Story: The Campaign Man
Author: Queeny C
Disclaimer: Believe me when I say, if I owned Glee, I'd be rubbing it in everyone's faces. Ryan Murphy is my God.
A/N: So between obsessively listening to Ke$ha's The Harold Song (I swear, but for the 'unshaved face' line this song is quite literally the story of my relationship) and eating an amount of chocolate that makes my morning run more necessary than usual, I think I'm slowly piecing myself back together.
Your well wishes and complimentary reviews do wonders, so thanks guys. I forget sometimes that there is something beautiful about the camaraderie of fanfic society. It's amazing how words from strangers are pulling me through all this.
Anyway, enough whining and waxing poetic. So this chapter actually kinda snuck up on me. I guess I'd always vaguely had this idea, but when I started writing it down it just…became this entity all its own and wrote itself. Also, Perchance to Wake, I completely agree. Music was always in the cards for these two. Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter Six: Til I See It In Your Eyes
"You know you don't have to eat dinner here every night just because I'm giving you the place for free next week?"
Kurt looked up with a sheepish smile as Chris slid into the seat across from him and propped his face up on his chin with a cheeky smirk.
Chris was a really nice guy. He was smart and very talkative and damn could he cook. Plus, he'd lit up instantly when Kurt had proposed the idea of using his brand new restaurant as a venue for a swanky congressional soirée.
It was for all of those reason, plus the fact that Rachel was driving him absolutely insane, that Kurt had spent the past three afternoons enjoying one of Chris's custom creations for dinner and pouring over his sketch book in pleasant silence.
"Don't sell yourself short, Chris, I'm totally here for the food," Kurt assured his new friend as he took a pointed bite of his fresca chicken salad.
Chris smiled appreciatively. "So what are you working on then? Something for the campaign?" He politely did not try to peer over the angled edge of Kurt's notebook.
"Not tonight," Kurt laughed, turning his book slightly so that Chris could admire the rough sketch Kurt had been working on for Rachel's wedding dress. There were perks to being so well connected to up-and-coming celebrities. His clothes may not be on a runway, but one of his masterpieces would definitely be featured on Broadway's newest star come October.
"Wow," Chris nodded, his eyes blowing wide in admiration. "You're incredibly talented, you know?"
Kurt laughed. "I know."
Chris's eyes lit up a little more and he joined in the chuckle.
Rachel's dress (her whole wedding preparation, really) had been plaguing Kurt for weeks now. The girl had perhaps improved slightly in the fashion department (for which Kurt was taking complete credit) but she still could not be trusted to make big decisions on her own. Especially since she was marrying Kurt's brother and Kurt was therefore required to be not only present but a participant in the ceremony.
"I like the gold star detailing. Very original," Chris complimented, studying the tiny sequined additions Kurt had drawn along the sweetheart-neckline and continued down in a vague starburst pattern across the bust and asymmetrically down one side.
"Rachel is all about gold stars," Kurt explained with a shrug. "It just…it wouldn't be her without them."
"You're a really good friend to have put so much thought into this on top of all you do with your job."
Kurt felt heat rush to his cheeks. "It's nothing really. More a self-preservation technique than anything else. I'd hate to see what Rachel wore to her wedding if left to her own devices." He actually shuddered at the thought.
Chris laughed appreciatively then grew quiet and sort of pensive. Kurt would be the first to admit that after only a handful of conversations he didn't know the man well at all, but silence didn't really seem like Chris's thing. "You okay," he asked after the quiet had grown almost awkward.
Chris's face flushed. "Kurt," He sighed, running a hand through his honey-blonde hair, "I've been trying to talk my self out of this and then back into and then to come up with a smooth, appropriate way to do it, but as it turns out I'm not good at much that isn't cooking."
Kurt frowned, utterly confused.
"So I'm just going to lay my cards on the table because at this point, any sort of answer will be a relief from all the worrying and wondering. Would you…would you maybe like to go out sometime? To a place that isn't my restaurant? On a date? With me?"
Kurt sucked in a surprised breath and studied Chris's adorably flushed cheeks and the way his teeth worked his lip and sighed because if he'd met Chris even two months ago he'd have leapt at such an opportunity. But this wasn't two months ago and damn Blaine Anderson for being so perfect and so perfectly unavailable.
But that was just it, wasn't it? Blaine was unavailable. And he'd not made any sort of hints that he was interested in Kurt. And maybe it was time to put all this crushing away for a little while (though he'd still be compulsively seeking out votes because that was, after all, his job now. It had nothing to do with his pact to himself. Nothing whatsoever.)
"Okay," he said after a minute longer. Chris seemed just as surprised by the answer as Kurt felt.
~K~B~
"David, what are we doing here?" Wes moaned, couching his face in his hands and sighing in well-practiced long-suffering.
Blaine took the third seat at the small, circular table and raised a curious eyebrow. "Did you bring us to a karaoke bar? Really, David? Are we twenty?"
"Oh shut up," David laughed, punching Wes lightly in the arm. "And lighten up both of you. Jesus! I should never have let the two of you do the law school thing. It's made you both uptight adults."
"David, we're thirty. We are adults."
"Again Wes, shut up," David laughed. "Look, I'm only in town for, like, two days. I want to see my best friends who never bother to come to Boston—"
"Hi! I'm kind of in the middle of a campaign—"
"—and I want to do something fun! This is New York for God's sake. I thought karaoke was decidedly mellow compared to some of the shenanigans I could get up to here."
"Well he has a point there," Wes nodded resolutely. David had been his best friend long enough to know when not to argue.
Blaine just shook his head. "I'm pretty sure Kurt will kill me if my face is in the tabloids tomorrow because I dropped into a bar."
"Please," David scoffed. "I already paid the bouncer to keep paparazzi out. I'm not an idiot."
Blaine shook his head. "You are just horrible," he sighed. "But fine. I mean, we're here now right?"
"Right," David grinned widely, waving the waiter over and ordering a round of beers. "Let's just enjoy the show, pick on the crappy singers, maybe go on stage and embarrass ourselves once or twice and go home like the old fuddy-duddies we apparently are."
"I am not a fuddy-duddy," Wes protested with a frown. "I'm a lawyer. It's different."
"It so isn't," Blaine sighed with a shake of his head.
~K~B~
Kurt was feeling pretty stupid.
Not that this was an entirely new feeling for him, especially when it came to being on dates (honestly, he was a gay kid in Lima, Ohio, it wasn't like boys were beating down his doors. He was 25 and had had all of three boyfriends—and one really horrible one-night stand—none of whom turned out to be very nice guys in the end). But for once it was not the date that actually had him nervous. It wasn't even the location though, admittedly, he'd never have pegged Chris for a karaoke kind of guy considering the décor of his restaurant. It was actually just that Kurt hadn't found himself this close to a microphone and a stage in a really long time and he would give just about anything in the world to have not just said that out loud and caused Chris's eyebrows to raise almost comically.
"You sing?"
Kurt shook his head. "Not anymore." That, at least, wasn't a lie.
"I bet you're incredible. When you speak you sound musical. I bet your voice is positively angelic." Kurt couldn't quite contain the flush in his cheeks at the compliment. "So sing for me," Chris prompted.
"I told you, I don't sing anymore. I haven't since my senior year at college."
"You are one great waste of talent, Kurt," Chris sighed, shaking his head and smirking at him, "You're an artist who only makes clothes for friends and a singer who won't climb on stage. Afraid of a little success," he asked teasingly.
Kurt rolled his eyes at the taunt. "Not hardly." He decided not to kill the playful mood by telling Chris all the ways that his 'angelic' voice had gotten him threatened in the past. "I'm simply holding myself back so that everyone else doesn't feel inferior."
Chris laughed boisterously. "I promise not to go into fits of self-loathing if you sing."
"Chris—"
"Please, Kurt?"
Kurt bit his lip and planned to keep protesting…but this whole night was supposed to be about breaking out of that bubble he'd let himself fall into, wasn't it? He was on a date with a man who wasn't Blaine Anderson (even though, if he was honest with himself, he knew Blaine was the only person he'd like to be out with that night). Why couldn't he climb on the stage and do something he hadn't allowed himself to enjoy in years?
"Fine."
~K~B~
Blaine was laughing at one of David and Wesley's often-retold but somehow still amusing high school misadventures when the emcee announced the next torturer (er, singer) for the night. They'd already endured a tone-deaf, overweight, middle-aged woman in spandex belting Don't Cha (complete with dance moves that Blaine would give anything to forget) and a slurred homage to Piano Man by the lush nursing his fourth whiskey at the bar.And those were the good performances.
Blaine was about ready to go home.
"Please give it up for Mr. Kurt Hummel."
He turned so quickly at those words that something in his neck cracked painfully but Blaine ignored it as, to his utter astonishment, Kurt actually walked up onto the stage and took the mic confidently in his hand.
"He sings," Wes hissed.
Blaine nodded absently, but didn't turn around. "He was in his high school glee club," he told his friends absently. "Apparently he'd wanted to be a Broadway star but ended up changing his major to fashion when he got to NYU."
Blaine missed the raised eyebrows his friends passed at him as he rattled off Kurt's life history like he'd known the guy much longer than two months. He was much too busy watching as Kurt pasted a smile on his face and began crooning into the microphone that Blaine suddenly decided (to hell with appropriate thoughts) he'd give just about anything to be.
I've been driving for an hour
Just talking to the rain
They say I've been driving crazy
And it's keeping you away
Blaine felt like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. It wasn't exactly surprising, the fact that Kurt could sing. Blaine had almost adjusted to the idea that Kurt could do just about anything. It was more that his voice was just…so incredible, so ethereal.
And I take it just a little bit
I hold my breath and count to ten
I've been waiting for a chance to let you in
If I just breathe
Let it fill the space between
I'll know everything is alright
It was the way Kurt was moving gently to the beat, the way his eyes closed when he hit the high notes, the way the music seemed to be flowing from him and around him and, just…wow!
Well it's all so overrated
Not saying how you feel
So you end up watching chances fade
And wondering what's real
And I give you just a little time
I'm wondering if you realize
I've been waiting til I see it in your eyes
And it was the words, Blaine realized belatedly. It was the almost desperate plea in Kurt's voice as he talked about waiting for a sign.
So I whisper in the dark
Hoping you'll hear me
Do you hear me?
By the time Kurt was wrapping up the song with I've been driving for an hour, just talking to the rain, Blaine was finally coming around to catching his breath so that as the younger man climbed down from the stage, he found himself up out of his seat and crossing the bar in quick strides. He completely ignored the calls of his friends.
~K~B~
"I knew you'd be incredible," Chris was saying kindly, his eyes wide with appreciation and a bright smile on his face.
Kurt did his best to return the gesture, but his mind, and his eyes were busy focusing on Blaine Anderson who (Oh, dear Gaga) was literally pushing his way through the crowded bar towards their table.
And Kurt was so not ready to be ambushed by the guy he liked while he was on a date with a different guy and singing in karaoke bars about the first one.
So, so complicated.
"Kurt," Chris asked softly at the same time that Blaine called out his name.
Kurt hated himself a little bit for instinctively turning to Blaine first. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Blaine replied. "I…you…you were great," he added after an awkward moment of hesitation.
Kurt smiled. "Thanks."
"Oh wow, you're Blaine Anderson," Chris said, reminding Kurt guiltily that the other man was, in fact, still in the room.
"Oh, uh, Chris, this is my boss, Blaine Anderson." Kurt said in hurried (awkward!) introduction. "Blaine, this is Chris. He'll be providing us with a venue next week for your banquet."
"Oh," Blaine blinked in surprise. "Well, it's very nice to meet you, Chris, and thanks for helping us out."
"Of course," Chris nodded politely, "I'm a big fan of your campaign. We're happy to support it."
"That's very kind of you."
Kurt thought he might vomit at all the formal pleasantries being passed between the guy he liked and the guy he was (sort of) dating. Ugh.
"Anyway," Blaine said after a hesitant pause. "I'm…I hope I'm not interrupting, I just…I just wanted to come over and tell you," he turned to Kurt, "That you were amazing. Not that that should surprise me anymore. And to let you know that Wes is here and therefore the entire office will know that you can belt Michelle Branch by Monday."
Kurt groaned. "Damn. I knew that was a bad idea."
"Oh shut up," Chris chuckled, reaching across the table and resting a hand on Kurt's arm. "You were amazing. Truly."
Kurt blushed.
Blaine cleared his throat awkwardly and stared at the spot where Chris's hand met Kurt's skin for a moment. "Right. Well, again, sorry to interrupt. I'll just be going."
"It was wonderful to meet you, Mr. Anderson," Chris nodded politely, holding out the hand that wasn't still resting on Kurt's arm to shake Blaine's.
"You too, Chris. Kurt, I…I guess I'll see you Monday."
"Of course," Kurt nodded readily. He watched as Blaine walked away with something like disappointment or shell-shock (maybe a healthy combination of both) in his eyes and sighed internally. Somehow, this felt like one giant-ass step back. So much for claiming his own destiny, or whatever bullshit he had been chanting to convince himself that this was all a good idea.
"Would you like another drink," Chris asked, cutting obliviously into Kurt's thoughts.
Kurt nodded.
Yeah.
He was definitely going to need a drink.