A/N: First, thank you to everyone who reviewed! I'm now at 112, and so excited! So, here is the final chapter before Original Song! I hope you enjoy it! I was re-watching it, and just cringing through the entire thing...oh dear! Anyway, enjoy, and if I get up to 125 reviews, I might update again...
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, nor anything else you may recognize...
Chapter 28—Top Secret Intel
After the awkwardness of the last few weeks, I was glad everything seemed to be truly back to normal. I sang pop songs to the Warblers, dancing around Kurt; we ate lunches together, going to Lima sometimes for coffee, and sometimes only going as far as the cafe in Dalton; we studied together, not in the same classes, but it was more fun to be with someone; and finally, we watched movies (generally Disney) at night, sometimes falling asleep in each other's bed/room. Gone was the craziness of Valentine's Day, gone was the insane part of me that came out when I was drunk, and best of all, gone was all the awkwardness that had popped up between Kurt and myself. We each knew where the other stood, so everything was fine!
However, all of that seemed to go out the window one day, when Kurt got another call from the Warbler's line. This time, we knew where the phone was, and Wes picked it up on the third ring. "Hello, Head Warbler Wes here." he said into the phone as we all stared.
After a second, his expression grew extremely incredulous. "That's rude!" he exclaimed, then, as we all looked on in confused, replied, "We may very well beat you guys, so I'd leave that sort of talk for afterwards. Now, what do you want?"
By this point, Kurt got up, and went over to Wes, holding out a hand. Shaking his head in disbelief, Wes gladly handed over the phone, hitting speakerphone though.
Kurt accepted the phone, then asked, "Okay, is this Satan or Rach?"
An indignant reply came through to us, "Santana's too busy sucking face with Sam to talk, of course it's Rachel!"
Kurt's eyes widened. "When did that happen?" he asked excitedly.
"A couple of days ago. Sam finally figured out that Quinn had cheated on him with Finn, so dumped her, and moved on to Santana." Rachel informed him.
Rolling his eyes, Kurt figured, "So Santana convinces Sam that Quinn cheated on him, and now is using him to upset...oh, nevermind."
Rachel picked up on his slip right away, while the rest of us were still confused (actually, I was still hanging in there), and asked quickly, "Wait, who's she trying to upset?"
"Like I said, nevermind what I said." Kurt told her easily. "So am I right?"
She sniffed. "Unfortunately, yes. Finn's being an idiot again. Am I the only one who remembers what Quinn did to him last year?" she asked rhetorically, but Kurt answered anyway.
"Yes, but remember all that 'first love' crap? Kinda applies here. And I thought we had already agreed that when it comes to girls, Finn's a major idiot." Kurt reminded her.
"Hey!" Rachel cried, indignant.
"Other than you." Kurt remedied, and she calmed down.
"That's better. And yes, Finn is an idiot when he comes to girls other than me." she agreed.
Hesitating, Kurt reminded her gently, "Rach, you did cheat on him, honey, and with Puck..."
"He slept with the devil!" Rachel retorted angrily, and everyone looked around in confusion, asking me with their eyes if I knew what was going on. Smiling, I nodded, and mouthed, 'I'll explain later'. They nodded, then went back to listening in on Kurt's conversation.
"Yes, yes, we can discuss this, again, in greater length another time. Now, why are you calling me during rehearsal?" Kurt asked.
Rachel took a deep breath. "Okay, brace yourself. Remember Aural Intensity?" she asked.
Nodding, Kurt replied, "Yeah, we competed against them last year at Regionals—they were okay. And we're all competing against them at Regionals, right?" he checked.
"Exactly." Rachel replied, then hesitated. "Well, they have a new coach." she informed him.
Shrugging, not finding this weird, Kurt asked, "Why, what happened to the last one?"
"He got pushed down a staircase by the new coach." Rachel told Kurt bluntly.
My jaw dropped open, trying to comprehend this. Someone had hurt the old coach, and wasn't in jail or something? Who was this?
Kurt, instead, had gone pale(r). "Is it...?" he asked, trailing off suggestively.
We could practically feel Rachel wince. "Yeah. Even though you're the competition, you're still my best gay, and I thought you should know, what with your history with her." she explained.
Kurt half-smiled, half-gulped. "Oh lord. Thank you for telling me, though."
"No problem. Do you think she'll do anything? I mean, you led her to Nationals once, you could do it again." Rachel suggested, and I began to think, Oh no...
Considering this for a second, Kurt shook his head. "No, she's already tried that. Do you know, after the game, she called me, trying to get me to perform for Regionals? I turned her down, cause I don't go to McKinley anymore."
With this, everyone suddenly realized who Kurt was talking about, and started whispering among themselves. Wes rapped his gavel, restoring order, then gestured for Kurt to go on.
"She really did that? Well, I can believe that. I'm fairly sure that if you weren't so flaming, all the girls would be all over you. I mean, Mercedes was crushing so badly on you in the beginning, she wouldn't even listen to Tina and my intervention." Rachel told him.
Kurt made a strangled sound. "You tried to give her an intervention? I'm not sure if I should be annoyed, or flattered...I'll go with indifference. And thanks." he laughed.
"No problem. Now, I'd better go, Ms. Holliday is back, and she's giving us lessons." Rachel said.
Giving a little clap, Kurt excitedly asked, "Ms. Holliday's back? Tell her hi from me, okay? And bye!"
"I will. I'll talk to you soon!" Rachel told Kurt.
"Got it. Bye. Have fun!" Kurt signed off, then hung up the phone, and turned to us.
He smirked at our amazed faces. "Okay, guys, it's not like I was talking to the president or something, stop being so shocked by public school." he laughed.
"If I understood this Rachel girl correctly, crazy phone lady from before is now our competition's coach?" David asked, stunned.
"Yeah." Kurt nodded. "We had better get back to rehearsal." he advised, and, as Wes agreed, we began a serious conversation about Regionals.
When we were next in the Lima Bean, we found all this out again. We had merely been standing in line, when someone, Coach Sue—crazy phone lady, crept up behind us. As can be expected, Kurt was less than pleased to see her. We had been talking (Kurt had suggested something regarding a Joan woman's medley, which I had told him no one knew who she was), when a voice interrupted us.
"Well well, if it isn't my sweet, sweet Porcelain." she purred.
Looking at Kurt's face, it twisted in some weird expression, then flattened out. "Coach Sylvester, what are you doing here?" he asked, turning away.
"Just picking up some coffee—I like my enemas piping hot." she replied. Enemas? What the hell was she talking about? She went on, "Actually, boys, I heard this was a Dalton Academy hangout, and I come in a spirit of fellowship." Turning to Kurt, she said, "As you've no doubt heard, I've taken over for the coach of Aural Intensity."
Quickly, Kurt commented, "We heard you pushed him down the stairs."
"You can't prove that." she retorted smoothly, and just as quickly.
Seriously? People could just get away with that sort of thing? What? Seeing my confused look, Kurt explained, "This is just sorta how she talks."
Like that made it any less disturbing?!
"Well, I have some top secret intel." she informed us, then went on as we ordered and received our coffees. "Will Schuester has finally realized that his glee club's Achilles' heel is their utter lack of sex appeal. The New Directions are getting sexy, and the key to Regionals, is out-sexing them. And I suspect that the judges are scoring extra high for it this year. So Porcelain, quid pro quo, what do you have for me?"
While I heard everything she said in the corner of my mind, in the now, I was focusing on all the crap she was putting in her coffee. Who drinks coffee with sugar, salt, vinegar, and whatever else she threw in there (umm, the paper bags, huh?)? Who was this lady?
As I wasn't saying anything, Kurt told her sarcastically, "I'm sorry, Coach, but you and I are not in cahoots."
She glared at us, then told him, "Well, you should've nailed that down before I gave you my top-secret intel. Porcelain, you just made yourself a powerful enemy." she narrowed her eyes, then left dramatically.
Finally, all her previous comments came crashing down onto me. "We gotta hold an emergency meeting." I informed Kurt.
"Why?" he asked, surprised.
"Weren't you listening?" I asked. "The judges have an eye out for something new, which means," I grinned, "the Warbler's gotta do something sexified!"
The look Kurt gave me said it all (something along the lines of—you're insane, do I know you?).
"Do you want to win and beat the New Directions?" I asked him.
Shooting me an awkward look, Kurt replied, "I don't know." and we fell silent for a second, before picking up a new topic.
Selling the idea of a sexy performance to the council wasn't actually as hard as I thought it'd be. For one, all the guys agreed enthusiastically (Nick and Jeff making bets on which one of them would get more girls to swoon if they acted straight), and David and Thad also liked the idea (Wes was a little less enthusiastic, surprised?, but was convinced by David's grin). Nick and Jeff, realizing that they needed to actually have girls watch us to have real competition, suggested inviting a bunch of girls from our sister school (Crawford Country Day), to watch us. All the guys agreed with this (one or two of them actually had girlfriends at that school), so we now had to move on to the question of where. Our rehearsal room wasn't big enough, and we wanted to do something interesting. After about half an hour of people randomly blurting out locations and/or ideas, Thad spoke up. "What about an abandoned warehouse?" he suggested, and we all looked at him as if he was crazy.
"Umm, why?" Kurt asked.
Thad shrugged. "Well, there'd be plenty of room, and I know one with this cool raised platform thing that we could use. It'd be really sexy..."
Wes looked less than convinced, them David gave him a puppy-dog look. "Please, Wessie..." he begged, and Wes sighed.
"Okay, fine, let's figure out a song, then we can go there, and work out some choreography." he allowed, and we cheered.
Once the cheering died down, Trent muttered, "coughwhippedcough." and Wes turned to glare at us.
"Who said that?" he demanded, blushing.
We all looked around at each other, smiling to ourselves, but none of us gave Trent up. Finally, Wes waved a hand in defeat. "Songs?" he asked.
After another fifteen minute debate, we had settled on the Neon Trees' Animal, and I was getting pretty excited. I mean, I was the lead soloist, that meant I generally automatically got the solo, and I loved Animal. It got even better when Nick raised his hand.
"Yes?" Wes asked, pointing the gavel at Nick.
He lowered his hair, then grinned. "I have a suggestion for Animal." he informed the council.
Wes leaned forward, interested. "Go ahead..." he invited.
Twisting his hands slightly in his lap and giving me a quick look, Nick suggested, "Why don't we turn Animal into a duet. I think the lyrics would allow that, and it'd make it even more fun."
Intrigued, I leaned forward as well, watching Wes and the council's reaction. Nick was right—a duet could be fun, but who would I sing it with?
So fast that I almost missed it, Wes looked intensely at Nick and Jeff, Jeff nodded slightly, then Wes turned to smile at David, who had also seen all of this. "I think that's an amazing idea." David told Nick, grinning evilly.
"Obviously, Blaine will get one half," Jeff put in, "maybe the council can take a minute and decide who'll get the other half."
Trading a not-so-secret glance with Thad and David, Wes nodded. "Alright. Why don't you guys take a quick break—get some coffee or something, chill, do whatever, but be back here in fifteen minutes, okay?"
Obligingly, we all nodded, and trooped out. "Nick and Jeff, you two hang back for a moment." David called, and they sat back down.
Walking out with Kurt, we went over to Dalton's cafe, and ordered our usuals. "So, what do you think about the song?" I asked him.
Kurt considered for a second. "It's not my type of song, but it's not that bad for a pop song. The lyrics could be considered fairly specific, but for others, they could extremely generic, and once again, I'm reading too much into it...it's a nice song." he finished, blushing.
"Hey, I love that you read so much into lyrics. I never really think about them at all." I told him, smiling, and giving his arm a light punch.
We quickly finished our coffees, then hurried back to rehearsal. We were about a minute early, but the council had finished discussing the duet, and was waiting for everyone to come back. Chatting with Nick and Jeff for a minute or two while everyone filtered back in, they refused to give us any information on the duet, only grinning secretively.
Once everyone was back, Wes rapped his gavel, silencing the chatter. "Order!" he called, and we all focused on him. He smiled. "So, the council has decided to assign the duet, and not hold auditions. Does anyone have any objections?" he checked.
Trent raised his hand. "Can you tell us who has the duet, then we can decide?" he requested.
Turning to check with the council (yeah, right, you did not need to do that, Wes), he nodded. "Okay. The duet will be going to Blaine and Kurt."
My heart leaped wildly. I was duetting with Kurt? That was amazing! We always had so much fun, and we sounded perfect together, and this was finally his time to shine! Looking at him, I saw his face light way up, and he started bouncing. "Really?" he asked, his voice going up an octave (or maybe two!).
David smiled. "Really. You have a great voice, and it sounds really great mixed with Blaine's. Also, we could use your range." he added.
Kurt grinned. "Thank you so much!" he thanked them profusely, and the council all grinned.
"No problem." they chorused, then Wes asked the rest of us, "So, does anyone want to hold auditions instead?"
Everyone looked at each other, smiling. Trent grinned. "I think I speak for everyone when I say—hell no!"
Kurt grinned, and I smiled at him fondly, glad his talent was finally being appreciated. Wes smiled, then addressed all of us again. "Okay, so we need to get sheet music to start with, so you're all dismissed for today. Go back to your dorms, do homework, and listen to Animal on repeat, okay?"
Everyone nodded, and filed out of rehearsal, talking animatedly. Kurt turned to me, and hugged me excitedly. "Oh my god, we have a duet!" he half-shrieked.
"I know!" I answered, amused by his level of excitement.
"What do we do?" he asked.
Taking him by the arm, I started to lead him back to his dorm. "We do what they said—homework, we get more coffee and a celebratory cookie, and we listen to Animal until we're almost sick of it, but know all the lyrics by heart. Deal?"
Kurt nodded. "Yay!" he cheered.
"You're really excited, aren't you?" I asked, thoroughly amused.
Nodding eagerly, he reminded me, "This is my first solo experience here, and if it's good enough, then it could go to Regionals!"
"Yeah, that'd be cool. Now, what type of celebratory cookie do you want?" I asked him, grinning at his enthusiasm.
This was gonna be awesome!
The next day at Warbler's rehearsal, we got the sheet music and perfected the vocal part of the equation. After two hours, we had all the harmonies worked out, and Kurt and I sounded absolutely amazing together. Everyone was very impressed at how well our voices blended and complimented each other, Jeff quickly saying at one point, "Just like your personalities!", to which I grinned, as it was true (that's why Kurt and I were such awesome friends!).
After that was all worked out, then Thad drew out a diagram of the platform thing, and we all worked out a fun choreography for it (mainly just for Kurt and me, with the others getting into positions, then dancing from there). Thad gave us all the address, and we planned to meet there after school the next day.
It took only an hour to work through choreography (we left it loose for Kurt and myself so we could go with the moment), then called over the girls. We hung out for an hour while they came over, then once they were there, we performed.
Boy, was that awkward. Every time I looked at Kurt, he was making these weird faces like he was in pain, which I didn't quite understand. He loosened up a little when we sprayed everyone with bubbles, but afterwards while everyone was leaving in groups, he went over to sit on the risers, straightening his hair.
Two of the Crawford girls came up to me, holding out their numbers, telling me to, "Call us." I took the numbers, but gave them a nice smile. "Sweet, but not on your team." I told them.
Groaning, but accepting the answer easily, they walked away, and I went over to Kurt. "Are you okay, cause you kept making those weird faces the whole song..." I asked him.
Wide-eyed, Kurt replied, "Those weren't weird faces, those were my sexy faces."
Awkwardly, I told him, "It just looked like you were having gas pains or something."
Oh, great, Blaine, really smooth, go ahead and damage whatever self-confidence Kurt had left.
"Great." Kurt said, fed up. "How are we supposed to get up on the stage at Regionals and sell sexy to the judges when I have as much sexual appeal and knowledge as a baby penguin?!"
"We'll figure something out." I assured him, and he gave me a weird look. Chuckling, I suggested, "How about this—I'll come over to your dorm after school tomorrow, okay?"
Reluctantly, he nodded, and, giving him a pat on the shoulder, I walked back to my car.
Twenty four hours later, I was walking out of Burt's car shop, amazed by how awkward the conversation I'd just had could be. I had gone over to Kurt's dorm as planned, but he seemed incapable of dealing with the topic without blushing profusely, and throwing me out of his room. Good friend that I am, I couldn't let Kurt be kept in the dark about such important issues, and so had done the next best thing—told his dad. Boy, was that awkward, but he and Kurt had such an (enviably) amazing relationship, I knew he could help Kurt, and wouldn't let anything Kurt did deter him (like singing loudly with his hands in his ears).
Kurt went home for the weekend, and when I asked him on Sunday night how it had been, he had only blushed, and told me, "Fine" instead of going into detail as he was oft to do. Smiling, I let it go, knowing that Burt had done his part. Kurt was educated, at the very least, and now I didn't have to worry about someone taking advantage of him. Ah, the things I do for my best friend!
A/N: Okay, guys, recap. The next couple of chapters is going to be during Original Song (does anyone else watch that episode on constant repeat, or am I the only one truly obsessed with that episode?!), and that's where I'm planning on ending it. I had always wanted this to be Blaine's point of view from when he met Kurt to when he first got together with Kurt. However, if there's (a) certain scene(s) that I didn't cover that you wanted me too (even during the episodes I already wrote), then please, in a review or PM, tell me, and I would gladly write it up for you!
I personally loved Kurt's call with Rachel (I wish that had actually happened...I was laughing as I wrote it...) Anyway, please review, and I might update again (if I get enough...) (hinthint)
