Okay, this chapter finishes up coverage of "The Rhodes Not Taken" and covers "Vitamin D." I changed the song they sing from "Somebody to Love" to "The Outside" because I wanted Kurt and Blaine to make up in this chapter, and Mia came up with the absolute best arrangement of "The Outside" to show just that, so muchas gracias to her!
Important notice! I'm going to start college full-time tomorrow, so the every-other-day updates are going to turn into weekly updates instead. Sorry, but I have priorities besides writing.
That being said, I got SIX effing reviews last chapter. I can't even...asofhjsdl! THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!
Chapter VII: The Outside (Part Two)
Oops, he wasn't supposed to say that. Could he take it back?
"What?" Kurt looked up.
"I told you, I was outed by a bunch of jocks who beat me up," Blaine hurriedly tried to cover up his mistake. "That was how my parents knew I was gay."
Kurt sniffed. "I did that well, didn't I?" he asked proudly. Blaine was glad he kept Finn from taking away any more of Kurt's self-esteem
"Yes, Kurt, you did that brilliantly," Blaine whispered into Kurt's hair.
Kurt looked disdainfully at the dirty bathroom floor. "We need to get out of here," he sniffed, holding out his hand. "I have to buy mouthwash and makeup."
"You look beautiful," Blaine bent down—bent down!—to kiss Kurt's forehead. "Come on, let's get you some Listerine." He lifted Kurt to his feet and was getting ready to take the boy outside when the door burst open and someone distinctly female blurred into the next stall.
"Quinn?" Kurt lifted his head and blinked blearily.
She hurled again, then yelled weakly, "Go away!" Kurt moaned and buried his head in Blaine's shoulder. Blaine half-dragged, half-carried Kurt outside. Luckily, after some mouthwash and food, he was ready for Glee Club.
"Maybe Quinn's lactose intolerant," Kurt suggested after sharing Quinn's mishap with Tina and Mercedes.
"That doesn't explain all the crying," Artie dispelled his notion.
"Are you all that stupid?" Puck spat. "Seriously, I bet you thought Bert and Ernie were just roommates and Kurt and Blaine are just friends," he snorted. "She's pregnant, and Finn's the father."
For a second, it felt like every individual molecule grew still. Rachel broke the tension by jumping inside and, egoistically misunderstanding their expressions, announced, "Yes, you heard right; I'm returning to Glee Club!" At this, Puck rolled his eyes and left with his guitar.
Mercedes turned to Kurt. "This is a hot. Damn. Mess!"
"Oh. My. God!" Santana hissed at Brittany.
"What's going on?" Rachel asked.
"From what I hear, Finn knocked up Quinn," Blaine said.
Rachel's bottom lip trembled and she ran out the room. Blaine had half a mind to follow her, but he didn't. After all, it's not like he knew her as well as the rest of New Directions. He turned to Kurt, Tina, and Mercedes, Rachel's best friends. The trio was too wrapped up in each other to notice her, and Santana and Brittany were gossiping about something completely different. With a sigh, Blaine got up and started to search for Rachel, finding her just in time to see Finn leave and Sue Sylvester enter.
"We have to talk!" she flounced furiously up to Sue. "If you'd like me to return to the musical, changes need to be made!"
"I couldn't agree with you more," Sue nodded. Blaine could hear her evil smirk. "You know, when I heard Sandy wanted to write himself into a scene as Queen Cleopatra, I was aroused, then furious." Blaine and Rachel suddenly sported identical nauseous looks. "I hereby grant you complete artistic control," Sue continued. "Congratulations, kiddo," she said in a tone made all the more ironic by the fact that it contained no irony. "You now have everything you could possibly want. Isn't it a great feeling?" with that, Sue left, taking the grin Rachel faked for her with her.
"It's not what you want, is it?" Blaine asked, leaning against the lockers.
"Who asked your opinion, buddy?" she snapped.
Blaine shrugged. "It seems to me that if you want a friend, you go to your friends, not Sandy."
Rachel glared at him before storming away. Blaine scowled in frustration before going the opposite way, back to Glee.
Carrie Underwood's "Last Name" went off without a hitch and too much booing and throwing of foodstuffs, so Blaine considered it a success. He wondered when his standard for success became not having a banana peel land on his face mid-performance rather than earning another solo, and realized how badly he missed the Warblers he didn't know. From outside the room, he waved at Rachel, who blushed and walked away. Blaine frowned and felt like crying.
Will walked in and Blaine shook himself out of his musings. "The rest of this evening's presentation is cancelled," he said regretfully. "April has decided to leave."
"I think I can help," Rachel said, walking in. "I know I haven't been a very good participant lately, but I'd like to try to make up for it. I thought my talent was all I needed to be special, and that's not true. Working on the musical made me realize that I didn't want to be a star as much as I wanted to be your friend." She smiled at Blaine and waved back as Santana rolled her eyes, and Blaine acknowledged her with a nod. "I've already quit the musical, and I want to join Glee Club again. I know all the words to the song," she pleaded.
"You don't know the choreography," Quinn disagreed.
"Then we're going to have to give her a lot of help out there," Finn smiled.
Will smiled as well when he turned to Rachel. "Go suit up," he said.
A few minutes later, everyone was in front of the stage. Unexpectedly, Rachel passed her microphone to Kurt, and Finn, reluctant to sing a love song with a boy, couldn't shove his into Blaine's hands fast enough. So it was Kurt and Blaine singing at the end, Blaine first, looking at Kurt.
"You saw me there, but never knew. I would give it all up to be a part of this, a part of you."
When Kurt sang, he looked at the audience.
"And now it's all too late, so you see. You could have helped if you had wanted to.
But no one notices until it's too late to do anything."
They finally faced each other.
"So how can I ever try to be better? Nobody ever lets me in.
I can still see you. This ain't the best view: on the outside, looking in.
I've been a lot of lonely places. I've never been on the outside."
The music behind them died down and a spotlight shone on Kurt during his solo.
"So how can I ever try to be better? Nobody ever lets me in."
The music behind him started again and Blaine took the stage, this time catching Kurt's eye when he sang his solo.
"I can still see you, this ain't the best view: on the outside, looking in."
Blaine and Kurt walked closer and closer together as they sang.
"I've been a lot of lonely places. I've never been on the outside."
The song was over, but Kurt and Blaine stood on the stage for a long time until, finally, Kurt reached out. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have gotten drunk, and really, you shouldn't have taken care of me." He extended his hand. "Truce?"
Blaine smiled and took Kurt's hand. Before the shorter boy could shake it, Blaine pulled him closer and kissed him. Kurt felt his entire body melt and mold into Blaine's.
The boys were back!
The next day, as Rachel led the team in dance rehearsal, Will came in with their competition bracket for Sectionals.
"We've only got to beat two teams to make it to Regionals," he said excitedly. "The team from the School for the Deaf and Jane Adams Academy."
"That first one sounds easy," Blaine said, "but I've never heard of the second."
"It's a halfway house for girls just getting out of juvie."
"So our only competition will be people who can't hear what they're singing, and criminals who don't care," Artie summed up. A few seconds of silence reigned before everyone cheered.
"Come on, let's put some energy into it!" Will urged during another choreography session a few days later. "We have Sectionals in two weeks."
"Mr. Schue, Sectionals will be a breeze," Mercedes sassed.
"We can only hope, but what we do at Sectionals will set our tone for Regionals, so we really want to shine," he lectured. He might have continued if Kurt hadn't laughed and turned the attention to him during the completely inappropriate moment.
"Oh, sorry," he held up his phone. "I was watching a funny YouTube video."
Blaine jumped over to him. "Is it the dog peeing on the baby?" he asked eagerly.
Will sighed and tacked three pairs of photos on the board: one was of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, one was of a shark and a bear, and the last was bold of lightning and an above-ground swimming pool. He turned to face the students. "Every one of these people or elements was a champion in their own right. But they used competing with each other to make themselves even better."
"How are lightning and swimming pools in competition?" Kurt asked.
Ignoring him, Will said, "I want to put you guys in the competitive spirit, so we're going to split up, boys vs. girls."
Everyone began to move to either side of the room, depending on whether it was in or out, except for Kurt, who tried to sneak in with the girls.
"No, Kurt," Will said without even turning around.
Kurt huffed, but let Blaine drag him over to the boys' side of the room.
"Alright, each team has a week to prepare a mash-up of any two songs that you want." Of course, Puck asked what a mash-up was and Will explained before adding, "The boys will perform on Tuesday and the girls will perform on Wednesday. The winning team gets to select the number we perform at Sectionals."
"Um, Mr. Schue," Rachel raised her hand, prim and proper, "who will our judge be?" Before Will could tell her that it was clearly him, she beat him to it. "You're naturally biased for the boys."
Will nodded and did some quick thinking. "I will get a celebrity judge," he said, starting to walk out of the room, passing by the boys on his way. "I hope you guys are up for it."
"We're planning on smacking them down like the hand of God," Artie said. After Will left, the boys turned to each other and started to discuss before a sound like a motorboat drew their eyes to Finn.
"He's drooling," Blaine noted. Finn opened his eyes and saw Kurt and Puck looking at him in disgust (Kurt) and curiosity (Puck).
"Um, when I think really hard, it helps to close my eyes," Finn lied.
"Whatever," Artie said dismissively. "We've decided to perform Bon Jovi's 'It's My Life' and Usher's 'Confessions.'"
"We should get some trash can lids and stomp the yard up in this piece!" Puck said enthusiastically.
"Puck, with respect, you're more helpful when you don't contribute," Artie deadpanned.
Puck was kept from turning Artie into a pancake when he noticed Finn starting to drift off again. "Dude, go to the nurse's office for some nap time. It's what I do instead of math class."
Finn wiped the drool from his mouth and shuffled out.
When he came back in, he looked like a completely different person. "Hey guys, I can't wait to run through our number!" he declared, grinning like me.
"Has your soul been taken over by caffeinated space aliens?" asked Artie.
Without a trace of sarcasm, Finn replied, "Nope,justvisitedtheshcoolnurse,.Ican''!"
"What kind of vitamin did you get?" Puck asked with trepidation.
"I'm guessing Vitamin C," Blaine deadpanned. "C for 'cocaine.'"
"No, Vitamin D, and I got you guys some," he tossed the box at Kurt.
Kurt looked at the box in his lap, then at the horrified look on Blaine's face. "No thanks," he said dryly, throwing it at the garbage can and missing.
Artie caught it and looked at it for a long while before opening it. "My body's already messed up," he said, grabbing a few.
"I really want better abs," Mike said, grabbing for the box Artie passed to him.
"I really want lines," Matt said, taking it when Mike passed it to him.
"It's not like I need performance enhancers, but," Puck shrugged and took a couple. He handed it to Blaine, who held up his hand in refusal. "Come on, don't be a g-oh, wait." He snickered and tossed the empty box in the trash.
Of course, the puppy-like Blaine kept up with the wired boys, but Kurt, for all his intensity, ended up nearly two lines behind by the end. Finn was lead in "It's My Life," Artie was lead in "Confessions," and Mike led the dance. In the end, everyone cheered, but Will vocalized his disappointment in Kurt before turning to the girls and telling them, especially the stunned Rachel, that they needed to step up.
Blaine saw the jocks walk toward a so-far-unsuspecting Kurt and picked up his pace. If he could distract them, maybe they wouldn't throw Kurt in.
His plan worked like a charm, with the added benefit of drawing Kurt's attention. "Are you okay?" the fashionista asked, peering in.
"Yeah," Blaine reached up, expecting Kurt to help.
Instead, Kurt pulled back. "Could you look for the empty box of Finn's vitamins while you're in there? I already checked the choir room, but the trash had been emptied."
Blaine grumbled, but obeyed. "Why do you want it?" he asked.
His only answer was a mysterious, "You'll see."
"How did the boys get so good?" Mercedes wondered out loud a few minutes later.
"The real question is, 'What were they on?'" Kurt said, entering the room.
"Spy!" Rachel yelled.
Blaine barely refrained from rolling his eyes. "We're not performing again, Rachel."
"Look, I may have performed with the boys," Kurt began.
"P-p-p-poorly," Tina stuttered.
Kurt heaved a dramatically long-suffering sigh. "My loyalty still lies strongly with you," he said. "So, I'm going to let you guys in on our secret, mostly because all my artistic decisions have been derided as too costly because they involve several varieties of exotic bird feathers, and they declined my offer to do their hair in cornrows," this last phrase was punctuated by a particularly murderous glare at Blaine, who clutched his curls.
"Hey, what's wrong with this?" Blaine asked, gesturing to his hair. Everyone except Rachel looked at each other and bit their bottom lips.
Rachel clapped and squealed, "Nothing!"
Kurt rolled his eyes. "They took something," he paused for dramatic effect to make sure all eyes were on him again and pulled out an empty box from his pocket.
Will looked up when the girls, Kurt, and Blaine walked into his room. "Is something wrong?" he asked, startled.
"Yes," Kurt placed the box he made Blaine fish out of the dumpster this morning on Will's desk.
Will's eyes widened. "Were you guys all thrown in the dumpster this morning?" he asked.
Kurt rolled his eyes. "No. Well, Blaine was, but that's not the point."
"Mr. Schue, the boys took uppers," Rachel said bluntly.
Whatever shock Will had been feeling up to that point was nothing compared to how he felt now. Of course, he'd feel worse later when he heard that Sue was co-director of Glee and Emma was engaged, but now, this was the most shocked he had ever been.
Yeah, I copped out on the cliffhanger. -evil grin- Come on, forty-something chapters, you didn't expect me to reveal the truth this fast, did you?
Yes, I changed a lot of "Vitamin D." But really, I inserted a whole new character, it was only a matter of time before I completely remodeled an episode.
Next time, we get another hefty dose of smut!
