I once asked my mom if there was anything wrong with me because I didn't look like the people in magazines and I didn't look like the other boys at school."
"What did your mom say?" asked Rachel.
Kurt laughed softly from under the sink. "She said that I was just a boy and that all boys would someday grow up to be handsome men. And no matter what, she would always be proud of me."
"Aww," said Rachel. "That was very sweet."
"It helped," said Kurt. "Although I think in Middle School I clung to those thoughts and just kept looking forward to the future where I could be myself and make her proud. I almost forgot to live in the present."
"So instead you married off your Power Rangers," teased Rachel.
"I am never going to forgive Finn for telling you that," muttered Kurt.
"It's kind of cute," said Rachel, rubbing his bent knee. "I wish I could have met your mom. She seems like such an interesting person."
"She would have liked you I think," he said as he finally felt the trap loosen. He grabbed it quickly and dumped it into the plastic bowl at his side. They both heard something go clink in the bottom and Kurt sat up, grimacing at the black gunk in the bowl as he pulled out two rings from the slightly murky water.
"Crisis averted," he said as he cleaned off the rings on the towel. "I'll have to tell Dad he saved our marriage."
Rachel squealed as he handed back her rings. "Thank you!" she said as she kissed him on the lips. "I will never ever leave the rings by the side of the sink when I'm washing my hands."
"Leave them far far far away on the table or cabinet."
Rachel nodded and headed towards the bathroom to wash off the rings. Kurt sighed and moved to pick up the wrench so he could get the water back running to the kitchen sink again.
Leave it to Rachel to ask about changes to his own plumbing all the while he was working on their apartment's. There was a joke in there… somewhere.