Author's Note: I forgot the Emmys were on last night. Guess who was nursing an allergic reaction to her new bath soap and watching that instead of updating? But here it is! Many thanks to the scattered handful of people who helped me work out a few kinks in the ending, and happy reading!
"So," says Kurt, as silence hangs in the air for a period of time bordering on uncomfortable, "this is all well and good. But what the hell am I going to wear?"
Mercedes swoops in and gathers her best friend by the hand. "We've got a whole mess of clothes in my trunk. Don't look at me like that, I was careful and oh fine, I'll drive you home so you can change into something truly fabulous, all right?"
Kurt brightens considerably and nods, practically leading her out of the room. "We'll be back in thirty—okay, an hour," huffs Mercedes over her shoulder. "Please don't do anything totally stupid!"
"That could have gone better," says Tina forlornly as Mercedes and Kurt head out the front door. "Do you think he liked it?"
"Kurt needs a minute to take it all in," says Artie carefully. "I'm sure he didn't hate it. But it's… we're… a lot, you know?"
Tina considers this and gives him a worried smile. "Okay. So… do we start this party or should we wait?"
Someone turns the disco ball on, and the music suddenly gets a whole lot louder, which makes it pretty clear that the party's going to happen, with or without the guest of honor. Artie shrugs over the sudden increase of noise and attempts to transfer himself to the sofa. Once he's settled, he pats the spot next to him. Tina shrugs and sits on Artie's lap instead.
He blushes, giving her a strange look. "Hi."
"You said I wouldn't break you," she points out. "And it's kinda nice."
"I'm not complaining."
Tina is wondering if it'd be too vulgar if she started kissing Artie right then and there on the sofa when Rachel suddenly appears in their line of vision, carrying three drinks and a huge grin on her face.
"Hey, Rachel." Tina pulls back from Artie with a sigh and accepts the red plastic cup that the other girl is waving in her face. "What's this?"
"Rum and coke!" she says brightly. "Noah made me one, and they are, surprisingly, very good. Try it."
Tina hesitantly sips at the drink, then offers Rachel a tiny smile as she sets the glass on the coffee table. "It's… good, Rachel."
Rachel beams and offers a second glass to Artie. "I also wanted to thank you for preparing this party this evening. I would have offered to be of assistance, had I known. Are you sure there isn't anything that I can do to be of help right now?"
Artie sets his drink aside without even touching it. "We're good, Rachel. Thanks for bringing the balloon thing."
"How did you manage to find so many?" asks Tina politely. She immediately bites her lip as the question sends Rachel into a frenzy as she begins to dictate how she went to exactly twelve stores in order to find the perfect number of balloons to make the most desirable arrangement possible.
"And then, do you think we could pay Pictionary?" asks Rachel nearly twenty minutes later (Artie and Tina have tried their best not to tune her out, but it isn't working).
"Berry!" snaps Santana as she hands the girl another drink. "It's not elementary school. You don't do shit like that at these parties."
Tina considers saying that yes, she'll play Pictionary with Rachel, if only to erase the kicked puppy look from her face. Fortunately, though, Kurt and Mercedes return, with Kurt clad in his most glittery, tightest, and of course, most sparkly best.
Rachel downs her new drink quickly and races up to give Kurt a hug. Kurt, understandably, is surprised, but smiles—even as he's giving Mercedes a WTF look from over Rachel's shoulder. Tina takes advantage of the distraction and starts kissing Artie, which he happily returns.
"To what do I owe that particular greeting, Rachel?" asks Kurt once he finally manages to get her to pull away.
"It's your birthday, and I thought such displays of affection were appropriate," replies Rachel. "Do you want your present?"
"Is it another one of those ridiculous balloon arrangements?"
Rachel quickly masks the hurt expression. "I thought that was a perfect decoration!"
Mercedes rolls her eyes. "It was a great centerpiece, Rachel. Kurt's just being snippy. What gives?"
"The balloons arrangement is indeed ridiculous," replies Kurt. "But given that there's also a stuffed llama wearing sunglasses and a lei in the corner as part of the decorations, I would think ridiculous was the theme of the day."
"It is Adam Lambert meets Lady Gaga!" supplies Rachel, her expression perking up considerably. "We should play some music!" She races over to the stereo, and soon "If I Had You" can be heard across the house.
"Nice," says Kurt approvingly. He turns to his best friend. "A dance, Mercedes?"
"Sure," she replies, linking arms with her friend and leading him out to the makeshift dance floor under the disco ball.
The party continues on without any further awkwardness, and when the cake is cut a little while later, a weight-conscious Kurt is compelled to take a slice once Matt quietly informs him that he used as many organic ingredients as he could possibly find to make the cake. Kurt beams and blows out all seventeen candles with a single breath.
"Should we separate the lovebirds to give them cake?" asks Quinn. Artie and Tina are still making out on the sofa, and his hand appears to have slid up her thigh dangerously high.
Mercedes snorts and pours herself another glass of soda. "Hell no. The less they drink means the less people I have to drive home at the end of night. Being appointed DD is a pain sometimes. Anyway, the smell will probably get them coming up for air eventually. Tina's never one to turn down a slice of cake. Especially damn good cake like this."
Quinn nods and reaches for plastic forks. "I'm not drinking, and neither are Matt or Kurt. Well, I think Kurt's only had one drink. It seems some of us have learned our lessons."
"Yeah, but the rest of the boys have just started in on a game of beer pong." Mercedes says, her gaze drifting across the room. "I didn't know you could do that to a beer can."
Quinn smiles and starts delicately eating her sliver of cake. "You've had a pretty sheltered existence, Mercedes."
"I like to think I just enjoy being sober."
Around ten, Brittany starts dancing on top of the table, and she manages to get both Mike and Santana to join her as they begin hopping around to Lady Gaga's "Alejandro".
"Don't call my name, Alejandro!" warbles Kurt from the floor as he attempts to paint Quinn's nails with sparkle polish.
Brittany grins and hops down from the table to twirl around Kurt and Quinn, and her infectious enthusiasm manages to get Finn around the room with her in a circle. She doesn't even bat an eye when Finn steps on her toes, instead taking lead and turning them both in the opposite direction.
"Dance with me!" she says excitedly, dragging Kurt up so he can be her new partner after Finn manages to escape the bubbly blonde's grasp. Rachel giddily cozies up to Finn as she jabbers on about how this is so much better than the last party she went to.
Artie and Tina finally manage to separate themselves with Puck hands Artie a pair of scissors and a lewd wink. They spring apart to other sides of the sofa, both blushing furiously and frantically attempting to fix rumpled clothes. The duct tape corset is, remarkably, still intact.
Artie thinks this might be a great time to get cake, after he downs the better part of his previously untouched drink in one nervous gulp. He looks around for his chair in order to do that, and finds that it isn't there. "Hey?" he says, confused, "Where's my chair?"
"I think it's on the other side of the room," replies Tina after a minute. "I'll go get it." She springs up from the sofa, and wheels the chair over with the utmost care.
It's Artie's wheelchair all right, but it's covered in streamers, more glitter, balloons and what looks to be confetti. There's a pile of crushed beer cans in the seat, and an even more pronounced trail of glitter follows the chair across the room as Tina leads it to the sofa. (Artie will be trailing glitter in his wake for the rest of the school year.)
"What happened to it?" says Artie finally, after several minutes of stunned silence.
"Do you like it?" asks Mike Chang as he strolls across the room in search of the buffet table. "There was an episode of Pimp My Ride on the TV and Puck wanted to experiment. Dude says your suspenders blinded him and you said it was okay."
"I did?" Artie thinks back over the past several hours as well as he can. He remembers giving a strangled yes when Tina had asked if she could unbutton his shirt… oh. Artie blushes. "I guess I did. Kind of."
Tina's face is a matching shade of red, and she quickly springs up to get slices of cake for her and Artie in an attempt to flee the situation.
Mike chuckles and waves Artie off before continuing his trek to the food. "Whatever, dude. Way worse things have happened at parties like these before. You'd be better off finding someplace more private next time, though."
"Er, yeah." Artie rubs his neck nervously and lets out a sigh of relief when Mike leaves him alone finally.
Tina returns with two large slices of cake and a plate of food. "I thought it might be good if we like, ate something?" she says meekly. "You know, since we've both had a little to drink and all."
"Good idea." Artie grins at her and reaches for a cookie. It happens to be the same cookie that Tina was considering, and their hands bump against each other. There's more nervous blushing and awkward giggling.
"We're hopeless." Tina rolls her eyes, but smiles and starts eating. "Do you think the party turned out okay, Artie?"
George the stuffed llama strolls by them before Artie can reply, now wearing a matching hula skirt to go with his lei and sunglasses. Finn gives them both an awkward wave, then coughs and points to Artie's neck before continuing on.
"I think I might've given you a hickey," replies Tina in response to Artie's blank expression.
"Oh." Artie buttons up the rest of his shirt, but pauses when he realizes a few of the buttons have been forcibly ripped off. "I think you broke my shirt, woman."
"Are you complaining?" says Tina as she reaches for a piece of the cake. "Because really, you sure weren't at the time."
"Nope." Artie gives her a cheeky grin and stuffs a whole pig in the blanket his mouth.
"Artie, that is so gross."
"Mffff."
At eleven, Brittany and Santana disappear off to Brittany's room. They're not heard from for the rest of the night, and absolutely no one is surprised.
Soon after their disappearance, Rachel attempts to get everyone still in the rec room to start singing along with some of their Glee numbers before they present Kurt with the rest of his birthday presents.
"I don't wanna sing, Rachel!" says Mercedes from the corner, where she's having a quiet conversation with Matt. "Not tonight, at least. Besides, nearly everyone's mad drunk. We'd sound all outta whack."
Rachel shrugs. "Well, could we play Pictionary? We still have enough people and Santana isn't here to veto the suggestion as she tried to do before."
"That's not such a good idea either," says Mike from Rachel's other side. "Because…"
"Because it isn't one of those kinds of parties, Berry," says Puck loudly. "When was the last time you were invited to a party? Fifth grade?"
Rachel closes her mouth and glares at Puck while moving to sit on the other side of Finn. "Do you want to play?" she asks him sweetly.
"Why don't we just do presents?" suggests Artie quickly, earning a grateful look from Finn (who has no idea what Pictionary even means). "We haven't done presents yet!"
"Oh! Presents are indeed very important," says Rachel. "I assume people brought appropriate tokens?"
Tina nods and reaches for an envelope for Kurt. "Artie and I got you a gift card to Nordstrom's. It has the kind of clothes you like, right?"
Kurt nods and adjusts his hair ever so slightly. "Thank you."
Quinn hands over a wrapped travel set of Kurt's favorite brand of skincare products, and Matt and Mike hastily present Kurt with a Costco-sized bag of his favorite brand of organic snacks (which Mercedes tipped them off about after they came to her in a frenzy the other day).
Rachel beams at Kurt. "Finn and I chipped in to get you a ticket for Wicked. Its tour comes through Akron in September, and it seemed appropriate to enable you to attend. My two gay dads and I will be attending, of course, and you may carpool with us if you think it would be amicable."
Kurt is genuinely touched. "That's really nice of you, Rachel."
"Appropriate presents are always nice," she replies happily.
Mercedes elbows her best friend in the side. "Don't tell me you're gonna start bawling because of present that Rachel Berry got you for your birthday."
"Depends," says Kurt easily. "What'd you get me?"
"Spa day at Chez Jones, courtesy of me and my mom," she replies. "It's not Wicked, but I figured you like it."
"I do." Kurt leans over to kiss her cheek. "Thanks, Mercedes."
"I guess that just leaves Puck," says Tina after a moment. Nine sets of eyes scan the room for any sign of the formerly mohawked-boy.
He's busy taking questionable photographs with George the llama.
"I think that answers that," says Kurt, his expression as composed as always. "Tell me, is that llama wearing underwear?"
Sure enough, a pair of boxers are now affixed on George's head like a hat. They're even tipped at a jaunty angle for a fashionable effect.
"I have no idea." Artie shrugs and exchanges a glance with Tina, who is taking pictures of Puck and the llama (for future blackmail purposes, of course). "I'm not sure I really want to know, either."
"I definitely don't," says Quinn. "And in any case, there's more important stuff to worry about. Who needs a ride home. The boys, for the most part. Any of the girls?"
"Artie and I will walk home," says Tina quickly. "We don't live that far away."
"She'll walk, I'll roll," corrects Artie with a cheeky grin as Tina nudges him playfully in the side with her hand.
"Yeah, whatever." Mercedes starts rustling around for keys. "This has been some party, guys."
Tina winces as she flops onto the sofa and surveys Brittany's house. Cans and bottles litter the floor as the disco ball and the strobe lights flicker overhead. She knows there's going to be no end to the explanations required when the photos inevitably show up on Facebook in the morning. She doesn't even want to think about cleaning this mess up.
"Hey," says Artie, interrupting Tina's thoughts (and derailing the worry for a few moments), "Is that Brittany's wheelchair rolling by?"
"I guess it got un-lost."