Hi, and welcome to my newest Glee story! I'm putting "My Name is Kurt Hummel and this is My Personality" on hiatus until I finish this one.

DISCLAIMER:I do not own Glee nor am I affiliated with FOX or any of the actors herein represented, though if there are ever open auditions for future seasons so help me god I WILL get there and I will not hold myself accountable for any of my actions thereafter. :D


He flipped open his phone, thought for a moment, and then skillfully dialed the required number as he organized his sheet music with the other hand. As the phone rang, he rapped his fingers on the black lid of the piano impatiently, feeling the little shock waves within each finger every time one would hit the wooden surface. Finally, she picked up, her quaking and frail voice resounding surprisingly loudly in his ear.

"Hello? I'm in the middle of a lesson. Do be quick."

He pressed two fingers onto the raised golden "E" and "O" on the front of his practice book, "Arpeggios," splaying them awkwardly as he spoke. He could hear a childish C major scale being picked out in the background.

"Hi, Ms. Ronsard. It's Kurt Hummel. I'll be unable to make my five o'clock lesson today and just wanted to let you know."

"Is everything okay, dear? You haven't missed in three years, you know."

Kurt almost smiled, bringing the hand off his book to push a fallen piece of hair from his eyes. "Oh, yes, of course. My dad just needs some help in the shop this afternoon. It's a busy time of year."

He resisted rolling his eyes at his pathetic lie, though he new she couldn't see him. November was no busier than any other time of year in the shop, but his life was certainly busy, with the SAT, the ACT, AP classes, preparations for sectionals and the fall theatre show, both failing friendships and blossoming ones as well as a community theatre production of Oliver that he'd gotten himself roped into. Junior year was hardly relaxing.

"Alright, honey, see you next week. Tell your father I say hello."

Kurt wished her well and hung up the phone. He sunk onto the piano bench, his normally perfect posture slumping considerably as he fumbled in the pocket of his powder blue, cashmere, J. Crew cardigan that he'd bought for himself as a consolation prize of sorts the week before; it had, unfortunately, drained his "Fashion and Superfluous Items" fund, however. As he pulled out a crumpled 3x5 notecard, one side on which he had written keywords to prompt him during his Spanish presentación oral he'd given the previous week, a horrible and very grounding thought asserted itself in his mind—he would not be able to keep up this guise forever. It had only been a week and his grades were slipping, his father's shop work slowing, his performances weakening, and his sleep suffering.

Kurt sighed and rubbed the hand not holding the notecard across his eyes, trying to clear his mind as he nervously fingered the card. He'd called and visited multiple times over the past week or so, but the anxiousness was something he did not think he could ever get used to.

He finally corrected his posture and smoothed the side of the worn notecard opposite his Spanish notes face up. He carefully and reverently typed in the ten digit number into the phone's keypad. It rang several times before a receptionist answered.

"Hello, Lima Memorial Health System. How may I help you?"

Kurt paused and swallowed hard, his fingers tracing the stripes of the fall season's hottest cords that ran up and down his legs. He dug his fingers into the soft fabric, pinching it and the skin beneath so that his thigh twinged slightly in response to the abuse. He brushed his pants off one more time before properly crossing his legs and speaking into the phone.

"Hi, I'm Kurt Hummel and I was calling to check on the condition of my father, Burt Alwin Hummel. I think he was supposed to be moved from ICU today."

"Just one moment, sir, let me look him up for you," her honeyed voice sprinkled with a slight Midwestern drawl grated at his ears, and he resisted saying something biting and sardonic just because he could.

Instead, however, Kurt listened vaguely to the clicking of her nails upon the keyboard as he let his mind wander until his fingers alighted again upon the notecard he had flattened onto the closed piano before him. He flipped it over and began reading the speech he had given for his Spanish midterm. The top of the card had a 2 with a circle around it penned it vibrant emerald ink under which the detailed notes on his family continued in loopy script:

"—madre está muerto. Pero mi padre y yo vivimos junto al taller mecánico donde mi papá ha trabajado para muchos años. Yo le ayuda muchísimo y me parece que él es el padre más simpático en todo el mundo. Aún cuando hablo profundamente de Broadway o Oscar de la Renta, él me escucha y en estos momentos yo sé que haría cualquier cosa para que él sea feliz y se sienta cómo—"

"—mother is dead. But my father and I live beside the garage where my father has worked for many years. I help him a lot and it seems to me that he is the kindest father in the world. Even when I talk about Broadway or Oscar de la Renta a lot, he listens to me, and in those moments I know that I would do anything so that he might be happy and feel that—"

His throat clenched and he looked anywhere but at the card. Kurt was hardly paying attention when the typing ceased and the receptionist's twangy voice sounded on the line again. He was barely aware of the words she told him. However, as he hung up the phone, shoved the card back into his pocket, adjusted the middle button of his cardigan, roughly pushed his books and sheet music into his satchel and slung it over his shoulder, he was all too aware of the tear that had made it's way to the right corner of his mouth.

It tasted bitter as he swept out the side door of the choir room and burst into the early November air, the four o' clock sun burning his pale eyes. They alighted upon his car a hundred yards away in the upperclassmen area of the parking lot and suddenly a few more tears joined the first on his cheeks; he knew the logical thing to do.

As he strode towards his Baby, a few jocks stepped into his way, but he locked his jaw and pushed toward them, saying, "Excuse me, son on a mission here. Go entertain your intellectually impoverished brains elsewhere, or at least go back inside so you might prevent your room temperature IQs from dropping anymore in this keen, brumal air." Their confusion with his diction provided him the ten steps he needed to successfully get to his car, unlock it, and clamber into the steep seat of the Escalade.

He put it into drive, navigated out of the school, pulled out onto the main road and drove until he pulled into the parking lot of a used car lot a block over from his house and father's garage. He yanked the keys out of the ignition, pulled all the official paperwork on the car out of the glove box on the passenger side and steeled himself as he jumped out of the car and walked confidently into the lot's office.

He dropped the paperwork and key onto the desk dramatically, garnering the attention of the employee behind the counter.

"Excuse me," Kurt managed, "how much will you pay for a 2008 Escalade with 5,298 miles on it?"


Thank you for reading and please do review!