"Are we going to be frenemies?"
Of all the things Kurt Hummel expected to hear from a girl who had been waiting in front of his locker like some kind of stalker, that was not near the top. "Excuse me?"
"You know," she explained, with a hand gesture Kurt supposed was supposed to facilitate his understanding, "because we're both high maintenance and sort of admittedly Divas, and competing for the same body of males, but we've also sort of bonded this past weekend."
"Thus, Frenemies?" Kurt guessed.
Rachel tapped the tip of her own nose. "Because you're sort of catty by nature, I assume that's your default mode of friendship."
"You, Rachel Berry, get most of your socialization from Gossip Girl," Kurt accused, choosing not to take offense at the catty comment, because hey, he'd been called worse.
Rachel shrugged as if having books and movies and Broadway plays on DVD instead of friends was perfectly normal. "Being well-read and pop-cultured is important in a budding starlet."
It was early, at least twenty minutes before the bell to start their first period would ring, and Kurt finally noticed that she was wearing one of her hideous sweaters and a micro skirt. "What are you wearing?" he demanded.
Rachel's fingers went up self-consciously to intertwine with ... "Is that an ascot?"
"It's sophisticated," she corrected, and Kurt slapped his face with his palm. (Carefully, of course, so as not to smudge his eyeliner.) "I ... I can't afford to skip class today, and if that dress gets slushied, it needs to be dry-cleaned immediately."
"You put on that dress, and the football team will toss the perpetrator into a dumpster full of slushies," Kurt assured her.
Rachel Berry looked less than reassured."Maybe I should just put it on after the slushie, if there is one."
Kurt looked at his wristwatch. (It was hideous, to be sure, and normally, Kurt wouldn't have been caught dead in it, but his father had bought it for him for his birthday, mumbling about acceptable fashion accessories, and it was significantly girlier than something his father would wear, even though it wasn't the pearls he'd been hinting out, so he figured they were on the right track.)
"You've got about ten minutes before the team gets here. They're probably choosing flavors right now," Kurt said, tapping his aforementioned watch for emphasis. "Go put it on, and put it on right."
"But--" Rachel started to protest, but then shut her mouth. Instead, she said, "if you're sure."
"Oh, I'm sure," Kurt said, falling in to step with her on the way to her locker. As she pulled it out, folded carefully, and hanging from the top of it in a plastic bag, he thought about their earlier conversation. "Do you want to be frenemies?" he asked her, with a snicker, because, seriously, did she honestly think it was okay to set out terms for relationships? Did they have to write a mission statement?
"To be honest," Rachel said, in that matter-of-fact, I am Rachel Berry factual way she said everything, even things that should break your heart, like, people throw frozen corn syrup at me on a daily basis or "I don't think that my friendships are so unnumbered that it would be wise to break them off into sub-genres."
It took Kurt a moment to understand. I don't have enough friends to have fake friends.
Instead of making fun of her like he would if she was someone else, he swallowed down his laughing retort. "That sounds ... logical."
* * *
"Okay," Rachel said, peering uneasily into Kurt's makeup bag. "I think that if I attempted to do my own eyeshadow ... you'd say something like ..."
Kurt could think of several things he'd say to her in terrible, off-center eye makeup. He snickered at one of them before she finished.
"... nice practice run, Berry." The voice she used for him sounded like hers, only squeakier. He snorted again.
"That's probably true. I can see you, looking like a parot. Alright, let's do this. We've only got five minutes."
"Will that be enough time?" Rachel asked, eyes big and even the strange florescent lights in the bathroom were sort-of flattering with her in The Dress.
He raised an eyebrow. "I've already worked a half-dozen miracles on you, Berry."
She lifed her hands in a no offense gesture. "Alright, Moses."
She closed her eyes and he stepped in close. "Rule one," he said, reaching for his bag and fishing out his palest liner. "You get darker as you go out from the center. The opposite makes your eyes look closed. And the panda look isn't going to be in for a while."
It was inexplicably strange -- the feeling of her dress against her thighs, and the fact that she was in the girls bathroom, with a gay soprano who she regularly went toe to toe with doing her makeup, explaining the rules of eye makeup like they were actual laws, his fingers keeping her head steady from her temple, and his other hand putting makeup on her right eyelid... she just wasn't used platonic affection from boys (or girls) who weren't using her... that she almost cried.
But then, of course, she was almost a professional, and yes, making herself cry on demand was infinately easier than the opposite, but still doable. Professional.
Finally, he brushed a long thumb across her cheekbone. "Open your eyes and turn around."
She complied, and forgot to breathe. "Is that me?" she asked, and Kurt peered at the same mirror, over her shoulder.
"Somewhere, under the fashionable and cool borrowed elements, your, um, charming self is chilling. Waiting to pounce." He winked saucily."Now get out there and make boys crash into lockers."
* * *
"I thought you were joking," Rachel whispered, so low that her voice hardly carried, which was quite unusual, as far as Things That Come From Rachel Berry go.
Kurt surveyed a lanky boy who had literally tri[[ed over his own feet because he was staring at Rachel Berry. "Obviously not," he said, regretting that it wasn't considered couth to sign his creations. Life so wasn't fair.
Rachel looked two parts uncomforable, and one part pleased. She opened her mouth, probably to offer him a hand, or ask if he was okay, when she heard a voice that made her whip her head around. "Berry?"
Kurt touched her elbow, grinning. "I think I hear my dad calling," he said, and sauntered off, humming beneath his breath.
Rachel turned around slowly, closing her eyes as a protectant from flavored beverages, just in case.
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! Hope you enjoyed. I've got two finals in the morning, but, hey, you sould all thank my suitemate, who was just sort of ridiculously cruel, for the update. I thought writing some Kurt would help me feel less hurt. It worked. :) Sorry about the lack of the promised pairing in this chapter. ;) Show me some review love and maybe we'll have an update tomorrow night.
