Disclaimer: None is mine. Shame, that.
AN: I am a horrible person. I know I am. I can't believe how ridiculously long it took me to get this chapter out. Two weeks? Really? I should be ashamed of myself. However, in my defense, I will say that work has been hectic, home life has been crazy, the weather has been ... well, typical for Ohio, and my seasonal allergies left my head feeling disconnected from my body for three straight days. Poor excuses, I know, but thanks for being patient with me. You guys all rock, your reviews are my favorite part of the day, and I am sure I will have the next chapter up in a much more timely manner for you guys.
I can't quite shake the feeling that I should be prefacing this chapter with the warning that what I'm about to do with my story is going to seem wildly AU and terribly unrealistic and something that just doesn't happen in real life (which, in all actuality, is simply not true, because I read about this one case in the city I grew up where – not the point), but please bear with me. I have a method to my madness, I promise. This story is extensively(ish) outlined, and all of this is happening for a reason.
And just so we're clear: I'm a closeted romantic, and very much not an angst writer. At all. Just … keep that in mind, if by the end of this chapter you start to feel suspicious.
Well, here goes nothing …
Chapter Four: An Excess of Testosterone
"No, Nick."
"... Come on, Kurt, just a little peek ..."
"No, Nick."
"I'll get them back to you before Warblers rehearsal tomorrow, I promise –"
"The last time I lent you my notes, they came back covered in an unknown substance. A green and sticky, unknown substance."
"Funny story, that, and totally not my fault. See, Russ and David were baking cupcakes ..."
"The time before that, my notes didn't come back at all."
"Again, funny story. You remember that paper airplane Wes confiscated from Zach after he'd flown it into Louis' hair?" A protracted pause. "Aw, come on, dude, help me out here. I'm already behind after being out for a week with the flu –"
"Nicholas, any sympathy I might have held for you died an inglorious death the second you referred to me as 'dude'."
"But I only need the last bit, that part about the one dude who killed that other dude over a chicken or whatever –"
The shoulder bag of a student passing in the opposite direction bumped into Kurt, knocking him slightly askew. Huffing in annoyance, he reached up to fix his hair, his expression unimpressed as he asked Nick archly, "A chicken, Nick? Really? You didn't hear a word of today's lecture, did you?"
"I did so!" Nick's protest was emphatic, and also a blatant lie, and they both knew it. Nick sat in the seat diagonal to Kurt's during their World History class, and Kurt had seen for himself how his fellow Warbler had spent the entirety of their lesson gazing wistfully out of one of the four arched, floor-to-ceiling windows situated on the far wall, watching in apparent fascination as the rain and ice spattered against the paned glass. Kurt knew Nick had not been paying one bit of attention to their teacher for the whole lecture, and he knew Nick knew he knew, so when he continued to gaze at the other boy cynically without saying anything, Nick's next excuse died in his throat, and his shoulders slumped dejectedly.
"It's not my fault, Kurt, really." He sounded miserable and contrite. "I just can't concentrate in that room." He waved vaguely over his shoulder in the direction they had just left. "I try to pay attention, I really do, it's just … there's so many eyes, man, you know?"
Kurt did indeed know. Though he himself still managed to take precise, thorough, evenly-measured notes (color-coded and cross-referenced, naturally) every lecture with little difficulty, Kurt could understand how others would find the World History classroom slightly … discomfiting. Their history teacher, one Mrs. Dunmore, was an old, slightly senile woman who had been teaching at Dalton Academy for nearly five decades. The widow of one of the more prestigious Headmasters of Dalton - which explained her continued presence at the school, even after years of basing her grading scale upon how "scruffy" the boys' hairstyles were - Mrs. Dunmore was short and stooped, with wispy white hair, a willowy bone structure, and such a wobbling lilt to her voice it was almost completely impossible to understand a word she spoke. She was one of three female faculty members currently employed at the school (apart from Madame Gerbere the French teacher, and Miss Stapleton, the school nurse), and had, for reasons known only to her increasingly failing mind, decided to decorate her classroom with rose-patterned china pieces, moth-eaten doilies, and painting after painting of cats. Portraits of austere-looking Persians, sitting primly on purple silk cushions; water-colors of tabby and calico kittens frolicking in green pastures; intricately sewn tapestries depicting images of the regal Siamese, or of the noble Russian blue – any and every cat breed one could possibly think of, Mrs. Dunmore had a rendering of it somewhere in her classroom. They were all hung at varying heights and angles against the wainscoting, leaving absolutely no space of wall uncovered, and effectively ensuring that every student sitting in the room would feel dozens of unblinking, yellow-green stares boring holes into the back of their head, making the hairs on their arms and neck stand on end, and leaving them feeling jittery and sick with paranoia.
"Have you ever counted them?" Nick continued, his own eyes widening with fright, and Kurt was rather impressed with the (as far as he knew) totally heterosexual male's courage in openly displaying his aversion to a pack of painted kittens. "Ninety-seven! Ninety-seven pairs of eyes, Kurt, and all of them staring at us." Nick shook his head faintly, as if trying to dispel the disturbing images from his head. "How are you not weirded out by that?"
"How do you not care enough about your history grade to ignore the gazes of a few imaginary felines?" Kurt countered pointedly, pulling absently at the shoulder strap of his bag as he and Nick wended their way down the long, marble hallway. It was lunchtime, and the two boys were slowly progressing along the packed corridor with their fellow students, shuffling along with the loud, raucous crowd in the direction of the spiral staircase that would lead them down to the ground floor and, ultimately, to the dining hall.
Nick stumbled over a non-existent bump in the floor, which was a fairly common occurrence with him. He claimed his solar plexus was off-kilter due to an unmentionable childhood incident involving a Great Dane and a ceiling fan, but Kurt was skeptical. It seemed to him as though Nick simply couldn't be bothered to pick up his feet far enough when walking.
"There is nothing imaginary about those cats, man," Nick muttered darkly to Kurt, once he had regained his footing. He shifted his books from beneath one arm to the other in an agitated manner. "They are demonic. I'm being serious!" he cried, when Kurt merely snorted in amusement at his hysteria. "They sense my fear, Kurt, and one of these days they'll use it against me. I have dreams about them stalking me in the dead of night, and I swear I've seen that freaky Maine Coon portrait blink at me."
Kurt remained silent, rolling his eyes indulgently as Nick continued on with his theatrics. Even though Nick was one of the Warbler members he had lost his first Warbler solo audition to (a rigged audition, Kurt was sure of it), Kurt found it surprisingly easy to like him. Aside from a poor immune system, an inability to keep foodstuffs away from important papers, and an unfortunate habit of convincing himself inanimate objects were out to destroy him, the boy had a bright, easy-going personality. In a way, Nick sometimes even reminded Kurt of his step-brother: like Finn, Nick's bounding energy, propensity for tripping over even the flattest of surfaces, and shaggier-than-average hair always put Kurt in mind of a particularly large-pawed, floppy-eared puppy, eager to please and always looking to make friends.
Nick was muttering to himself now, wholly fixated on the eyes as they began descending the spiral staircase. Easily ignoring his companion's brief departure from the land of the sane, Kurt took in their surroundings and had to bite back a smile, his stomach and heart fluttering as they always did whenever he approached the very steps he had caught his first sight of his boyfriend, Blaine. The sweeping, elegant spiral staircase – along with its stained-glass domed ceiling – was Kurt's favorite area in the entire school, and not only because of his accidental encounter with a certain dapper lead soloist - though that did have a lot to do with it. The all-marble staircase was easily the grandest feature in the main school building, and Kurt could admire all the money and man hours it must have taken the original architects to create such an impressive, intricately designed stairwell, though admittedly it did puzzle him why they had felt such a grandiose statement was necessary in an all-boy's private school. It was mostly the nostalgic, lover-of-musicals, sappily romantic side of Kurt's brain that had him almost convinced the curved steps and contrasting iron banister had been designed specifically for his and Blaine's first encounter, no matter what Thad and his Guide to Everything Ever Known About Dalton Academy, Most of Which is Completely Useless Information said, and Kurt constantly found himself making excuses to pass by that particular set of stairs; and though Kurt would kiss Rachel Berry before ever admitting it, his daily route to and from class was twice as long as it needed to be, just so he could spring up and down those stairs in an embarrassingly giddy manner, four times a day, humming "Teenage Dream" to himself as he did so.
They were passing one of the long mirrors hanging against the wall, and Kurt, who happened to glance over the top of Nick's head, nearly winced at the so obviously smitten look he caught his reflection wearing. Usually Kurt would have put much more effort into keeping his amorous idiocy at a minimum (zero-bullying policy aside, the boys of Dalton took any and every opportunity presented to make each other squirm with embarrassment), had he not had it on good authority – and Wes and David could be considered as such, especially when they had YouTube footage as proof – that Blaine had been caught multiple times staring dreamily at the staircase as he walked past, resulting in a painful collision with a nearby wall on more than one occasion.
Needless to say, hearing that little nugget of information had added an extra bounce to Kurt's step that had yet to completely fade away, not to mention a new Top Watched video to his YouTube playlist.
When they reached the ground floor, Kurt turned to his companion once more, and saw that Nick was still mumbling morosely to himself, head hung despairingly as he dragged the soles of his shiny black loafers against the shimmering floor. Kurt would be lying if he said he didn't feel a tad smug at his friend's expense – after all, Kurt didn't exactly experience the warm and fuzzies while sitting in that mad woman's class for fifty minutes, yet he still managed to take notes, thank you very much – but after a few more minutes of silence between the pair, in which Nick sighed despondently half a dozen times and tripped twice more, Kurt soon found himself rolling his eyes again, huffing slightly as he unclasped the bag situated against his hip and searched through its contents for his history notes.
"If these come back to me in less than the pristine condition I left them, I will not be held accountable for my actions, got it?" He thrust the notebook into Nick's surprised hands. "Not a wrinkle, Nick, you hear me?"
Nick's face lit up at once with a relieved smile. "Thanks, Kurt, I owe you one," he replied gratefully, eagerly flipping to the middle of the book. His eyes landed on one of the pages, and the Warbler stopped in his tracks, staring down at the paper dumbly. The boys behind him grumbled and shouldered their way past, but Nick paid them no mind, too busy focusing on Kurt's notebook with what seemed to be avid fascination. Kurt, who had stopped walking when Nick had, watched with curiosity and just a little impatience as the other boy leaned in closer, squinted his eyes carefully, then straightened back with a startled guffaw. Kurt's brow shot to his hairline, noting how Nick's ears tinged pink as the other boy clapped a hand over his mouth, not quite muffling the snort that escaped him. Confused by Nick's bizarre behavior, and wondering what in the name of all things cashmere his history notes contained that could possibly have the other boy snickering like that, Kurt peered over his friend's shoulder at the page in question, which so happened to be dated for the twelfth of February. Instantly, Kurt felt his face flood with heat. Damn it all, he had completely forgotten about that particular doodle ...
The look on Nick's face would have been priceless, had it not been solely at Kurt's expense. His eyes were positively glowing with suppressed mirth as he noted lightly, "Real-life Blaine isn't anywhere near as flexible as this one." He was clearly struggling to keep a straight face as he said this, and Kurt wanted nothing more than to sink through the marble floor as he watched the other boy turn the notebook sideways and scrutinize the sketch carefully, not unlike a museum curator would with a fine piece of art. "It's cute how you made him taller, though."
Humiliated that his wildly imaginative, bordering on obsessive caricatures of him and Blaine pre-earth-shattering-kiss had been seen by an another's eyes – and, dear Prada, why did it have to be Nick, of all people? – Kurt snatched the notebook out of Nick's hands, certain his face had turned a shade of red only clowns and serial killers could pull off. Ignoring Nick's indignant yelp, he jabbed a finger into his fellow Warbler's chest.
"Mention this to anyone, and you will regret it." He feared the threat was lessened by the fact that, in his embarrassment, his voice had risen into the dreaded Mickey Mouse range. "I mean it, Nick. I have friends much bigger than you who owe me favors."
Nick was openly laughing by this point, which was unfortunately very much not the cowering in fear reaction Kurt had been hoping for, and he scowled heavily at the other boy as he shoved his notebook back into his bag, his neck and face completely on fire by this point. Nick could forget about ever borrowing his notes again, Kurt thought to himself, crossing his arms and glaring down at the shaking form in front of him, which was nearly doubled over as Nick chortled heartily. Kurt cursed silently as he felt himself flush to the roots of his hair. Why, oh why hadn't he destroyed those drawings when he'd had the chance?
Nick's loud guffaws were beginning to attract the attention and curious gazes of their fellow peers. Just as Kurt began weighing the pros and cons between flouncing away in a dignified rage and socking Nick in the mouth, a loud call of, "Kurt! Nick!" sounded from the other end of the hall. The next moment, Thad had appeared at Kurt's elbow, bag brushing against his leg as he bounced from foot to foot, positively thrumming with repressed energy.
"Have you heard the news?" he asked the other two, sounding breathless, his voice quivering with excitement. He was rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet, clasping and unclasping his hands in front of him. "The incredible, fantastic, glorious news?"
One of the first things Kurt had learned at Dalton – other than do not mess with Blaine's haircare routine if you fancy the use of all ten fingers, and never, under any circumstances, feed David after midnight – was that Thad could be a tad … loquacious. He elaborated with an abundance of expressive words and aggressive hand gestures whenever he spoke, had the odd habit of developing a strangely acute English accent when overcome with strong emotion, and as was often the case with a boy who spent the majority of his free time reading a thesaurus in search for more dramatic usage of vocabulary, Thad would spend an inordinate amount of energy building up the suspense in those around him before announcing to all and sundry something disappointingly anti-climatic, like how the restroom on the third floor had run out of moist towelettes, or that Warbler Devon had developed seasonal allergies.
To put it bluntly, Thad was Dalton's residential drama king, and everyone was well aware of this fact.
"Let me guess," Kurt drawled, turning away from Nick, who aside from the occasional hiccup, had managed to regain his composure, "the lunch food committee has finally agreed to your numerous requests for Foie Gras Fridays?"
Thad shook his head in the negative, and the light from the chandeliers hanging above them glinted against the copious amount of product he had rubbed into his hair. "Something infinitely better than that!" he declared, clapping his hands together and beaming. The smile dimmed slightly as he took in Nick's disheveled appearance for the first time. "What's up with you?"
Nick's eyes slid over to Kurt, who did not appreciate the distinctly mischievous expression he found there. Instantly wary, Kurt tried to communicate non-verbally the amount of physical and emotional anguish the other would suffer if he said anything, but Nick either did not notice or did not care, because the next words he directed at Thad – "Did you know Kurt's an artist?" – were said with a deceptively innocent smile.
Kurt vowed revenge as Thad glanced between the two of them, confused. He seemed to be on the verge of asking for clarification; Kurt put a stamp to that immediately. "What was that about news?" he cut swiftly across the older boy, while aiming a furtive kick at Nick. The pained grunt Nick emitted had Kurt smiling in grim satisfaction.
Thad still looked puzzled, but never one to turn down an offer to gab, he was soon continuing on with his enthralling tale as though an interruption had never occurred. "Well," he said with relish, "obviously I didn't believe the gossip at first, when Warbler Russ told me because, honestly, he exaggerates –" the irony in this statement was not lost on Kurt – "but then I was walking down the science wing just now, and I saw it. With my own eyes! Ha!" Thad crowed happily, spreading his arms wide and tipping his head back in exultation. "Isn't this just marvelous?" He laughed exuberantly at the ceiling – so exuberantly, in fact, that many of the boys entering the lunchroom paused to glance over at him in alarm – then lunged, pulling Nick into an over-enthusiastic, fringing-on-inappropriate hug. He tried to drag Kurt in as well, but Kurt dodged his outstretched hand with practiced ease, frowning reprovingly at the other boy. As Kurt had had to explain to the more tactile Warbler boys – multiple times, in Thad's case – he simply did not do the rumpled-uniform look.
"Never, in all my years at Dalton, had I ever expected this to happen," Thad continued, blissfully unaware that the tight hold he had around Nick's neck was slowly choking the life out of the shorter boy (though coincidentally, the bluish hue to his friend's face reminded Kurt of those fabulous gloves he simply had to buy during his next trip to the mall). "It's not like it's a normal thing to happen, am I right? I mean, sure I've hoped and wished and fantasized about it – because, you know, who hasn't? – ah, no offense, Kurt."
"None taken." Kurt nodded as though he understood what the other was talking about – when clearly, he had no idea, seeing as he did not speak Thad-anese– and gestured for him to continue, experience having taught him it was best to let the exceptionally verbose Warbler rattle on until he either ran out of breath, forgot what he was talking about, or became distracted by something else.
"It just makes the day seem so much more … more … paradisaical, doesn't it?" Thad gushed, scrunching his eyes and sighing robustly. He mussed Nick's hair affectionately before releasing him from his clutches, and Nick staggered backwards, gasping for air and rubbing gingerly at his neck.
Thad then rounded on Kurt (who took a precautionary step back) and asked in a rush, "So what do you think?" He plundered on before Kurt could respond. "Pretty spectacular news, right? I immediately thought about T.J. when I heard, you know, because of that thing he said that one time we did that incredible rendition of that song – which reminds me, do you guys know if I left my calculator in the meeting hall this morning? It's not important, I don't have calculus today, but when Devon asked to borrow it and it was missing … I should probably find Devon anyway, see if he's heard about the news. He doesn't have lunch this hour, does he? What's his phone number, anyway?"
Thad was speaking so fast by this point his mouth was little more than a pink blur, and Kurt could do nothing more than stare in awe, unable to process exactly what the older boy was saying. Visually, he knew Thad's mouth was opening and noise was being produced, but his ears were having difficulty sorting through all the gibberish to properly translate.
Fortunately, Thad's last question had not required a response, for he had whipped out his phone and was now whistling tunelessly to himself as he quickly scrolled through his contacts list. "Ah, there he is." He pressed a few buttons and lifted the phone to his ear. "I don't know if he'll answer, though, he might still be in Vector's calc cla – hello? Devon! Have you heard the news? I know! Incredible, right? Yeah … yeah, that's what I thought!"
And without so much as another glance at either Kurt or Nick, Thad ambled off, phone pressed to his ear, his free hand gesticulating exorbitantly as he spoke.
When Thad was out of sight, Kurt and Nick glanced at each other, both feeling as though they had just survived through a particularly talkative wind storm. Nick was first to break the silence and when he spoke, he did so slowly, while wearing a bemused expression. "Did I miss something, or did Thad not actually tell us what the big news was?"
Nick was correct, of course, though Kurt could not say he was very surprised by this. Thad had a knack for talking circles around people, without ever actually reaching his point. Thad was a light thinker (which was Kurt's polite way of calling the boy flighty), and was renowned for leaving conversations midway through, even if they were ones he initiated. The boys of Dalton rarely ever took offense to this mildly abrasive personality quirk, however: they had all grown to expect it from him, and some would go so far as to say they took comfort in Thad's more scatter-brained tendencies. It had sort of become his thing.
"I think at this point it's best not to ask," Kurt commented carefully, and he and Nick looked to one another again in silent agreement.
Nick cleared his throat. "You know, I could still really use those history notes ..."
"Nicholas, don't even try."
When Kurt and Nick had recovered enough from their encounter with Hurricane Thad, they entered the dining hall behind a long line of their hungry peers. One sweeping look around the crowded, bustling cafeteria was all Kurt needed to come to the conclusion that Thad was not the only one in the school overcome with sensory overload at the prospect of this so-called "big news." Boys all over the room were hunched over their lunch trays, whispering frantically to their table fellows; necks were craned and ears were perked as some of the students stared at the set of doors leading into the hall, their gazes intense and non-blinking as they waited for who knew what to walk into the room; even a few of the bolder souls had their phones out in plain sight of the beady-eyed lunch monitors, their thumbs flying across the keys as they relayed information back and forth with those of Dalton who were currently in lecture.
But something else, as Kurt soon realized, was off about the lunch room crowd. It had quickly come to his attention that no matter where he looked, boys were behaving very peculiarly. Some were assessing their reflections in the backs of their spoons, others were combing their fingers compulsively through their hair. Blazers were being smoothed down, ties straightened, breath checked and re-checked for freshness; Kurt had to do a double-take when an unfamiliar senior student walked past, stuffing what appeared to be an entire pack of Trident gum into his mouth, wrappers and all. All around Kurt his peers were performing these strange behaviors with only a few slight variations, interspersed with the occasional bout of hysterical guffawing, excessive high-fiving, and an alarming amount of bicep-flexing.
As Kurt took in the scene dubiously, ducking out of the way of a gaggle of boys who were sniffing each other's armpits as they walked past, an outlandish thought stumbled, unbidden, into his mind: Could it be possible that all of these boys were actually … primping?
Wes, David, and a handful of other Warblers were waving frantically from their usual table. Kurt slowly weaved through the rowdy crowd toward them (dodging three fist-bumps and a dog pile as he did so), with Nick following closely at his heels.
"Did you hear?" David asked immediately, before Kurt had managed so much as a hello. His words tumbled out with a rushed urgency, and Kurt paused while removing his bag from around his shoulder, staring at him. There was a feverish glint in David's eyes that Kurt did not trust: he looked almost deranged.
"About this supposed 'incredible, fantastic, glorious' news, you mean?" Kurt remarked lightly, recovering himself as he settled down next to Jeff, who was busy leaning all of his weight on the back two legs of his chair, his long arms stretched away from him as he attempted to keep his balance. Kurt sent him a questioning look, but Jeff only grinned in response, his chair wobbling precariously when Nick threw himself into the empty seat on the other side of him.
"I take it you ran into Thad, then?" Wes was smirking at Kurt knowingly, hands resting behind his head in a leisurely manner; he was one of the few people in the room who looked completely unaffected by the turn of gossip. As if to prove this observation, he turned to David and said loftily, "I don't believe it, myself."
David's eyes nearly fell out of his head at Wes' declaration, and several of the other Warblers gasped in shock. "Don't jinx it!" Zach – a thick-bodied blond with the worst dye-job Kurt had ever laid eyes on – yelped from the other side of Nick, and Wes' lips turned inward as he fought a grin. Kurt himself had begun snickering into his hand, but he stopped immediately when David focused his unnervingly intense stare back on him.
"So is it true?" the senior boy pressed, crouching forward over the table, and peering at Kurt in a manner that had him suppressing the urge to scoot his chair back a few inches, at least until he was out of arm's reach.
"Of course it's true," a deep voice interjected, and Kurt saw Louis poke his head around T.J.'s at the other end of the table. A carrot stick was dangling out of his mouth. "He wouldn't lie about something this important."
"He has before," Jeff pointed out, nearly smacking Kurt in the face with his wildly flapping arms as his chair almost lost its footing. He righted himself with an ungainly thrusting movement before continuing. "Remember that one time last semester, when he said he'd been sick in bed all day and had to miss Warblers rehearsal -?"
"That was different," Wes interjected immediately, his eyes sliding briefly over in Kurt's direction.
Jeff gave a wobbly shrug. "Just saying."
Across the table from Jeff, Zach was frowning. "But didn't Thad say he saw -?"
"Thad once tried to convince me he had met his own doppelganger while shopping for belts at Dillards." Wes was looking flatly at Zach. "Not the most reliable of sources."
"Still, he seemed more lucid that usual when he said -"
The conversation continued on in this fashion around Kurt for a solid ten minutes, and not for the first time since arriving to school this morning, he was feeling decidedly out of the loop. This was getting ridiculous. It was only lunch, and yet Kurt had already found himself taking part in two of the most confusing conversations he had ever held. Which was saying a lot, considering he had spent countless hours with Brittany, ruminating over the nefarious kitty hijinks of one Lord Tubbington.
"Was who telling the truth about what?" Kurt eventually demanded above the other boys' voices, his patience wearing thin as the other boys continued to ignore him. He took a dark sort of comfort in the way all the Warblers at the table jumped visibly at his yell and turned to him in surprise. And, yeah, Kurt knew he sounded peevish and probably looked more than a little unbalanced by this point, but he honestly felt himself justified: it was noisy in the dining hall, he hadn't caught a glimpse of Blaine in nearly three hours, and not one person had complimented his scarf yet. Clearly, Kurt was having an off day.
There was silence along the table, and then David sighed in a way that had zero positive effect on Kurt's mood. "The text!" he said simply, as if that was a satisfactory explanation. When Kurt merely stared uncomprehendingly, David sighed again, pulled out his phone and began waving it impertinently under Kurt's nose. The patronizing look the older boy wore as he did this had Kurt visualizing himself snatching the stupid thing out of David's hand and chucking it across the hall. "Blaine's text! Is what he said in it actually true?"
"You know, I really don't appreciate your tone, David, and furthermore –" Kurt's brain caught up with what David had said, and he froze, finger raised and pointed at the older boy, his words stalled in his throat. A text? Had Kurt's ears heard correctly? A text from Blaine? Was the older boy honestly trying to imply that an entire room full of boys had reduced themselves to blithering, witless ingrates ... because of a text?
A thought occurred to Kurt, and he felt the corners of his mouth pull down in a slight frown. He felt stung and more than a little annoyed that no one - particularly the gossip-mongerer, Blaine - had thought to let him in on the secret.
Unless this was all just some elaborate prank?
"You still look confused," Wes noted cheerfully.
Saying Kurt was still confused could easily have been nominated the Most Redundant Statement of the Day. "So, let me see if I have this right," he began slowly, head tilting to the side. "Are you saying that Blaine sent a text to all of you -" Kurt gestured to the room as a whole "- about whatever it is this splendiferous news may be, which has inadvertently led to the loss of brain functions in almost every boy in this lunch room?"
"Of course not," David said with a roll of his eyes, as though this was obvious. "Blaine texted me first -"
"- who texted me," smirked Wes. "So I showed Louis -"
"- because we're in the same English class," nodded Louis. "And then I relayed the news to Jeff -"
"- who sent it to Thad," T.J. supplied, as Jeff was too busy trying not to crack his head open on the table to pay any attention to the ongoing conversation. "Who spent the next hour texting it to everyone on his contacts list -"
"And thus, this," finished Wes, sweeping his hands extravagantly, indicating the entirety of the dining hall, where the boys of lunch hour A were still acting as though their sensibilities and common sense had momentarily jumped ship.
Kurt listened to this explanation in silence, staring around at the bright, enthusiastic faces of his friends. It was amazing that, even in reference to gossip, the Warbler boys were uniformly organized. The vigor and efficiency with which they operated was often times a remarkable, and terrifying, thing to behold, though Kurt could not quite shake the feeling that he was still missing a key piece of the conversation.
"So." Zach leaned forward in his chair eagerly, ducking his head as he asked in a conspiratorial whisper, "D'you think the uniform will be the same?"
"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed David. "Of course won't be the same, that goes without saying."
"I don't know," interrupted Wes, puckering his lips thoughtfully. "If what Blaine says is true - which I refuse to believe until the proper evidence has been presented, by the way - then obviously it has something to do with equality of rights. There's no way they'll infringe on that by switching the uniforms ..."
"No, they wouldn't do that to us," said Louis, shaking his head slowly, looking horrified at the very thought. "We've all been waiting for this day for years. No way they'd cheapen it. That'd be a low blow."
"Well, it's not exactly as though there's a protocol set for this sort of thing," Wes retorted, his voice slipping further and further into Head Warbler mode with each passing second. "If what's been said is true, then clearly some serious politics came into play here, which is why I'm absolutely convinced -"
"Save it for gavel-time, Wes ..."
"Keep my gavel out of this!"
"Is this the part where Rod Serling strolls through the doors and begins narrating about the social significance and subtle ironies of teenage drug use?" Kurt asked rhetorically, not even sure his question could be heard over his friends' rapidly escalating argument. He was therefore understandably surprised when an amused voice answered him.
"As commendable as that reference was, I think you may be overestimating these guys' familiarity with late 1950's television shows, Kurt."
Blaine had finally arrived. Kurt took a moment to squeal internally (because, dear Dolce and Gabbana, Blaine knew The Twilight Zone – could he be any more perfect?) before spinning around in his seat to face his boyfriend. Blaine was standing very close to the back of Kurt's chair, looking as delicious as he had that morning, if a little more alert. His warm eyes sparkling as he gazed down at Kurt in such a way that had all previous thoughts zooming abruptly from the taller boy's head. Who needed thoughts, anyway? What a waste of time and energy those were, when Kurt could just sit and stare and appreciate instead.
It was clear that Kurt had developed a bit of a problem when it came to Blaine. When the other boy was out of sight, Kurt was more or less able to function like a regular human being – breathing and talking at the same time, for instance, was hardly ever an issue. The second his dashing boyfriend came into view, however, insensible Kurt appeared, and with a vengeance. Just like now, actually. Having not been given the preparation time necessary to have those eyes and that smile directed so intensely on him, there was a slight delay between Kurt's brain and his mouth as his nerves momentarily went haywire. So, instead of issuing the much-practiced though no less sultry, "Hey," he had originally planned on knocking Blaine sideways with, Kurt's greeting came out more as a breathy and unintelligible, "Nnnghhh." He mentally smacked himself the moment the sound left him, and felt his ears begin to burn as he glared halfheartedly around the table, where the chuckles and snickers of the Warblers were being hastily stifled behind their hands.
However, Blaine seemed to enjoy Kurt's distinct lack of coherency, if the widening of his smile was any indication. "Nnnghhh to you, too," he replied teasingly, stooping down to kiss Kurt lightly on the cheek. Kurt felt his face flush at the open display of affection, though he smiled widely all the same. Blaine laughed rather bashfully as their friends began ooohing obnoxiously (all the while in perfect harmony, incidentally), then reached down and feathered his fingers against Kurt's hairline; an action Kurt would have halted immediately, had his brain not just turned to mush. As it was, Blaine's touch felt freaking incredible, so he decided to let it slide. Just this once. "Have I told you you're adorable yet today?"
"The tally is up to three so far." Kurt's eyes fluttered, and he was not even bothered by the mimed retching noises sounding from all sides as he smiled sappily up at his boyfriend. He was just happy to be speaking English again.
"Only three?" Blaine gasped playfully. "I'm a horrible boyfriend."
"Ugh, spare us," Wes groaned behind them; Kurt leveled a piercing glare over his shoulder.
Nick was nodding along in agreement with Wes. "Yeah. We're happy for you and all, and are totally supportive of you getting your gay on with each other, but seriously, dudes - my cavities are starting to cry."
Blaine immediately set off in a calm, yet no less spirited monologue about the importance of showing affection to one's significant other, and it was around this moment when two things happened in quick succession. One: Kurt, having glanced idly about the dining hall as Blaine began to speak, noticed with a vague interest that the noise of the surrounding boys had all but died away, their eyes all turned to stare intently in Kurt and his friends' direction, leaving the conversation at the Warbler table the focal point in the room. And two: a girl appeared at Blaine's elbow.
Which, Kurt realized in hindsight, more than likely accounted for the sudden silence and intense gazes of their fellow peers.
The girl was - well, female was the first word to pop into Kurt's head, as obvious as that was. She had a pretty face, though nothing remarkable. Her eyes were wide and brown, her cheeks rosy. Her dark hair was short and choppy, her stature was average and curvy, and she was wearing an ill-fitting Dalton blazer that had obviously been tailored originally for a male, paired along with a blue-and-gray plaid skirt.
"Dear Lord," David breathed out, first to break the awestruck silence, his face the picture of poorly-contained bliss, "tell me I'm not hallucinating."
Blaine was clearly struggling to hold in a smile as he gestured to the girl standing next to him. "Guys," he directed at the table, shooting a quick wink in Kurt's direction, "I'd like you all to meet Casey Dewitt, our newest transfer student."
Seemingly completely at her ease, as though being announced as the only female pupil in an all-boys' school was a normal occurrence for her, Casey gave them all a little finger wave and a smile. "Nice to meet you all." Her voice was bright and cheerful, her enunciation clear and unassuming, and with just the slightest hint of a southern drawl.
There was a collective inhale from all the heterosexual males in the room. For one fleeting second, everything seemed to pause, as movement within the lunchroom was momentarily suspended. All was completely still: no rustling of books and papers, no clinking of knives and forks, no shifting of nervous bodies in their chairs ... hardly a breath could be heard in the deafening silence. And then ...
CRASH! Jeff had fallen over in his chair, tumbling to the hardwood floor with a loud bang that thundered across the vaulted ceiling and against the wainscoted walls. And that was all it took for the dam to break. There was a surge of sound as boys all across the hall began whooping and hollering with delight. Catcalls could be heard floating from all sides of the room, rapid chattering and loud guffaws rose up from the boys who were grouped around the tables; chest-thumping and fist-bumping had resumed with a new vigor, and every stick of gum located within the vicinity of the dining hall was now being chewed obscenely fast.
Every boy standing in the lunch hall was currently experiencing some sort of violent reaction to the abrupt presence of a female in their midst, and the Warbler boys were no exception. David was gargling nonsensically, drool dribbling down his chin. Wes was staring obviously, wide-eyed with disbelief. Jeff still lay immobile upon the floor, gazing up at the girl with his mouth hanging open. Nick's eyes were twitching, Louis' hair was quivering, T.J. was pinching himself, Zach was murmuring his thanks to every deity he could think of (and some he made up on the spot). Blaine had a hand pressed to his mouth as he laughed quietly at his friends' idiotic expressions ...
... And Kurt?
"That color does nothing for your skin tone."
Well, Kurt was Kurt.
AN2: Yeah, I went there. Please don't hate me, though feel free to review and call me out on my horrible attempt at thickening the plot. I'm just trying to write a bit of humor, and honestly I find nothing funnier than the thought of a girl entering the prestigious halls of Dalton Academy and sending the stuffy boys that go there into a hormone-crazed frenzy. And I know I haven't explained why she is there or how she managed to get into an all-boys' school, but it's coming. I promise I'm going to explain myself and try my hardest to make it all as plausible as possible.
Oh, and before anyone asks: no, neither Kurt or Blaine are going to find themselves fighting for each other's affections over Casey. Casey is a girl, and our darling boys are – as Blaine so wonderfully put it – %100 gay. I won't do a disservice to the characters the writers of Glee created by making either Kurt or Blaine question that … um … again. This story is going to stay Kurt-centric, and will be full to the brim of Klaine-y goodness.
Please take a moment to review. I was very hesitant about this chapter - freaking hate it, to be honest - and could really use some feedback about it.