Okay… Let's see… it hasn't been too long since last time on this one right? Right? Sigh. I guess I'm doomed to always being incredibly slow.
Disclaimer: I own Glee. HA. No. No seriously, I don't. I don't own Glee. RIB do I'm pretty sure. If I owned Glee, I'd make money off of this. And I don't. In fact, considering I'm just feeding the obsession, I'm probably making the OWNERS money.
"I see… and what exactly were you doing in the boys' locker room Brit?" Kurt asked, keeping pace with his blonde friend as they walked through Lima's one mall. It had a surprising number of good stores, to be as frumpy as it was overall.
"It's where the guys are," Brittany said blankly, obviously not comprehending his meaning. Kurt tried not to think about what she'd have to do to become a well accepted regular in there.
"Whatever," he said, shaking it off and heading for the changing room.
"But weren't you listening?" the blonde piped, tailing him and bit too closely out of what Kurt could only assume to be a habit. Brit was used to getting her way with guys, and he figured she had her techniques.
"Not really. You mentioned a certain meat head and I zoned out."
"His name is Dave, I think…"
"Yes, that one, though I'll stick with Karofsky." Brittany seriously looked like she was going to try and protest that for a second, but she leaned against a wall outside the changing area and kept quiet. The look on her face was very straight… and very 'Okay, if you're not going to listen I'm not going to talk'.
He sighed, deciding it wouldn't be best to deal with trying his clothes on first and risk hurting her feelings. He folded the neat shirt over his arm, trying not to think of how he probably wouldn't have looked twice at the thing if Rachel hadn't showed him how good he looked in the color.
"What about him, Brittany?"
Her eyes seemed to size up how well he could keep his mouth shut and listen, and then she said, "I was thinking he should join Glee Club."
It was the most straightforward thing she'd ever said to him. And yet he'd never had a harder time making sense of anything she'd said before.
"You're not serious." it wasn't even a question- he said it in a clipped tone, then turned and entered the changing room.
"I heard him sing in the boys' locker room, Kurt!" Brittany continued, yelling into the booth.. "He sounded like- like the Fru Fru Dolls!"
"I think you're going for Goo Goo Dolls there."
"Yeah, them! They did my favorite song, and he sounded just like them! He's almost as good as Rachel or me, except he's a guy!"
That was a little disconcerting. Brittany hadn't even come close to saying someone was near her talent level since her infamous Britney-Epiphany, so Karofsky had to at the very least be good. But that wasn't enough to make his tone interested or enthusiastic.
"Well, I guess it's not really my problem now is it, Brit? Because he threatened to kill me and I transferred, I guess you and the New Directions can welcome him with open arms, despite what I think."
"They aren't…" Brittany mumbled. "No one believes me… no one ever believes me…"
Ugh. That was the hard part about getting mad at people like Brittany. It was so easy to feel bad about it.
"I don't think it's that nobody believes you… I think it's that none of them would let him join the Glee Club if he had Darren Criss's voice."
"Who's Darren Criss?"
"Darren Criss. A Very Potter Musical…. Ugh, never mind, you wouldn't know. If he had the best voice in Lima, I don't think the New Directions would accept Karofsky, Brit."
"No… I think Mr. Schuester might… and Rachel would, since it would help the team."
Kurt hung one size of the shirt on the rack on the wall, gritting his teeth a bit. Rachel would. She thought guys with a baritone voice were God or something. Would Karofsky be a baritone? He tried to analyze the jocks speaking voice from his memory, before he remembered he didn't care.
But the thought of Brit and Mr. Schuester being Karofsky's support system in some big "rehabilitate the bully with talent" thing… and Rachel…
Of course, she wouldn't really care as long as he had enough talent to keep up with her own damn voice.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. He really needed to get a grip. The girl was shaking his focus even when he went shopping now. Without her.
"I'm sure Mr. Schue and… Rachel would. But no one else, Brit. Even Santana would care, as I'm sure you'd know. Why would they want him in there just to screw up the atmosphere?"
"He hasn't done anything since you left… I think he's upset about it. I don't think he even talks to Azimio anymore. And we've had him in the club before."
"What?"
"Back on the championship football game? When Coach Beiste and Mr. Schue made all the football players join Glee Club?"
Oh right. He remembered Rachel and Mercedes saying something like that. He couldn't quite remember seeing his bully as a part of that Thriller number….
"Yeah… even with all those football players and him, we got over the tense atmosphere in a week or two, and then it just worked. Like when Lord Tubbington learned to use my remote control."
"If he was so good then, why didn't Mr. Schue rally him then and there?"
"Well, he hadn't been singled out… no one heard his voice solo, so they didn't know. But even then, I think Mr. Schue noticed. And Dave was so nice once he got into things… he and Finn were acting like buddies…"
Knowing his step brother had bonded with his bully would have bothered him more if he didn't know just how many times Finn had come close to fighting the boy for him. He knew Finn would have to honestly believe the boy was redeeming himself to even keep a friendly tone with him. That didn't mean Kurt had to like the thought, but he wasn't going to get mad.
"Can we talk about something other than Karofsky, please, Brittany? It really is none of my concern. I'm not on the New Directions anymore."
Brit frowned, drawing circles on the wall with her index finger. She liked being focused on something, no matter what it was, because feeling focused made her feel smarter. She didn't want to change the subject. Her eyes focused on something in the distance- and she glanced swiftly back at the changing room to wager whether Kurt would be getting out anytime soon.
When Kurt left the dressing room, clothes folded over his arm with an apologetic look on his face, Brittany was nowhere to be seen. He had a vague sense of unease with the knowledge- it almost felt like he'd lost track of a child. Knowing how ridiculous that was, though, he shook the feeling off, getting his things together, deciding not to buy anything, and flipping his phone out to text the blonde nuisance.
"Kurt! Kurt!" The yell was so urgent Kurt jumped out of his skin, thinking there was some sort of emergency Carole had come to find him for. But it wasn't Carole- her voice was just the only one he'd ever heard use that tone with him before. Rachel skidded to a stop a step from him, grinning widely. He tried not to feel uncomfortable about that, reminding himself she probably wasn't the type to run into friends at the mall often, and didn't know quite how embarrassing her little show was. The man she had linked fingers with, a man who was towering above her with dark, shaggy black hair that looked incredibly soft, seemed to know this quite well, but instead of chastising her for it, he gave him a somewhat sheepish "Couldn't-have-stopped-her" look.
Was this one of her fathers? He didn't look much like her.
"Rachel," he said, taking care to keep his voice even and calm in the presence of the man towering beside her. "Nice to see you here. Looking for anything in particular?"
Rachel shook her head. "No, no just looking." He didn't like the feeling in his stomach when she continued to grin at him like that. It wasn't like the uneasy feeling when he'd lost Brittany, but it would probably be described the same way without that direct comparison. "This is my Papa, Hiram Berry. Papa, this is Kurt Hummel."
Hiram smiled at his daughter in a way that suggested he didn't care, but wouldn't be hurt to pretend like he did for her.
"Yes, yes, the soprano that transferred," he said, with only polite-enough, engagement in his voice. "You wouldn't happen to be related to Burt Hummel, would you?"
"He's my father," Kurt said, brushing his hair from his eyes. It was almost a defensive maneuver. The soprano that transferred. Like he fit some widely known regularity.
"Yeah… we get the car worked on at his place. Nice guy."
"UGH Hiram! Do you HAVE to let Sugar drag you like that- the two of you are too fast for me." the man who ran up behind the Berry pair was a little shorter than Hiram, carrying what looked to be all of their bags, and had evenly long but more neatly combed hair. The color was dark brown, but Kurt really couldn't say this man looked any more like the short girl now stationed between them. Less than Hiram, even. Kurt figured Rachel had just come out looking exactly like Shelby.
"Leroy, this is Rach's friend Kurt."
Leroy blinked at him than smiled brightly. "Yeah, yeah- Sugar's told us all about you, Kurt. Hey- are you here alone?" his smile faltered a bit as he came to this conclusion.
"Well… I was here with my friend but…" Kurt gave his phone a hard glance like it would spontaneously save him from the Berry's looks of concern.
"A pretty boy like you, alone in a mall like this? That's not safe. You should come with us!"
"Daddy," Rachel groaned. So Leroy was the embarrassing parent.
"Umm… no, really, I'm okay…"
"Oh, come on, Kurtsie, we won't be here long, just tag along until we're done," Leroy dropped three or four of the many bags he was holding into Kurt's surprised arms, and then grasped his other hand shamelessly, obviously finding himself well within his rights to do so. Kurt tried to protest, but now that he didn't have to carry everything, Leroy took off at such a speed it was almost hypocritical, what with his complaints earlier.
Yeah… I think I had an okay time with this. But yeah, I'll explain where Brittany went next chapter.
