Title: Tears
Category: TV Shows » Glee
Author: vcg73
Language: English, Rating: Rated: K
Genre: Friendship/General
Published: 06-07-10, Updated: 06-07-10
Chapters: 1, Words: 1,337
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
He reached the parking lot, mind buzzing with French lyrics and intricate dance-steps as he rehearsed the upcoming Nationals routine in his head. Coach Sylvester had not shown up again today and nobody knew whether there would even BE a National competition for the Cheerios, but he needed to be ready if there was.
A few yards away from his vehicle, a strange vision caught his eye, distracting him completely from flips and tumbles and the works of Celine Dion. A familiar figure was standing on the blacktop, hair and clothing oozing with . . . something, and crying her eyes out.
His mouth dropped open in dismay. Had somebody thrown eggs at Rachel Berry? Who would do such a horrendous thing? Why? Sure, the New Directions lead was both fashion-unconscious and brain-meltingly obnoxious most of the time, but she was in no way deserving of such disgusting and humiliating treatment.
He took a step forward, and then faltered.
He hated to see girls cry. They made him feel helpless; empathetic and irritated, both at the same time. Because while he usually related better with the female point-of-view, he was still, as he had recently reminded his own father, a guy. And because of that fact, there was a part of him that longed for the cliché; to be the man. Somebody a girl could turn to for comfort and strength. The strong shoulder that she could cry on; the champion who would not hesitate to do some stupid, reckless, macho thing to punish whoever brought a friend low enough to shed such sad tears.
In this moment he longed to be a brave hero that she could smile up at with gratitude and appreciation in her large brown eyes. Somebody just like Finn. Or even Puck. A guy like . . . well, pretty much any male at McKinley other than himself. Because the pitiful reality was that he was far more likely to burst into tears right along with a girl than to jump into a fight to defend her honor.
Although, he had done pretty well standing up to those two brainless jocks who had tried to intimidate Tina, come to think of it.
Maybe there was hope for him yet.
Bolstered by this comforting thought, Kurt continued along his path. Reaching out a hand, he searched for some non-gooey place to put it and settled for tapping the tips of his fingers against a relatively clean bit of pink sweater at her right shoulder. "Rachel?"
A blotchy, tear-streaked, yolk-strewn face lifted from the concealment of her hands. Her lips were trembling, there was a disgusting line of snot – or possibly more egg membrane – dripping from her nose, and more tears poured down her cheeks. "Kurt?"
She spoke the name almost as if she wasn't sure it was really him, so devastated and lost that he felt emboldened to a show of tenderness as he gently asked her, "Are you okay?"
It seemed that the unexpected and unprecedented sympathy in his tone were her undoing, because Kurt Hummel suddenly found his heroic daydream coming to life. Equally suddenly, he discovered that the fantasy was far preferable to the reality when a drippy, sticky, goopy girl suddenly threw herself into his arms and began weeping messily into the red and white material of his shoulder.
Face screwing up in revulsion, he did his very best to offer comfort and find some part of her to pat that would not squish beneath his hand.
Oh, crap. What the hell was he doing?
"Don't cry, Rachel," he said, secretly thanking the spirits of Alexander McQueen and Coco Chanel that he was wearing his uniform, which could be dry-cleaned of all evidence with relative ease, rather than one of his own sartorially superior but far more delicate personal garments. "It's okay."
"Okay!" she blurted, her body disengaging from his with a nasty slurping noise that made his stomach do a back-flip. "How can this possibly be okay? How can anything, ever, in my entire life, possibly be okay again after this, this, this . . . utter humiliation perpetrated by none other than the love of my life!"
Ah, now this was the Rachel he knew how to deal with: the ridiculously over the top drama-queen.
Crossing his arms over his chest and trying not to flinch at the feeling of wet yolk against his forearms; Kurt drew himself up to his full height. Which was not very tall, admittedly, but still allowed him to tower satisfactorily over Rachel.
"The love of your life," he said dryly. "Really. I take it we must be discussing Jesse St. James? The boy who dumped you over a bad song and some trick casting in an even worse music video? Who went on spring-break with his old team for an entire week and didn't even bother to call you? The one who magnanimously forgave you and got back together with you just long enough to learn our entire current set-list, then dumped us all because we were mean to him, and then TP'd our practice room. That love of your life?"
Rachel's lip trembled again and Kurt reminded himself to dial back the snark. After all, it was pretty hypocritical of him to berate her for falling in love with the wrong guy.
In a much softer tone, he told her, "Jesse St. James and his minions have been playing all of us like a concert piano. You, most of all. They probably figured that if they could get you to jump ship, they'd kill us at Regionals without ever firing a shot. With only eleven members, we'd be disqualified."
"Why me?" she whimpered.
"Well, you do have a history of walking out when it's in your own best interest," he reminded her bluntly, then sighed when the sadly bedraggled girl seemed to wilt beneath his scorn. He really did suck at this manly-hero stuff.
Fine then. If he could not channel Finn Hudson, then he would simply do what he should have done all along, and make use of his own best weapons.
"I believe I still owe you a make over," he told her, visibly startling Rachel from the dismal funk of her own thoughts. "Why don't you let me take you home, where you can clean all of that disgusting stuff off yourself, and we'll get started? At least you get one advantage from all this. The protein in all that egg yolk will make a wonderful conditioner. I wouldn't recommend it as a steady treatment, but in the short term it should do wonders for your skin and hair."
A few tears still glittered in her eyes, but a tiny smile lifted the corners of Rachel's mouth. "Really?"
Bravely ignoring the fact that he had started to crust as the egg dried against his skin and clothing, Kurt took Rachel's arm and looped it through his own, mentally counting the number of clean towels in his gym bag as they walked toward his car. There was no way he was letting this walking frittata damage the freshly detailed interior of his baby.
"Tonight, makeover," he told her imperiously, hiding the urge to smile when he saw her own smile start to grow bigger. "Tomorrow, revenge."
She laughed and he allowed a bit of smug satisfaction to show. He did not always like Rachel Berry, but she was one of their own, and that really was good enough for him.
THE END