Episode 4, Chapter 1:
Hey Upper East Siders, there's nothing Gossip Girl likes more than a surprise. And Quinn has a two-for-one special.
Last night, Quinn had a dream that did not make her very happy. She woke up feeling less like the main character of her own story and more like the sidekick. Laughter coming from downstairs made her feel worse. She recognized both laughs. One was her mothers. Of course, Judy hadn't let her know she was coming back from Paris and just popped back home whenever she wanted like nothing was wrong. The second was Kurt's laugh, which was obvious to her based on its pitch. Of course, he'd come by the day after they'd stopped fighting and be the first person to see her mother. Judy always liked Kurt more than Quinn, she thought. He could always make her laugh.
"You're up finally!" Kurt said to Quinn when he spotted her on the stairs.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Well I came to pick you up for a fun day, but you were still sleeping. I've been talking to your mom; she has great news!"
"Oh, that's right," Judy said finally pulling herself away from her book of designs. "I made a deal with Candace Dystra to sell my own line. Everything used in the photo shoots. I'm talking: bed sheets, lamps, vases, towels, frames, chandeliers, china, the works. I might be the next Martha Stewart," she beamed then added, "without all the financial trouble!"
Kurt laughed at her joke already susceptible to her enthusiasm.
"Kurt's been giving me all sorts of ideas, which he's all getting credit for of course. He has such a keen eye. I'm thinking of making him my muse. He has so much to offer the world."
The way Judy complimented Kurt was how Quinn dreamed she'd one day be complimented by her mother. It hurt her core, but she didn't let it bother her. Kurt saw the slight sadness in her eyes and decided they couldn't stay in the house any more.
"I hate to leave you Judy, but Quinn and I do have plans that I made last minute so we have to go. Get dressed Quinn we're leaving…in twenty. Think you can do it?" he asked, and she smiled like they were playing an old game. A lot of their make-believe games involved them being the prince and princess running out of the tower where the dragon's kept them locked up, the similarities to their life became clearer as they got older.
Kurt and Quinn might have plans for the day, but Sam and Puck are fully booked for the weekend. If they survive it.
Puck had plans to make this weekend one Sam would never forget. Everything about him had been depressing lately. If it wasn't the woman in life, then it was the man. He'd gotten over his homophobia a long time ago when Kurt came out and Quinn and Sam supported him. Now, if he wanted to keep his best friend, then he had to accept him. Sam already told him that he didn't have those feelings for other guys; it just had something to do with Kurt. Puck blamed those traitorous emotions on Kurt being his first-hand job, but that didn't dissuade Sam any.
To celebrate his boys' weekend, Puck invited a lot of his football friends. At his hotel suite, he was the king, and there were no rules. He would deliver on the babes and booze and wait to see what kind of trouble they can get into in the two days they were free to rock. Puck thrived in the chaos. He would have included a slip-and-slide if it wouldn't have wrecked the carpet, but he stuck to the other two things he knew best: chicks and drinks.
Sam, on the other hand, knew that Puck meant well by throwing this party, but there was no way he could stay cramped in an apartment with that many stupid guys for a weekend. He knew he wasn't 'book smart,' and sometimes 'life' stupid, but he wasn't 'super drunk' stupid.
"You enjoying yourself, Sam? I've got enough booze to fill the Mediterranean Ocean. Why are you still on the same drink?" Puck asked. He'd gotten the specialty cup idea from Quinn back when she used to monitor how much Kurt drank in a night.
"How would you know this isn't my second drink?" Sam asked distractedly, and spotted someone new who just entered the room. "Is that who I think it is?"
"Who are you looking at?" Puck asked turning his head in that direction. Puck felt miffed that Sam jumped from what they were talking about so quickly without recognizing his genius.
Sam was spotted by Puck's unwelcome guest before he could get a response.
"Sam?" the meerkat face asked as he walked towards them.
"Sebastian Smythe, man I never thought I'd see you again."
"I was in Paris for a while. Mom's been vacationing and I needed a change of scene. It's nice to see that nothing here changes. Puck, right? I see you're still throwing beer keg parties for animals."
"Can't respect the crowd then you shouldn't have come! It's not like I invited you anyway. How'd you even get in the building?" Puck worried his hotel's security system was getting lax.
"Last I heard you gave up your inheritance," Sam stood with his arms crossed.
"You're poor now?" Puck sneered.
"You heard wrong. Daddy dearest disowned his only gay son—it was not my choice," he said taking a drink from a dark blue flute. Sam's eyebrows rose at the low-key admission.
"I'm sure he never would have done that if you hadn't slept with every s—I was going to say 'single guy,' but I doubt all of them were single. Am I right?" Puck coughed.
"I like your fire, Noah, but I don't think you have any right to question me when I've heard you have a preference for married women. It's a bit... hypocritical."
"At least I keep my business quiet. You don't have the decency to keep it hush-hush. I heard the stories. It's not something a state's attorney's son would be too proud of."
They stood off for a few moments until Sam came in between them. It looked like this weekend had just taken a turn for the interesting.
Seems like someone's itinerary didn't leave room for interlopers. Doesn't Puck know a party isn't a party until someone crashes?
Kurt decided on them going to all the shops Quinn liked first. They had an extremely different personal style. She liked quaint dresses with cardigans and sometimes a headband to match from expensive name-brands, of course, but nothing that couldn't be found in a catalog. For example, today, she wore a bright blue J. Crew Featherweight Merino Glass-Button Cardigan and blue-patterned Anthropologie Farmer's Daughter dress. [baking cupcakes]
Kurt had a style that made him stand apart from other men. What he saw on the runway wasn't a too far gone idea, but one that would be his reality. He always wore skinny jeans or pants with little breathing room and loads of layers that still couldn't hide his body definition. Today he wore a New York Hat Co. Leather Civil War Cap, Dsquared2 Denim Shirt and Marcc silver foxtail. [3x03 bouquet scene] He took very good care of himself since he'd grown confidence in his status… which was why on the side streets of the West Village he was clearly the one in the pair to get catcalled by the gay bar.
"That takes some re-getting used to," Quinn shook her head when they passed them.
"Men can be pigs. Trust me I don't enjoy it," Kurt groaned.
"It's still attention…"
"I know what you're thinking Quinn, and you shouldn't."
"What? I shouldn't think that when I'm out with you, you always manage to find your secret admirers? I never get that reaction."
"You're a pretty blonde! Of course, you do!" he defended.
"It's not the same. Even my mom cares more about you, then me. I had no idea when she was coming home."
"She was probably just busy. She's crazy stressed about her business deal."
"She loves you more than me, always did." She didn't say it with malice, but instead a kind of acquiescence. Kurt was about to correct her on her faulty thinking when she went inside a dress shop. He looked behind him suddenly and spotted Blaine walking up the street wearing a red checkered Ben Sherman Sportster Shirt with a grey vest. [3x03 bouquet scene].
"Blaine!" he called out at him. The shorter boy, who was about to turn into a coffee shop, looked shocked at anyone in this area knowing his name. When he saw Kurt, he smiled.
"Kurt, what are you—?"
"I think I should ask that question. We are in my neck of the woods. You're the one who seems a little far from yours."
"I take a workout dance class down here. The teacher's a monster, but she's the best."
"Well, you can run into people in the unlikeliest of places," he beamed with a laugh.
"Do you want to get coffee? We could show each other our favorite parts of the city…"
Before Kurt could agree, Quinn came out of the store disappointedly.
"People have no class," she said lowering her sunglasses onto her eyes upon exiting. "What's he doing here? Is he sticking around?" Blaine, struck by her abrasiveness, didn't speak. Kurt didn't have to step in because she clearly rolled her eyes and kept walking.
"You're talking to her after the fiasco at the mixer?"
"Yes. It's complicated, but we're getting over it. I should go with her, for now," Kurt said.
The words "for now" stuck out the most to the Blaine. One day he might have Kurt to himself, but until they got to that point, he came in second. He could wait. He'd waited long enough for Kurt to notice him. Blaine smiled and pointed him in the way Quinn had gone, letting Kurt go after her. For some reason, she mattered to him and Kurt cared enough about her to forget that she'd wrongly outed him as an addict. Kurt smiled self-deprecatingly. Walking backward a couple steps, he reminded Blaine to call if he didn't get to him first, then strutted after her.
For some bullshit reason Puck was missing out on his party. He'd gone downstairs with Sam who wanted to talk to Sebastian about his whereabouts for the past year, but the reintroduction took a lot longer than he would have liked. He knew he wasn't the most trustworthy guy in the world, but he had even worse feelings about Sebastian and why he was suddenly back.
"Are you really telling us the original party man gave it all up?"
"Well like you said before Puck, I was pretty dumb about the decisions I made and now I'm paying the cost. I've grown up from that time and I'm a better, nicer person."
"I'm sure that sucks," Puck said taking a slug of his drink.
"It is, but hey, we can do something together! Bring back old times with this new me. How about I take you to meet some different people you wouldn't find in this part of town?"
"I'm not into drag queens."
"Puck, shut up! What do you have in mind?" Sam asked.
Kurt and Quinn toured around all their old favorite spots. If there had been a score by Desplat in the background, they could have been in the montage of an award-winning French film. They laughed more than they had a year apart, and when it was over, they went to Judy's studio. Since she heard the good news, she'd been planning the pieces she would be bringing to her collection. Now that the general population would be able to buy her things in certain stores all across America, she needed her campaign to truly inspire.
Her wing-woman Isabelle Wright had some ideas for style parts, but Judy couldn't get past the idea that she needed someone to represent her lifestyle, a face for the Fabray brand name so she'd been looking through lookbooks of possible models to lounge in her furniture and pose with her china. None of them looked right. When her daughter and Kurt walked through the door, she barely noticed them. Unbeknownst to her, they positioned themselves in the exact poses she wanted on her living room set. They let go and fell down onto the sofa giggling like children. If they knew they wouldn't get in trouble, there was no doubt they wouldn't jump on the bed in the master bedroom set next.
When she looked up from her work, Judy saw her daughter Quinn happier than she had in a long time and the image fit. She didn't need to hire anyone when she had a Fabray to play the role in her vision. She walked over; her mind already set.
"Sorry mom, we don't mean to be nuisances. Do you need us off the furniture?"
"That's the opposite of what I want you to do Quinn. How do you feel being the new face of my collection?" her mother clapped her hands together in excitement.
"What—?" Quinn couldn't speak. Kurt couldn't think fast enough. This was exactly what she needed, something to make her really happy. He answered for her.
"Of course, she would! She'd love to!"
"Excellent!" her mother cheered and shared the good news with Isabelle.
"Oh my gosh, you look like you're in shock! Quinn?"
"Did that just happen?"
"Yes, it did! You're going to be the face of a whole brand name! Your picture's going to be pasted in every magazine in the country and about 100 stores in the US!"
Is that a smile we see on Q's lips? The spotlight's on her for once, and K helped her get it. I guess miracles can happen.
Brittany and Santana arrived at Quinn's apartment later. It's never a party until they arrived, or at least that was what Santana said. While Santana never talked about it, it was assumed that her family had found riskier ways to amass their fortune, which was why most of her family had died or disappeared, and only her mother and grandmother were still in her life.
"My web show would love to have you on as a guest again, Quinn, now that you're going to be famous," Brittany smiled holding her cat, Lord Tubbington. She'd recently begun toting him around everywhere after determining that his hairball-asthma attacks were caused by the air in her apartment.
"She was already famous Brittany," Kurt said flipping through old magazines with articles about Judy Fabray that Quinn kept in a box in her closet. "Though she will be super famous now," he smiled at the blonde, who sat at her vanity.
"Maybe she'll be even more famous than you, Kurt," Santana said blatantly trying to start something. She didn't like being pushed aside just because he was trying to get back into Quinn's good graces.
"Santana, don't," Kurt warned. Santana smirked uncaring if it bothered him. Brittany wasn't the brightest girl in the world, but she could sense the tension and hugged her cat closer. Quinn didn't know what to say so she kept silent, and for a few moments, the happy feeling disappeared. Brittany broke the strain by crawling on the bed next to Kurt and kissing his cheek.
"You're my favorite unicorn," she said earnestly causing Quinn and Kurt to smile.
"I'm the only unicorn you know," he corrected.
"That's why you're my favorite," she said and kissed him again. Kurt laughed and remembered when he hadn't come out yet and agreed to go out with Brittany. She'd been his first kiss, but it didn't mean anything. He always knew who he was. He leaned his head on her shoulder because she had an amazing ability to not let anything bother her. Suddenly, no one was mad at each other anymore, and Kurt threw a magazine at Santana. She looked angry for a minute before she laughed quietly.
Kurt's phone rang, and the others watched as he answered.
"Hey stranger," Blaine said. Back at home, he'd debated calling first for about twenty minutes before taking the plunge. He asked him to call for God's sake! It wasn't like this was the wrong thing to do.
"Blaine, hi," Kurt bit his lip cheekily, ignoring the girls in the room. Quinn looked unimpressed.
"So, I was thinking of what you said and… how do you feel about seeing a movie tonight? Maybe we'll get to watch it all the way to the end."
"I'd love to watch a movie."
"Alright, I'll pick you up at 7." Kurt made him wait, nodding happily before realizing Blaine couldn't see him and only then verbally agreeing.
"Yes! Yes, see you later." The girls in the room regarded him after he hung up.
"What do you want with that guy? Sure, he's cute, but let's face it—he's a nobody."
"I like him. It'd be nice if you were encouraging," he put his feet on the ground and walked to the bathroom.
~A.N. Enter SEBASTIAN! He's going to be a sort of Carter Baizen/Georgina Sparks character if you are more familiar with GG. You'll soon find out what happens at the end of this Episode. :)
