Why hello, again! And I swear, I am almost done with Chapter III of The Soloist. I was on vacation and lacking musical inspiration, so it took a little longer than it usually will, but I guarantee it'll be up before Wednesday afternoon!
If you don't already follow me on Tumblr, I posted a teaser of Chapter III up there, so you can check that out if you want at copyrogueleader . tumblr . com (: Also, for those of you who enjoyed and commented on Mingling With Coworkers and Other Colfer "Don'ts," FF took it down because apparently we are no longer allowed to post RPFs. Boo. So you can find that story on my Tumblr as well!
So, until Chapter III of The Soloist is finally finished, here is a little story for everyone to enjoy! Comments are loved very much (: Thanks for reading!
And That's All Right
"Heaven… I'm in heaven… and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak…"
It was a Friday night. The bedroom window was propped open, allowing the crisp evening air to carry the bouncy, big band melody from the antique record player throughout the room.
His heart as light and jovial as the music he was pleasantly singing along with, the man sitting at the desk by the window was tapping his foot against the pedal of his sewing machine. He was up to his knees in fabrics of every length, texture, and color imaginable, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, the first few buttons of his blouse undone, so completely carefree that, when he thought about it, it was hard to believe he had ever experienced anything but this: pure, perpetual bliss.
He subtly swayed back and forth to the music as he began a new line of stitches on the dinner jacket he had been mending, turning it inside out and placing the hem just under the needle of his sewing machine.
Just before pushing the fabric forward, he glanced at the golden-rimmed picture frame that had graced the left-hand corner of his desk for the past eighteen years, and he smiled. There he was, twenty-two years old, his arms wrapped tightly around the love of his life, his smile broader and brighter than in any other photograph of himself he had ever seen. The day he stopped being Kurt Hummel, and became Kurt Hummel-Anderson.
Smile almost as large as it was on the day of his marriage, Kurt went back to mending the sleeve of his husband's jacket.
"And I seem to find the happiness I seek… when we're out together, dancing cheek to cheek…"
So lost in his work and in the music, he failed to hear another enter the bedroom, and was unaware of the presence until a pair of arms wrapped themselves around his neck and a set of lips pressed a gentle kiss to his shoulder.
"Oh, hey hon…"
Kurt turned to greet his company, and instantly laughed, "Oh my gosh, I thought you were your father!"
The dark and curly haired girl standing behind him straightened up and crossed her arms over her chest, smirking, "Are you for real right now?"
Kurt grinned and set the sleeve in place, pausing the machine as he turned back to face his daughter again. "Not even kidding," he laughed, shaking his head. "Hey, sweetheart."
He held out his arms for a proper hug, and, unfailingly, his daughter smiled warmly and embraced him.
"So," she sighed after they had parted, "What are you working on?"
"Everything," Kurt laughed. He gestured to the sleeve that was halfway through the sewing machine. "Your dad's jacket, which I'm determined to fix once and for all," he motioned to the pile of black, navy, gray, and olive fabrics on the floor to his right, "A whole new line of suits for next month," he nodded at the gold, silver, and multi-colored pastel silks on the floor to his left, "And two very special somethings for two very special someones," he added with a wink.
"Oh my gosh! Are those…?"
Kurt nodded, causing his daughter to launch herself forward for an attack-hug. Ever since it had been confirmed that Kurt's company trip to Paris would include him and his entire immediate family, she and her sister had been anxiously waiting to see what kinds of glamorous gowns their father would come up with, positively giddy with excitement that they were going to be mingling with the glitterati of the fashion world, in Paris.
"Okay, you have to tell me, which ones are for me?"
Kurt clicked his tongue and shook his head, insisting, "Evangeline Hummel-Anderson… I think you're really missing the whole point of it being a surprise."
Angie just pouted, giving him the puppy dog eyes that reminded him so much of Blaine's. He shook his head again, and she finally surrendered with an "Oh, fine," a playful smile, and a plop onto Kurt and Blaine's king-sized bed.
"Was there something you needed, babe?" he asked, realizing that he had yet to inquire about the reason for her unexpected visit (as Friday nights – after dinner, of course – she usually spent out, at a friend's house, or with a friend in the home of the Hummel-Andersons).
"Not really…"
Kurt just gave her the look, the famous one that said, "Yeah, not buying it."
She brought her legs onto the bed and sat pretzel-style on the comforter, sighing, "Yes, there was… it can wait though, if you're too busy."
"Ange, you have to know by now," he said, standing up and heading over to the window so he could turn down the volume of the record player, "That I'm never too busy. Even when I'm too busy," he joked. "What's up, sweetie?"
Kurt moved back to the edge of the bed. He pulled off his socks and tossed them into the pile of fabrics by his desk before climbing onto the mattress, mirroring his daughter's pose, and pulling one of the fluffy, beige pillows into his lap for an armrest.
"I'm just…" she sighed, glancing off into the middle distance, "I'm freaking out." She laughed humorlessly.
"About what, hon?" Kurt asked, catching her gaze and pulling her golden-brown eyes back to his. She had Blaine's eyes.
"College, dad. I'm… I'm freaking out. I have to get into Wash U, dad. I have to… but I just have this…" she sighed, and Kurt could see her eyes just beginning to glisten. "I have this horrible feeling that I'm not going to, and I'll get stuck somewhere awful, and I won't be able to go pre-med, and if that happens there's no way I'll get into medical school, especially if I want to go to Johns Hopkins, and thinking about all this just makes me wonder if I'm even good enough to do anything or if I'll be stuck doing something I hate for the rest of my life…"
"Okay, okay, slow down, babe…" Kurt reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand, keep her eyes level with his when she tried to look away again.
"I'm sorry, I…" she sniffled. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't apologize," Kurt shook his head. "You have nothing to be sorry about. I know, believe me. I know."
Angie laughed a little. Not a sarcastic or sardonic laugh, but a slightly dismissive one nonetheless. "But you have the career of your dreams. You probably always knew what you wanted, and it probably worked out perfectly for you because you're just…" she rolled her eyes hopelessly, but with a hint of a smile. "So freaking perfect."
Kurt couldn't help it. He laughed.
With watery eyes, Angie glanced confusedly from side to side. "What?"
"Ange…" Kurt was honestly surprised that they had yet to have this conversation. He had told his daughter – both his daughters – plenty of stories about high school, about college, about all the places he'd been and all the things he'd done, but never once had heactually told them how he had gotten into the wonderful, picture-perfect niche he lived in now.
"Angie, I think you'll feel a lot better about this whole thing after I tell you a little story."
"About a boy named Kurt?" she asked, her voice humorously dry.
Kurt grinned and repeated, "About a boy named Kurt."
She tucked her (or rather, Blaine's) shiny brown curls behind her ears. "All right," she smiled, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, "I'm ready."
"When I was a senior in high school, I wanted to be a Broadway performer. That was it for me. That was my end-all, be-all."
Kurt could already tell that Angie was hanging on his every word, desperate for this to be something useful, something with a valuable moral, something that would make all the stress and anxiety go away. Kurt was determined to prove her right.
"There's this school in New York, called the New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts, and it's an ultra-selective, intensive concentration program for musical theatre. And in my mind, that was the only option for me. I was so set on this dream of Broadway, Broadway, Broadway, that I never even considered applying to another school. In my mind, it was all or nothing."
"I didn't make it. Everything was going right, though. The audition went… amazingly. It honestly couldn't have gone better. The Dean of the school said Hugh Jackman himself would have loved me. But somehow, something happened, and they didn't pick me."
"Weird…" Angie nodded, listening intently.
"But here's the kicker: I had a friend, who forgot the lyrics during her audition… twice," he said, his eyes widening in emphasis, "Begged the Dean to give her another shot, cried right there onstage when she refused… and that girl got accepted over me."
Kurt had to laugh at the expression on Angie's face. Her mouth was agape, her eyes an amusing mixture of anger and sheer confusion as she spat, "What? I mean… I mean what the fu… just… Are you shitting me?"
Kurt shook his head, not even bothering to reprimand her for her language. He just grinned and whispered, "It really makes me question how 'prestigious' that place actually is."
"Well, yeah. I mean, what the…"
"Anyway," Kurt interjected, having gotten slightly off topic, "I thought my life was over. I seriously wanted to curl up in a ball and die… I was a bit of a drama queen back then," he laughed.
"So…" Angie sniffled again, playing with the fringe on the duvet, "So what happened after that?"
"Well," Kurt sighed, stretching his arms and yawning before continuing, "Your dad and I were dating at the time, and he was doomed to Lima for another year of high school anyway, so he and Grandpa Burt gave me some good advice. Firstly, they reprimanded me for only applying to one school," he chuckled. "Personally, I blame my guidance counselor. It was her idea, believe it not."
Again, Kurt had to laugh at the "What the fuck?" clearly dancing on the edge of Angie's tongue.
"Secondly, they told me to think long and hard about why I was so set on being on Broadway. 'It's my dream,' I told them over and over. And they just kept asking me, 'But why? Why that?' and 'How can you be so sure?' At the time, though, I just… didn't want to hear it. It was Broadway, or nothing. Sound familiar?"
Angie gave her dad a sad little smirk, and nodded. "But," she said, softly, "What did you do? Did you wait a whole year?"
"Oh gosh, no! No, I was way too stir-crazy. Back to the advice your dad and your grandpa gave me, though. They said, 'Get a summer job, earn some money, and do anything you want for your three months off, as long as it's something that makes you happy. Also, apply to at least three schools – not concentration programs, but actual schools – for the upcoming spring semester.' So, I did. I worked part-time at a local coffee shop and as a mechanic for my dad. I put the money away. And in my spare time, I did three things: I sang, I laughed and loved life with your dad, and I designed and put together hundreds – and I mean hundreds – of outfits."
Kurt spotted a knowing smile on Angie's face, and knew she was finally starting to catch on. "Design…" she muttered.
"Design." Kurt nodded. "But, I didn't realize it right away," he assured her. "The three colleges I applied to were Muhlenberg, Baldwin-Wallace, and William & Mary. As far as I was concerned, I was still going to focus in theatre, but your dad and Grandpa Burt pounded it into my head: 'Go to a liberal arts school.' Because from there, you can pretty much go wherever you want."
"So, which ones accepted you?"
"All three." Kurt was still proud to admit it. If he had been given the chance to go back in time and tell his nineteen-year-old self one thing, it would be to remember that his voice wasn't all he had to offer. Kurt had had a fantasticGPA in high school of 4.2, and had done fantastically well on his SATs. Sure, he was only active in two or three clubs, but all that extra time he had was devoted to his studies, and did it ever pay off.
"So I spent that fall and winter in Lima, still earning money, getting transferrable credits at the community college, and putting together a… if I do say so myself… killer portfolio. I ended up at William & Mary with a double major in Fine Arts and Theatre Arts. It took two years, Ange. Two years in a liberal arts school, dabbling in a bit of everything, to figure out what I really wanted to do. And there was this one day…" Kurt paused, chuckling at the memory, "During the summer before my junior year at William & Mary, when your dad and Grandpa Burt asked me one last time, 'Why were you so set on Broadway? Why that?' And it finally hit me…"
"What? What was the reason?"
"It was…" Kurt huffed out a breath, looked his eldest daughter dead in the eye, and said, "It was about being heard. Being noticed. Being respected. I thought… I thought getting up on a stage for the world to see and hear… was the only way to do that. I love singing, I love it very much… but… singing… musical theatre… that's not my passion."
Silence passed between them, and Kurt could see that Angie was deep in thought. Eyes on her lap, she quietly asked, "So… design is your true passion?"
Kurt leaned down a little bit, meeting her gaze and bringing it up again. He thought for a moment about how to answer her question, then smiled. "I have three passions," he said. "First, yes. Design is definitely my passion. Second…" he pointed back to the gold-rimmed picture frame of him and Blaine on their wedding day, "That curly-haired goofball right there. He's my passion. And third…" he turned back to Angie, who, he was happy to see, was grinning widely and giggling under her breath. He tapped his finger gently against the tip of her nose and said, "You. You and Winter. You girls… you're everything to me. And I wouldn't have it any other way."
A moment passed where they just sat, smiling at each other. Finally, Kurt got back to the problem-solving. "So," he began, "Why do you want to go to medical school, Ange?"
Angie gazed off into a corner of the bedroom again, the tips of her slender fingertips pressed to her lips as she thought. "I guess…" she began, dropping her hand back into her lap and looking back at her father, "Because I love the sciences. My best grades were always in Biology, Anatomy, and Physiology. Those are… what I'm good at."
"The fact that you're pushing a 4.5 doesn't hurt either, you crazy kid," Kurt laughed, giving her a teasing slap on the forehead. "But what makes Wash U so special?"
"It's got the best pre-med program in the country." There was no question in her voice. No wavering uncertainty.
"That's true, but, let me ask you this: what happens if you major pre-med, then realize you don't want to be a doctor?"
"I'm one hundred percent…"
"No one is one hundred percent sure, Ange. No one."
Angie didn't argue. Kurt could see that she knew this was good advice.
"A few months ago, you were telling me about your friend Jamie, who was having problems at home. Remember that?"
For the first time in a considerable while, Angie looked a little confused again. "Yeah," she said, "Of course. She was on the verge of suicide. I… I'm pretty sure I talked her down off the edge of it."
"And remind me again what you asked Daddy and I to get you for Christmas last year?"
"A copy of the…" suddenly, Angie paused. Her eyes fell shut, her mouth pressed down into a firm line, and she smiled, knowingly, up at her father again before saying, "A copy of the DSM." Kurt could see, Angie finally knew where this was going.
"Now please tell me," Kurt laughed, "What kind of seventeen-year-old asks her parents for a copy of the DSM?"
Angie just shook her head, laughing in spite of herself.
"Ange… have you ever thought about… psychology? As a profession?"
"… No. Not really, no. I mean, I love it. When I go on Stumble Upon, that's all I do – read about brain disorders, Rorschach tests, ECTs, Skinner and Chomsky… but… I don't know. I just… People always say things about psychologists. 'Not a lot of job opportunities,' 'one step below a medical doctor,' things like that. I just feel like… there's so much more to be said for a girl who aces her way through pre-med, and goes to medical school."
"Don't listen to anyone but yourself, Angie. If nothing was said for either side of the argument, which one would you choose?"
"I…"
More silence. More wandering eyes. And finally, a realization.
"I don't know."
Kurt smiled at his daughter. "Which is why you don't want to close yourself off, honey. Maybe you will end up a brain surgeon, who knows!" Angie smiled at this. "But there's no way to be sure yet. The one thing you should be sure of, though, is that you have so much more to offer than a wealth of knowledge about the human body. Ange… you have compassion… you have empathy… like no one I've ever seen. It rivals Daddy's, to be honest," he winked, and she grinned. Blaine's grin. "Until you're sure, don't label yourself. Don't limit yourself. Apply to as many schools as you can, and take your time. You're going to get it wrong a million times before you get it right… and that's all right."
Once again, she had tears in her eyes. But these, Kurt could see, were different. These were appreciative, grateful, loving tears. "Says the guy who got his master's degree from freaking Tisch," she laughed. And she had just enough time to yelp in surprise and duck as Kurt swung his pillow straight for her side. Next thing Kurt knew, she was on her back with laughter.
Kurt couldn't believe how lucky he was. Angie was amazing. She couldn't have been any more amazing. Biologically, she was Blaine's, and they truly were uncannily alike. And his youngest daughter, Winter, was equally as incredible. She was Kurt's, and it showed. Everything from her soft, thick, light brown hair to her icy blue eyes to her impossibly strong-willed personality was Hummel, through and through. If there was another thing Kurt would have liked to tell his nineteen-year-old self, it was how perfect life would be, and so much sooner than anyone would have expected.
Angie hoisted herself back up and threw her arms around her father's neck, tucking her head against his shoulder. "I love you," she said.
Kurt grinned into hair, held her tight, and said, softly, "I love you too, baby doll. I love you too."
Thank you so much for reading, my lovelies! As always, I love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to shoot a comment my way (: Cheers!