Pleasantville

Where everything is pleasant, friendly and kind. Where swearing is unheard of and emotions never run high. Where colour isn't a word with meaning, because everything is gray. Where no one has any questions, and everyone will always stay.

Chapter One – Goodbye and Welcome

"Kurt!" a loud shriek after he'd heard the door of their apartment open made him close his eyes and breathe deeply. "Breathe, Kurt. Just breathe." Kurt told himself, looking away from his laptop as he awaited his door to open. Loud bangs of footsteps were heard in the hall and without a knock, his bedroom door flew open. It was Rachel. Roommate and best friend, obnoxious at times but always there with a listening ear… well maybe not always. "You are not going to believe this!" Rachel's happiness wasn't exactly infectious. Kurt hadn't had the best of days and just wanted to chill and watch TV. Without waiting for Kurt to ask why Rachel was so incredibly upbeat, Rachel sat down on his bed, her face almost bursting with joy as she smiled.

"Finn is coming over tonight!" she again shrieked. With a soft smile, Kurt looked at his friend. "That's great," Kurt didn't mean what he said. This meant that his step-brother would just come in and bother him about his love life once again. Joke with messages his Dad had asked Finn to pass on to Kurt. There was nothing to talk about. Kurt was gay and the fact that he was comfortable with it didn't mean that the boys that he had crushes on did too. In fact, Kurt was sure that every boy he'd set his eyes on had either been straight or locked in a closet and too scared to ever come out. He smiled at Rachel because he was happy for her, but he wasn't in the slightest happy with Finn coming over to the apartment. "I've missed him so much, you have no idea!" Rachel exclaimed, flinging her arms open wide as if she was on a stage and had to make sure everyone knew how happy she was with seeing her boyfriend. Kurt smiled to himself and rolled his eyes as his best friend got off of his bed and stood in front of his life size mirror.

"I have no idea?" Kurt huffed. "Are you forgetting that I'm the one that's always in earshot of your skype calls?" Kurt joked half-hearted but Rachel waved his comments away. "It'll be great, he can be here any minute now!" she said, dashing off into her own room. For the sake of being a good friend, Kurt didn't ignore her all together. "Where are you taking him?" he called out, wondering to which restaurant Rachel would take Finn. The last time Finn'd been here, they'd all gone to a fancy restaurant in the city which had been fabulous until Finn learned that he is in fact allergic to shellfish which Rachel had insisted he'd try for his starter. Never had a nice dinner taken such a tragic turn.
"Nowhere, we're eating in, I've already ordered Chinese on my way home so it'll be here in time." Rachel answered and Kurt silently groaned. It'd be bad enough with Finn staying over, but those two on the sofa all night was something Kurt was definitely not looking forward too. Thank God he had a television in his room so he could at least shut himself away and watch his favourite TV show without being bothered by them.

Suddenly Rachel appeared in Kurt's doorway again, now in a complete different outfit, holding a hairbrush. She painfully looked at Kurt and took a breath before speaking. "Kurt I hope you don't mind but I'd appreciate a bit of privacy…" she let the question linger, hoping that Kurt would get the message. Not looking up from his laptop, Kurt nods. "Don't worry I will shut myself in my room and you won't see me for the right of the night."

When Rachel doesn't speak or move, Kurt looks up to see her, still with that same painful face. "I meant… it'd be nice if Finn and I could be, you know, completely alone." For a second Kurt just looks at her. Is she being serious? For what reason would they need the entire apartment, and more importantly, his room?! Then it dawns on Kurt.

"Ooh no! No, Rachel! I am not going to sit in a bar somewhere just so the two of you can, so you can have se- … intercourse!" Kurt yells matter of factly, offended by the question. Rachel immediately starts pleading.

"But Kurt! Please? It's not a huge question, you can just call…. You can, just call…" Rachel is searching for a name, someone close enough to Kurt for them to send an evening together, but she can't think of anyone. Kurt doesn't really have any other close friends in The City apart from her. "You don't have to go sit in a bar by yourself," she eventually says, but Kurt knows what she wanted to say. He knows what she means, and hurt by the confrontation he shuts his laptop and gets up.

"You are not doing this to me, Rachel Berry. This is my apartment too, and this is my room, you can't tell me when to leave and when to come back!" Kurt rages. "If you want to do dirty things with Finn," Kurt scrunches his nose even thinking of it. "You can go and book a hotel room for the night," Kurt says finally and passes Rachel as he leaves his room and walks into the kitchen.
"Please Kurt, you don't understand, it's just that-" and before Rachel can even finish her sentence the doorbell rings. Both stare at it for a minute.

"That must be him." Kurt says, looking at Rachel and not moving a muscle. Rachel sighs defeated and goes to open the door. Only it's not Finn, it's the Chinese she ordered. As Rachel pays the delivery guy, Kurt takes his chance, grabs some food from the fridge and heads back into his room where he turns on the TV. Only a couple minutes now until his favourite TV show starts. He's been looking forward to this all day and neither Rachel nor Finn is going to stop him from relaxing in his room. Kurt had the worst day and sighed to himself as he sat down.

Here in New York, he was nothing special. People knew gay and accepted it and the idea of it is so great because all Kurt ever wanted was to be accepted. Not to be made fun of and not to be bullied. For the first couple of days, weeks even, it was the closest to heaven Kurt had ever felt. But then he reached a point where he realized that Kurt wasn't interesting. He was nothing new. People didn't notice him – he was just one a million and even though it's a horrible thing to say, he hated it.
"Kurt!" Rachel again shrieked after the front door closed. She appeared in his doorframe again.
"Don't you understand? I'm asking you a minor favour and-" But before Rachel could finish her sentence, she'd been shushed. Kurt held his hand up to her face, and even though they were too far apart to even touch, Rachel abruptly stopped talking as suddenly all Kurt's attention was focused on his TV screen.
"Pleasantville?" Rachel exclaimed, staring at the TV just like her roommate did. "Is this seriously the reason why you don't want to go out and give me and my boyfriend some privacy?!" Rachel couldn't understand. Why didn't Kurt just go and make some friends? Why couldn't Kurt be the sociable Kurt she'd become friends with in high school? What was wrong with him? But Kurt understood. Right as he appeared on the screen, there he was, gelled back perfectly styled hair. Very 50s. And so handsome.

"Kurt you can't be serious!" Rachel cried. "There are so many re-runs of this crappy black and white show, why can't you just miss it once?!" Rachel was angry, but she begged. When Kurt didn't even seem to notice her anymore, she'd had enough. She knew he'd get angry, she knew that she might go too far, but it'd be the only thing she could do to get his attention. And so she did it. Rachel marched to the small TV, and turned it off pressing the big button. It didn't phase Kurt, which annoyed Rachel even more as Kurt just used his remote control to turn the TV back on. The next best thing Rachel could do was unplug the TV, which made Kurt look at her in disgust.
And so they started. Kurt got up from his bed and started screaming at Rachel. She didn't wait for him to be done talking but screamed right back at him. Yelling back and forth, both only focusing on what they were saying rather than what the other was trying to say, they screamed at each other like a brother and sister would, neither of the two willing to give in.

In the heat of the moment, neither of the two friends had noticed that the TV had turned back on. Except it wasn't Pleasantville that popped back on the screen… the screen turned bright orange. And then green. Then blue. Still neither of them noticed a thing, far too caught up in getting all of their anger across. Suddenly they stopped screaming and the room was no longer filled by loud voices, but by a weird other loud sound. The second it started, both Kurt and Rachel had to cover their ears as the high pitch hurt their eardrums. They both stared at the TV, in panic.

"Kurt, stop it!" Rachel tried to scream over the sound, obviously panicking. "I'm not doing anything!" Kurt yelled back. Rachel looked at the TV and realized that she had to do something or else the sound would be too much for either of them to take as it slowly got louder and louder. Trying to turn the TV off, it didn't work and Rachel didn't have enough time, her ears didn't allow being uncovered for more than a second. Loud bangs on the wall were only soft thuds but Kurt could hear them and realized that the neighbours wanted them to stop the shrieking, piercing sound that came from his TV. He looked at the plug, but saw that the TV was still unplugged and in sheer panic started screaming as the sound became too much for his ears to take. Rachel joined him as they both collapsed on the floor, both hands still on their ears.

Suddenly there was blackness. No sound or sight, with no warning. Everything was black.