Chapter Two
A/N: Guys. Guys. I am so sorry. This has taken literally forever to come back to; I just have been so busy with applications and all of everything that I've had no time to finish writing anything.
Some of you were curious about pairings. If this last scene doesn't give away my biggest OTP, well…
As for the other pairings: that's soon to come! In all seriousness I'm mostly tempted to stay true to canon in terms of who-dates-who, but the when is up in the air.
Anyway, here's Chapter 2. I hope you enjoy and are still interested in this story! Leave feedback as always if you're so inclined. Sorry this A/N was so lengthly. Again. x May
"Hey! You're super early!" Finny Hudson cried as he rolled himself into the Hummel tree house, tub of cheese balls and liter of Mountain Dew under his arm.
"Duh," replied Noah Puckerman, snatching the cheese balls from Finny's sweaty grip, "my mom said it's s'posed to rain an' I don't wanna sleep nexta'-," he grunted as he palmed the oversized lid and twisted the tub top off—"the window."
Finny nodded, grabbing two clear plastic cups from the sleeve Kurt kept in the corner of the house and poured some of the electric yellow soda in each.
"So didn't you see your big sister yesterday?" Finny asked tossing a cheese ball into his mouth and wiping his fingers on his shorts.
"It was okay, I guess. She's at college mostly, so I don't really see her 'cept for summers, but she gotta job or something." Noah had an old Spiderman comic balanced on his knees, one hand flicking through and the other wrist-deep in the Cheetos.
"Oh, awesome," Finny nodded, eyeing the magazine Noah was flicking through rather quickly. "Are you readin' that?" he wondered. Noah shook his head but didn't glance up, fingers dancing inside the cheeto tub.
"Naw, just lookin' at the pictures. Hey, did Kurty or any of the other guys say when…?"
"Noah! You're just sticking your whole hand in there?" whined a voice from the doorway. Noah swiftly pulled his hand from the tub, a fistful of puffs crunched in his knobby knuckles. Kurt rolled his eyes and blew a lock of sweaty brown hair away from his forehead as he pulled himself in. He was closely followed by a dark brown mound of curls, tumbling around each other, as Blaine's head came into view from the entryway.
"Whoa, you guys are already here?" he grinned, swinging in eagerly.
"We were just waiting for you guys." Finny said sheepishly, but Kurt waved him off.
"It's fine. But, hey, when are the rest gonna get here? Davie said he was bringing his brother's port'ble DVD player and Blaine brought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Blaine pulled the DVD from his inside his sweatshirt, waving it proudly.
"Soon, I'll bet." Noah sighed, tossing the comic back into the corner. "Now let's unroll our sleeping bags. And I call dibs on the middle, 'cause my mom said it's 'sposed to rain."
It was much later when the boys had gotten around to watching the movie. Noah, Finny, and Davie had forged their way through ninety percent of the snacks already, and were begging for more through mouthfuls. Kurt and Artie had played action figures for awhile ("Those are dolls!" Davie had joked weakly, until Artie punched him and Kurty launched a Twix at his friend's face), and Blaine was trying to teach them how to play Texas Hold 'Em ("My daddy always plays it when his friends come over, and I think it's real funny cause they end up laughin' pretty loud by the end, when my mommy tells them all to go home for dinner.") It was, in every sense, a classic Sunday summer night in Lima.
During the school year, their weekends became more hectic. With play-dates, first-grade science fairs, and birthday parties, it was difficult to find a happy balance. But they were best friends, and God help them if they didn't find a way to exercise old habits.
Whether Friday or Saturday night, the boys planned their weekends around whether or not they could come to the Hummel's tree house. Sometimes they were one or three friends short; sometimes they slept in Kurt's tree house when Kurt wasn't even there. Once, over spring break, the Hummel's went to Disney World for four days with the Karofsky's; the other boys slept in the tree house two nights.
It was not so much a clique or a club, either; plenty of other kids in their class had heard of the tree house and become friends with members of the group. Rarely, though, did any seem to mesh well with all of them. In a brotherhood, they concurred, everyone is friends with everyone. Davie and Jimmy Azimio both sat in the back of math together and laughed at their teacher's expense, but he didn't necessarily get invited to any of the sleepovers. Jacob Ben Israel went to the same temple at the Puckerman's, and he and Noah had talked about their mutual appreciation of Real Monsters, but he'd never set foot on the Hummel's lawn. Blainey talked about David and Wes, the cool, slightly older sons of his parent's friends, but he'd seen them outside a visit to one of their houses. Kurty and Artie had started to even befriend some of the girls in their class, particularly a chatty African American girl named Mercedes and her best friend Santana, but they definitely didn't invite girls to their sleepovers (Kurt's Daddy wouldn't have even entertained such a thought.)
"Unless they like everyone in the tree house, they can't be in the tree house." Artie declared (Kurt wanted to make a sign, but Noah insisted it remain "an unwritten rule".)
Even the boys' parents realized the bond their sons had maintained. It's true the transition to grade school often brought new friendships, but the accountability the boys had in their friendships was something truly astounding. It made their parents closer, too: Mrs. Hummel or Puckerman often took a few of the boys around town to practices and grandma's houses; even when their own sons weren't involved. Truly it was something beautiful; Elizabeth Hummel barely minded climbing the ladder to Febreeze the tree house on Sunday mornings.
"I think I wanna be an astronaut," Blainey breathes, flat-backed on the Hummel's lawn, eyes trained on the cloudless sky.
"You should. I'll go with you," Kurty is sitting Indian-style near him, ripping up blades of grass mindlessly. "We can go to the moon."
Blainey nodded eagerly, and then shot up. "Did you heart Jamie Azimio in Science yesterday? He really asked Miss Justine if it was made out of cheese!"
"I know!" Kurt rolled his eyes, throwing a fistful of grass behind him. "He's such a dummy. I don't know why Davie is friends with him."
"Me either," Blaine sighs, lying back down. He glances at Kurt and back to the sky, "he totally isn't coming to the moon with us."
"Definitely not."
A/N: Yay! Klainebow Connection.
But yeah, Klaine. Apologies to all you Puckurts and Kinners and Kummers, but, no. Review if you so choooooooooooooose, I'd be forever obliged.
Next up: Angst.
