Again I apologize to Darren Criss for typing out some lyrics from his song "Categories" which is not even released in any official form yet, and is only heard in his live performances. I may even have gotten some of the words wrong! *wishing and telepathically begging the artist to record and release this song for our iPods!*

[Try YouTube, search "Darren Criss ennaxor" for a good-quality live video of "Categories" for now.] You'll be able to envision my stage scene for the New Directions below better too! Teehee

(And of course I do not hold any copyright for Glee or the New Directions either.)


Chapter 7: Categories

The song started out with powerful bass guitar and drums. Puck took the stage from down left and began singing somewhat softly in a rap-like manner about different things he could say about different kinds of people, as Quinn and then Finn and then Tina and then Artie each followed onto the stage. Sam entered the stage from the opposite, down right, taking over the next rap-like lines, as Mercedes, Mike, Santana and Brittany each entered in turn after him.

Mercedes stopped, turned and picked up the narrative, "Shake the dust off of your boots..." raising the vocal style to another level building the song's momentum until Rachel entered and sang the next line right to Mercedes, "Girl you're acting crazy..." completing those lyrics in her own way of raising the roof with nothing but her voice.

They all came together in the center of the stage assessing each other theatrically as the driving lead guitar rhythms and coursing drums galloped toward the chorus, and then they all turned to face the audience (currently just Kurt and Blaine of course).

As one, they hit a tight harmony, launching into that chorus which Kurt had realized long ago was stuck in his head for days, playing continually there ever since he first heard Blaine singing it for him in his cozy room. "Seems like the categories, Got nothing to do with you or me," and Puck took the next alone, "With you or me," followed by the same whole-group-chord again for "Seems like the ones who love us," Sam alone finishing that thought on "They don't even know just what that means," and Mercedes and Rachel making the last line as gorgeous as only those two can, "That's how it seems!"

Kurt felt Blaine looking at him at this point, and turned to beam at him, the creator of this astonishingly effective song, only to see that he looked actually... worried. He contemplated the conflicted songwriter for a while, trying to figure out what could possibly cause worry, or whatever it was, and how to get to the bottom of it, then finally settled on blurting out, "Oh my God, Blaine. This is so incredible! Are you hearing this?"

With a nervous shifting of his glance, Blaine looked up at Artie singing "…pretending that you know all the moves," and then Santana, "The beat goes faster than your mind can handle, take your time just when you can and…" and then he turned his gaze away from the stage again and leaned all the way in to Kurt as if to disclose a private confidence to him, whispering into his shoulder, "Am… I… a good songwriter, or is it just that they are so great at this? They just... turned it into something so much better than I could have written."

Kurt's heart precipitously fell into his stomach, in complete disbelief that Blaine could actually feel that way. He took the boy's shoulders in a strong, solid grip. He forced Blaine's eyes up to meet his with nothing more than his powerful glare, and then kept them there with his steady gaze.

"Blaine. You have to be joking. Are you hearing the same song I'm hearing here?" Blaine glanced to the stage where the whole group was moving in a syncopated rhythm, each performing their own unique steps to a slightly different beat than the next, which taken in all together formed a tableau of one cohesive formation.

He still had an expression that belied his feelings of insecurity about this song. Or… Something. Since the song was the most incredible thing Kurt had heard since "Not Alone," he figured those feelings causing those expressions could not possibly stem from the song itself or its perfectly insightful lyrics.

"Look at me, Blaine." He waited until they were square again, although Blaine looked only down at his own hands nervously. "This song is amazing. They are positively kicking A up there, and it's because they have a song that is so ideal for them to perform. The song that you wrote."

Letting go of one shoulder and loosening his grip on the other into more of a tender hold, Kurt reached down now to cradle Blaine's face until the guy would meet his eyes again. "Blaine. YOU are amazing. Don't you know that?"

Being forced to look right at him, Blaine couldn't hide the mix of surprise, and... desire, in his eyes at that moment of awakening awareness that Kurt thought he was amazing.

His hands shot up to Kurt's neck and hair and cheeks and lips, and Kurt moved in and completed the connection Blaine began, their lips meeting in a flood of electricity that this time left no doubt. This time, neither of them had the slightest question if anything was different. In this single instant, everything changed. For sure. Possibly forever.

On Stage, Finn was singing "I take advantage of all my callings, Don't take no stop at slow signs." Then Brittany began, "I get the feeling that I'm still falling" with more of the rest of them joining in on each of the next words until they all were singing by the end of the line. "In between all the lines that we never made!"

The drums drove on and crescendoed, bringing the song's momentum to a head, while all the singers on stage vocalized on the song's final bridge, and the two in the audience disappeared into each other's consciousness and came up on the other side in a world of nothing but the softness and forcefulness of their lips, the scent of their hair and breath and hands, the feel of their closeness and the indescribable relief and joy of their minds and emotions finally in sync, moving and reacting as one.

"So, what did you think?" Rachel squinted her eyes looking for Kurt and Blaine in the audience. Artie hit the switch to kill the spotlights on stage, and all of the blinded eyes up there blinked away their spots and finally settled onto the two of them still wholly oblivious to anything in the world around them. "Oh," Quinn said with her beautiful eyes popping open wide, following quickly with a voice that only she could make sound as sweet, "Well, I mean... About time! Right?"


A/N - Ah, the adventure does not end here...

Stay tuned...

AND, of course, as always: suggestions and rebuffs and criticisms and questions and comments are loved loved loved here. Thanks!