When Duty Calls
Author's Note: Just a short story that came to my mind yesterday. I know that Sam und Kurt probably won't be a couple anytime soon, but I still like to picture them together anyway :-) Hope you enjoy this story!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Glee, unfortunately.
"Kurt, wait!" an unfamiliar voice called and Kurt turned around.
It was Sam, who came running after him.
"Hello Sam," Kurt said, trying to make it sound as casual as possible. He had liked Sam from the first moment they met each other, but it was also clear to him that Sam would probably never reciprocate his feelings.
"Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for helping me with my Glee assignment last week," Sam said a bit out of breath. "It really helped me a lot."
Kurt looked back at him, struggling not to let his excitement show. "You're welcome. I was thinking about singing that song anyway."
Sam grinned and grabbed his blonde hair with his right hand as if he was embarrassed to ask. "You know, I was thinking, maybe we could spend some time together after school."
Kurt paused. Had Sam really said what he just heard? No, it couldn't be. Never. He lifted his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"
"I dunno," Sam shrugged. "You could come over to my place on Saturday and we could do some stuff together."
Kurt stared back at him. Do some stuff together…? This was all so sudden! He never really thought about-
"Play some video games, for example."
"Uhm…" Kurt felt disappointment pressing his shoulders down.
Sam, however, seemed excited. "How about Call of Duty? You play Call of Duty, right?"
"Uh, sure," Kurt replied without even thinking. He had no idea what he was talking about or what the consequences would be, but he wanted to be invited to Sam's place so badly.
"Cool," Sam smiled. "Then Saturday it is!"
"Wait. You want me to show you how to play Call of Duty?" Finn couldn't decide whether it was amusement or bewilderment that made him grin. "Are you kidding me?"
"Finn, you're my only help," Kurt replied as calm as possible, even though Finn was laughing at him right now and that was the one thing he was allergic to. Except for Palmolive Naturals shampoo, but that was another story.
"Alright," Finn finally said. "If you wanna play Call of Duty, then first of all, you'll need your computer."
"I'll be going to Sam's place," Kurt explained impatiently. "I'm sure he's got one."
"Yeah, but probably not two."
"Why two? Aren't we going to play that game on his computer?"
"Dude," Finn rolled his eyes. "You're not going to play mahjong. Each player needs his own computer."
"Okay, fine." Kurt gave in and opened his bag. "Here you go."
"Wait… What is that?" Finn lifted his eyebrow and stared at Kurt's computer with his eyes wide open.
"That's my computer." The device Kurt put on the table was a tiny, slender netbook. A pink one.
Finn closed his eyes for a moment. "You can't be serious."
"What's the problem?" Kurt was getting impatient. "It's a computer, Finn. I can check my e-mails with it."
"Yeah, but you can't play Call of Duty on that thing."
Kurt put his hand against his hip. "And why not? Because it's not cool enough for you gamers?"
"Yes," Finn replied bluntly, "you don't play a game like Call of Duty on a computer like that. You simply don't. That's one reason and the other one is that a netbook simply isn't powerful enough to run a game like that. So…" Finn turned around and walked over to his desk. "I'll lend you my notebook."
Kurt sighed, but sat down at the table anyway, waiting for Finn to put the notebook in front of him and start the game.
"Alright, here we go." Finn was standing behind Kurt, putting the other boy's left hand onto the keyboard. "You move with your left hand, you aim and shoot with your right hand. Got it?"
"I'm not stupid, Finn," Kurt snapped back and made his first attempts at playing the game.
Finn watched him walking around for a few seconds, then went over to his desktop computer logging into the game as well. "Okay, where are you? I'll come to you."
"I have no idea where I am," Kurt replied rather confused. "The screen is moving by itself."
Finn frowned and turned around to take a look at Kurt's screen. "Man, you got shot."
Kurt lifted his hands. "Why did I get shot? I didn't do anything!"
"Yeah, that's exactly the reason," Finn explained sighing. "You gotta be careful and hide from enemies. You see that wall over there? You should hide and shoot from there."
Kurt growled something Finn didn't understand, but otherwise he did as Finn had told him. "And how do I shoot?"
"Left mouse button."
The sound of a machine gun filled the room for a few seconds.
"Stop it, Kurt!" Finn was screaming. "You're shooting at me." He shook his head and added almost a bit mischievous, "not that you actually managed to hit me."
Kurt let go of the mouse instantly and crossed his arms before his chest. "What kind of sick, offensive game is this anyway? Killing people is supposed to be fun? I don't think so."
"Man," Finn rolled his eyes so that Kurt couldn't see it. "It's just a game, okay? Thousands of people are playing it for fun! Come on, Sam's gonna laugh at you if you're not going to try harder."
Kurt paused for a moment, looking at the screen with resignation in his eyes. "I really don't know if I even want to learn how to play a game like that."
"Well," Finn paused the game and turned to look at Kurt. "It's your choice. Do you want to learn it for him? Will you play Call of Duty for him?"
There was a soldier hiding behind a tree, waiting for his enemies to come rushing towards him. Fearless, he jumped to the side, the gun aimed at his foes. Then he shot, evading his enemies' bullets over and over again.
"Wow, that was close…" Sam seemed impressed. "You're really a great player, Kurt."
Kurt felt flattered. He was smiling, but fortunately he was sitting back to back with Sam, so the other boy couldn't see his dreamy gaze. A boy playing Call of Duty with a dreamy look on his face. "Thanks," he murmured, deciding that this was one of the best moments in his life. All the time he spent practicing this stupid game with Finn finally seemed to pay off.
"We make a great team…"
"Yes, we do…"
"Tell me, how did you manage to become so good at aiming?"
"Well, you know," Kurt tried to focus on the game, "I've been playing this game a lot with Finn in the past." That wasn't even a lie. If the last days counted as in the past, anyway. It took him too long to realize that saying this had actually been a big mistake. He bit his tongue.
"Oh, really? Finn plays Call of Duty, too?" Sam's eyes lit up in excitement. "Damn, if I had known, I would have invited him too."
"Aw, you know…" Kurt didn't know what to reply. He blew it! And there was no way of taking back what he just said.
"I'll just give him a call. We still have a lot of levels ahead of us." Before Kurt had any chance to object, Sam pulled out a cellphone and held it to his ear.
Kurt's throat started to get dry. Please, Finn, don't answer the phone…
"Hi Finn, this is Sam. You know, Kurt and I are playing Call of Duty right now and Kurt told me you play the game as well, so I thought you might want to come over and-"
Sam stopped talking and Kurt held his breath. He swallowed.
"Oh, I see. Well, maybe next time. Say hello to your aunt from me."
Kurt lifted his head and a smile started curving his lips.
Sam put the cellphone down again. "You heard it."
Kurt nodded and turned to the screen again. He was smiling with a relieved feeling inside his heart. Thanks, Finn. I won't forget that.
"So," Sam turned around on his chair to get back to the game as well. "I guess there'll be just the two of us."
"Yeah, just the two of us." Kurt repeated. "We should try the next level."